The materials needed in order to create chemical weapons are far more widely available than those required for nuclear devices and the techniques of manufacture are vastly simpler. For these reasons, chemical weapons are often called the “poor man's nuclear weapons.” As with so many substitutes imposed by poverty, however, the “poor man's alternative” provides nothing like the satisfaction of the real thing. Although chemical weapons are ritually referred to as weapons of mass destruction, the lethality they bear is not all that “mass.” Chemical weapons would cause a small fraction of the deaths caused by nuclear or biological weapons. To take a single example: 100 kilograms of anthrax distributed in an aerosolized weapon by a cruising airplane would cause 300 times the fatalities that would occur if the same plane carried 1,000 kilograms of sarin gas.
Insofar as treaty regimes are useful in achieving the goals of nonproliferation, the ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention provides a heartening case of politics in the market-state. Large chemical companies, concerned about the impact of the treaty on their enterprises if the United States stayed outside the treaty regime, were able to bridge the partisan gap in the U.S. Senate that has stymied so many other measures. On the other hand, it must be recognized that renouncing chemical weapons makes U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons that much greater9 and the consequence of this enhanced reliance could be a contraction of the willingness of other states—potential proliferatees—to rely on American security guarantees. Suppose for example that chemical weapons were used against a state that the United States had pledged itself to protect. The previous American position, no first use of chemical weapons, would have at least permitted retaliation in kind. Once the Chemical Weapons Convention came into force, requiring the destruction of American stockpiles and proscribing their use, however, retaliation (and hence deterrence) have depended upon a commitment of American conventional forces or nuclear attacks, as to both of which potential allies might have some skepticism. As is so often the case with respect to arms-control agreements—the landmines movement comes to mind—the United States is simply not in the same position as other states, at least as long as it continues to assume global security responsibilities, and therefore should not be shamed by charges of hypocrisy when it fails to adopt regimes that it urges on others.