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Time to Take Chemical Weapons More Seriously

Since the birth of the Chemical Corps back in World War I (then called the Chemical Warfare Service), chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) have lamented the general lack of preparedness in the U.S. military against a chemical weapon attack. In my 20 years of experience, despite the clear threat that CBRN weapons present to America and its forces, the U.S. military has rarely taken training for the possibility of operating on a CBRN battlefield seriously. This can and should change.

 

Mopping Up

Even in the best of times, a chemical officer is exiled to be the night assistant operations officer in the field and is locked in a room full of paperwork in garrison. There is not a chemical officer who has not been levied at least 12 additional duties. CBRN NCOs struggle to track equipment, to train teams to operate it, to perform calibration tests on detection equipment according to schedule, and raise CBRN training tasks from the bottom of the unit’s priority list. SOF units are trained to bury their CBRN protective suits, or “MOPP gear”, along with their parachutes and helmets after jumping into combat. Chemical platoons and companies are tasked with running checkpoints in a new post-9/11 “chemfantry” role.

The acronym “NBC” used to stand for “No Body Cares” and today’s “CBRN” is “Can’t Bother Right Now.” My own experience and that of many others is that anything CBRN-related beyond the most basic individual skills, like putting on a mask in the requisite 9 seconds, is a bit of a struggle outside of the ranks of CBRN specialists. Collective training is even worse. For six years I ran a CBRN training course and routinely had field grade officers and senior NCOs from every branch of service who had not touched a protective mask in years.

The situation is generally even worse outside the U.S. military. My extensive interaction with European militaries in the recent 6 years since becoming a CBRN consultant in Europe has proven to me that the CBRN readiness of most Western states has atrophied to a dangerous and unacceptable degree. For example, the UK’s Army eliminated its Joint CBRN Regiment. I was told by a senior officer in one NATO military service that it only has medium-sized masks, as that’s good enough for everyone and streamlines the supply chain. Take this struggle in active military components and you can multiply it in reserve components.

In reality, chemical weapons, even the most lethal and most persistent agents, are not conceptually any different than sand in the sprockets, hypothermia, malaria, or the risk of trucks driving into each other in the dark of night.

Occasionally there is a panic which for a few months makes CBRN a priority. Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait. A few religious lunatics spread sarin on the Japanese subway. The U.S. claims Iraq has CBRN capabilities. Bashar al-Assad uses sarin in a suburb of Damascus. The pendulum swings. Vast quantities of CBRN materiel are disgorged out of war reserve stockpiles. Training is serious and hard. The unit commander turns up for a game of volleyball in a “MOPP 4” protective suit and faints (Seen it).

Finally, the unloved chemical officer and CBRN NCOs get their time to shine. They work 18-hour days for weeks on end trying to rectify the un-rectifiable and, ending up with a medal for it, lapse back into obscurity and more paperwork after the crisis. The crisis passes without serious incident, apart from heat casualties from wearing MOPP 4