The "Soft Kill" Fallacy
http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1994/so94/so94Aftergood.html
By Steven Aftergood
Details about programs to develop so-called "non-lethal"
weapons are slowly emerging from the
"Non-lethal weapons disable or destroy without
causing significant injury or damage," asserted Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in a March
1991 memorandum. This is an important misconception. Nevertheless, Wolfowitz wrote, "A U.S. lead in non-lethal
technologies will increase our options and reinforce our position in the post-Cold
War world."2
The concept of non-lethal weapons is not new; the
term appears in heavily censored CIA documents dating from the 1960s. But research and development in non-lethal technologies has
received new impetus as post Cold War Pentagon planning has shifted its focus
to regional conflicts, insurgencies, and peacekeeping.
Dozens of non-lethal weapons have been proposed or
developed, mostly in laboratory-scale models. They encompass a broad range of
technologies, including chemical, biological kinetic, electromagnetic, and
acoustic weapons, as well as informational techniques such as computer viruses
(see "A Non-lethal Laundry List," page 43).
Of course, the arsenal of conventional warfare
already includes systems like electronic jamming devices and anti-radar
missiles that are "non-lethal" in the sense that they disable enemy
weapons-but only in the context of armed and deadly conflict. In contrast, the
proponents of non-lethal weapons apparently envision a relatively benign
battlefield.
Sticky foams and "calmatives" would
immobilize or sedate adversaries. Specially cultured
bacteria would corrode and degrade components of weapons systems. Optical
munitions would cripple sensors and dazzle, if not blind, soldiers. Acoustic
beam weapons would knock them out. Netting and shrouds would thwart the movement
of aircraft, tank, and armored vehicles. These and
many other related technologies have already been
demonstrated at a proof-of-concept level. In some cases, the proposed
technologies raise questions about compliance with international agreements (see
"Non-lethal Weapons May Violate Treaties," page 44).
In the aftermath of the Persian
Gulf War, the Pentagon has moved to coordinate these diverse research programs,
as well as plan the acquisition of non-lethal weapons and their incorporation
into military training.3 Current funding, which is secret, is probably no more
than several tens of millions of dollars per year, although reportedly it could
grow to more than $1 billion over the next several years.
One of the people spending that money is John B.
Alexander of Los Alamos National Laboratory. The 32-year army veteran belongs
to the "special technologies" group of the lab's International
Technology Division, which assesses the national security implications of
emerging technologies. Alexander coordinates the lab's multidisciplinary effort
on non-lethal weapons. For his outstanding leadership in this capacity,
Aviation Week & Space Technology honored him as
one of its annual aerospace "laureates" this past January.
Alexander also has a pronounced interest in
paranormal phenomena. In a notorious 1980 article, "The New Mental
Battlefield," which appeared in Military Review (a U.S. Army journal),
Alexander wrote that "there are weapons systems
that operate on the power of the mind and whose lethal capacity has already
been demonstrated. . . . The psychotronic weapon
would be silent, difficult to detect, and would require only a human operator
as a power source."
Discussing "out-of-body experiences," he asserted that "it has been demonstrated that certain
persons appear to have the ability to mentally retrieve data from afar while
physically remaining in a secure location. . . . The strategic and tactical
applications are unlimited." (And in fact there
is evidence that "remote viewers" have provided consulting services
to
"There is sufficient concern about psychic
intrusion to cause work to begin on countermeasures," Alexander advised in
the article.
Last year, Alexander organized a national conference
devoted to researching "reports of ritual abuse, near-death experiences,
human contacts with extraterrestrial aliens and other so-called 'anomalous
experiences,'" the Albuquerque Journal reported in March 1993. The
Australian magazine Nexus reported last year that in 1971, Alexander "was
diving in the
In The Warrior's Edge: Front-line Strategies for
Victory on the Corporate Battlefield-a 1990 book he co-authored with Maj.
Richard Groller and Janet Morris-Alexander describes
himself as having "evolved from hard-core mercenary to thanatologist."
"As a Special Forces A-Team commander in
Alexander is forthright and unapologetic about his
interest in the paranormal, insisting that it has no connection at all with his
work at
John Alexander is by all accounts a resourceful and
imaginative individual. He would make a splendid character in a science fiction
novel. But he probably shouldn't be spending taxpayer
money without adult supervision.
The first step in fathoming the non-lethal weapons
program is to get past the name. When even proponents concede that non-lethal
weapons are not necessarily non-lethal, why are they
still called that? Because the term is politically attractive.
"Major political benefit can be accrued by being
the first nation to announce a policy advocating projection of force in a
manner that does not result in killing people," Alexander writes.4
Various names were considered and are still sometimes
used: soft kill, mission kill, less-than-lethal weapons, noninjurious
incapacitation, disabling measures, strategic
immobility.
"Having been through a number of names, I can
say that nothing has had the impact of 'non-lethal,'" avers Alexander. The
growing prominence of the non-lethal program tends to validate this strategy.
Rebelling against the program's marketing spin,
analysts across the political spectrum have rejected the assertion that
non-lethal weapons represent a new development in warfighting-
or even a fruitful area for investment.
Defense expert William M. Arkin
says that the resurgence of interest in non-lethal weapons was
spawned in part by "the use of special weapons [the Kit 2 carbon-fiber warheads on Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missiles]
against electrical installations" in the Persian Gulf War. However, he
notes, this "non-lethal" application devastated a civilian population
that was otherwise largely spared the direct effects of bombing. Non-lethal
weaponry, Arkin concludes, is a "fantasy program."5
Likewise, Eliot A. Cohen, writing in Foreign Affairs,
declares that "the most dangerous legacy of the Persian Gulf War [is] the
fantasy of near-bloodless use of force." Further, Cohen says, "the
occupants of a helicopter crashing to earth after its flight controls have fallen prey to a high-power microwave weapon would take
little solace from the knowledge that a non-lethal weapon had sealed their
doom. Some of these weapons (blinding lasers, for example) may not kill, but
have exceedingly nasty consequences for their victims. And in the end a
disabling weapon works only if it leaves an opponent vulnerable to full-scale,
deadly force."6
Many official spokespersons concede the point and
argue that non-lethality is being evaluated as an
adjunct to-not a replacement for-large-scale conventional warfare. "We're
not looking at this as a new warfighting strategy per
se, but rather as another effective tool for the users," says Frank
Kendall, director of the Pentagon's tactical warfare programs.7
But some, like Alexander of Los Alamos, are far more
ambitious. Alexander envisions a fundamental reorganization of the military in
which non-lethal weapons would apparently occupy a central position.
"Non-lethal defense concepts are comprehensive,
far beyond adjuncts to present warfighting
capabilities. Non-lethal defense has applicability
across the continuum of conflict up to and including strategic paralysis of an
adversary."8
If there is any substantive basis for this
contention, it is obscured by the secrecy surrounding
the programs.
Because most non-lethal weapons programs are
classified, they are shielded from the democratic
process. Such secrecy precludes informed public discussion of some of the most
basic policy issues as well.
One immediate consequence of the excessive secrecy is
a wasteful duplication of effort. Justice Department officials who surveyed
some of the "black budget" programs for possible law enforcement
applications found the same technologies being developed
in as many as six independent programs. "We've been startled at the number
of times we've run into this," says David Boyd of the National Institute
of Justice.9
The waste results from a lack of independent
oversight of non-lethal programs, which- like other highly classified
"special access" or "black" programs in defense
and intelligence- operate beyond the reach of the checks and balances that
Special access programs employ security measures that are draconian compared to ordinary classified
programs. Cong. Patricia Schroeder, the Colorado Democrat who chairs the House
Armed Services Research and Technology subcommittee, mentioned at a recent
hearing that she'd asked the Defense
Department for a list of special access programs and their costs. Her request was turned down. Anita Jones, the Pentagon director of defense research and engineering, claimed that providing
the list to Schroeder-whose subcommittee must authorize spending for such
programs-would be too dangerous to national security.10
This decision was grotesque but not surprising. In
the special access world, constitutional democracy does not apply, and
government accountability is a subversive idea.
The government secrecy system as a whole is among the
most poisonous legacies of the Cold War-and a godsend for non-lethal weapons
programs. Of course, there has always been a degree of secrecy in the
Beyond simply concealing enormous quantities of
information from the public, the Cold War secrecy system also mandates active
deception. A security manual for special access programs authorizes contractors
to employ "cover stories" to disguise their activities. The only
condition is that "cover stories must be believable."11
Even the government is starting to recognize that
official cover and deception programs are getting out of hand and need to be curtailed. A Joint Security Commission established by the
secretary of defense and the director of central
intelligence reported in March that "the use of cover to conceal the
existence of a government facility or the fact of government research and
development interest in a particular technology is broader than necessary and
significantly increases costs."
"For example, one military service routinely
uses cover mechanisms for its [special access] programs without regard to
individual threat or need. Another military organization uses cover to hide the
existence of certain activities or facilities. Critics maintain that in many
cases, cover is being used to hide what is already known and widely reported in
the news media," the commission stated.12
The hazards of unaccountable government, from secret
wars to secret radiation experiments, are well known. And yet
the system continues. The
The nominal justification for secrecy in non-lethal
weapons is that developing them on a totally
unclassified basis would enable potential adversaries to duplicate the effort
or develop countermeasures. This is a valid concern that is
exploited beyond all justification to the point of concealing the
budgets and even the very existence of many programs. If a non-lethal technology
is so fragile that simply acknowledging its existence would negate its
effectiveness, then it probably isn't worth much.
1. "Soon, 'Phasers on
Stun,'" Newsweek (Feb. 7, 1994), pp. 2426; "Not So Deadly
Weapons,"
2. Paul Wolfowitz, "Do
We Need a Nonlethal Defense
Initiative?" memorandum to the Secretary of Defense
(March 10, 1991) USD(P).
3. Barbara Opall,
"DoD to Boost Nonlethal
Options," Defense News (March 28, 1994), p. 46.
4. John B. Alexander,
5. William M. Arkin,
"Arms Control After the Gulf War," (Center
for International and Security Studies at Maryland, 1993), p. 26.
6. Eliot A. Cohen, "The Mystique of
7. Opall,
Defense News.
8. John B. Alexander,
9. Stacey Evers, "Police, Prisons Want Cheap
Non-lethal Technologies," Aerospace Daily,
10. "Perry Studying Black Budget Oversight
Procedures," Defense Daily,
11. John Horgan, "Lying By the Book,"
Scientific American (Oct. 1992), p. 20.
12. "Redefining
Security," a Report to the Secretary of Defense
and the Director of Central Intelligence by the Joint Security Commission (Feb.
28, 1994), pp. 1920.
A non-lethal laundry list
Dozens of technologies are being studied or developed
under the elastic rubric of "non-lethal weapons."
Some of the non-lethal weapons concepts most
frequently cited in the unclassified literature were proposed
or first publicly described by Janet Morris of the U.S. Global Strategy
Council, whose advocacy helped motivate the current Pentagon initiative on
non-lethal weapons. Publicly described weapons include:
Infrasound: Very low-frequency
sound generators could be tuned to incapacitate humans, causing disorientation,
nausea, vomiting, or bowel spasms.
Laser weapons: Low-energy laser rifles could dazzle
or temporarily blind enemy soldiers, or disable optical and infrared systems
used for target acquisition, tracking, night vision, and range finding. The
International Committee of the Red Cross has initiated a humanitarian campaign
to prohibit the use of lasers as weapons of war.
Supercaustics: These highly acidic chemical agents can be millions
of times more caustic than hydrofluoric acid. They could destroy the optics of
heavily armored vehicles, as well as tires and
structural metals.
Biological agents: Microbial cultures can be
"designed" to chew up almost anything. Scientists at Los Alamos
National Laboratory reviewed naturally occurring organisms that could be cultured to enhance certain characteristics.
"As a result, we discovered a bacterium that degrades a specific material
used in many weapons systems."1
Acoustic beam weapons: High frequency acoustic
"bullets" used against people would induce blunt-object trauma
"like being hit by a baseball." According to John Alexander of
Combustion inhibitors: Chemical agents can be released into the atmosphere or introduced directly into
fuel tanks to contaminate fuel or change its viscosity to degrade or disable
all mechanical devices powered by combustion.
Mini-nukes: Jumping onto the non-lethal bandwagon,
the redoubtable Edward Teller has proposed developing mini nuclear weapons with
explosive yields of 100 tons ("The 'Soft Kill' Solution," March/April
1994 Bulletin). These would be non-lethal, one supposes, as long as the enemy
does what he is told.
Among the many other technologies under consideration
in the Pentagon's non-lethal program are sticky foams to immobilize
individuals, anti-traction chemicals to slicken roads
and runways, high-power microwave generators, mechanical entanglements,
holographic projectors, non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse generators, neural
inhibitors, and wireless stun devices.3
-S. A.
1. "Antimaterial
Technology,"
2. Mark Tapscott
and Kay Atwal, "New Weapons That Win Without
Killing on DOD's Horizon," Defense
Electronics (Feb. 1993), p. 41.
3. Elaine M. Grossman, "Pentagon to Set
Priorities in Non-lethal Technologies, Weapons," Inside the Air Force
(April 15, 1994), p. 1.
"Non-lethal"
weapons may violate treaties
Development of many of the proposed
weapons described on these pages has been undertaken by NATO, the
The Biological Weapons Convention. The development of biological agents for
"non-lethal" uses such as degradation of aircraft fuel, lubricants,
or electrical insulation would appear to violate the Biological Weapons
Convention (BWC), which prohibits the development,
production, or possession of biological agents that have no justification for
prophylactic, protective, or other peaceful purposes.
Although "protective purposes" is not defined in the treaty, by analogy with the Chemical
Weapons Convention (CWC) it can be presumed to mean
protection against dangerous biological agents.
The Chemical Weapons Convention and
the
The convention permits the production of toxic
chemicals if they are used for peaceful purposes, as in agriculture; protective
purposes (against toxic chemicals); "military purposes not connected with
the use of chemical weapons and not dependent on the use of the toxic
properties of chemicals as a method of warfare"; and "law enforcement
including domestic riot control purposes." The third of these permissible
purposes might be construed to include chemicals such as supercaustics, on the
grounds that "life processes" are not the intended target, provided
that use of the chemicals as weapons would entail little contact with living
things. For some weapons, this would be difficult to establish.
The Geneva Protocol of 1925 prohibits "the use
in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquid
materials or devices." The "or other" appears to broaden the
prohibition beyond asphyxiating or toxic substances. Thus, the use in warfare
of harmful chemicals such as supercaustics and sticky
foams (which, in addition to forming a kind of "roach motel" for
people, could act as asphyxiating agents) may be illegal, and the use of metal embrittlement agents, superlubricants,
chemicals that interfere with fuel combustion, and so forth could
also be questioned.
Under the CWC, the fourth
permissible purpose for developing chemical weapons agents-law enforcement,
including domestic riot control-is the major reason currently offered for
developing non-lethal weapons. This permissible purpose, however, contains an
ambiguity in urgent need of clarification. "Law enforcement" is not defined in the treaty. Does it include anything more
than riot control? If so, what? And
what law?
In contrast, the convention defines "riot
control agents" narrowly and prohibits their use in warfare. Regarding law
enforcement, it excludes the use of "Schedule 1" chemicals (one of
several categories of chemical weapon agents) but says no more. This implies
that for any law enforcement purposes other than domestic riot control, any nonSchedule 1 chemical may be developed, produced,
acquired, stockpiled, or transferred as a weapon. Furthermore, although riot
control agents must be declared, the treaty says
nothing about declaring other agents that might be developed or held for law
enforcement.
In the report containing the final text of the CWC, several of the national delegations to the negotiating
body pointed out the problems raised by the undefined term "law
enforcement' as a permissible purpose.1 One delegation stated
that "this might give rise to far-fetched interpretations of what
the negotiators intended." Indeed, the three delegations that commented on
this issue interpreted this permissible purpose in widely different ways: as limited
to domestic actions, as applicable outside national boundaries, or as including
only domestic and U.N. peacekeeping activities. Unless the CWC
Preparatory Commission takes steps to define more closely and limit this wild
card, it could subvert much of the intent of the convention and render its
elaborate verification mechanism futile.
For domestic riot control, the development of
chemical agents is clearly permissible under the CWC,
although their use in warfare is prohibited. Riot
control agents are defined in the CWC
as chemicals "which can produce rapidly in humans sensory irritation or
disabling physical effects which disappear within a short time following
termination of exposure." This might be true of certain sedatives,
depending on the dose; it is certainly not true of corrosive chemicals or
immobilizing glues. No agent that causes a deleterious effect not automatically
reversible can be considered acceptable and humane for
use in domestic riot control; it would be unethical to subject innocent bystanders,
children, or hostages to severe psychological stress, possible permanent
injury, or death.
The development of chemical weapons in the guise of
domestic riot control agents must not be allowed as a
means of circumventing the CWC. The treaty states
that every chemical held for domestic riot control purposes must
be declared; the CWC Preparatory Commission
needs to specify that these chemicals must fit the convention's humanitarian
definition of a riot control agent.
The Certain Conventional Weapons Convention (also
known as the Inhumane Weapons Convention).2 Many of the non-lethal weapons
under consideration utilize infrasound or electromagnetic energy (including
lasers, microwave or radio-frequency radiation, or visible light pulsed at
brain-wave frequency) for their effects. These weapons are
said to cause temporary or permanent blinding, interference with mental
processes, modification of behavior and emotional
response, seizures, severe pain, dizziness, nausea and diarrhea,
or disruption of internal organ functions in various other ways. In addition,
the use of high-power microwaves to melt down electronic systems would
incidentally cook every person in the vicinity.
Typically, the biological effects of these weapons
depend on a number of variables that, theoretically, could be
tuned to control the severity of the effects. However, the precision of
control is questionable. The use of such weapons for law enforcement might
constitute severe bodily punishment without due process.
In warfare, the use of these weapons in a non-lethal
mode would be analogous to the use of riot control agents in the Vietnam War, a
practice now outlawed by the CWC. Regardless
of the level of injury inflicted, the use of many non-lethal weapons is likely
to violate international humanitarian law on the basis of superfluous suffering
and/or indiscriminate effects.3 In addition, under the Certain Conventional
Weapons Convention, international discussions are now under way that may lead
to the development of specific new protocols covering electromagnetic weapons;
a report is expected sometime next year. The current surge of interest
in electromagnetic and similar technologies makes the adoption of a protocol
explicitly outlawing the use of these dehumanizing weapons an urgent matter.
-Barbara Hatch
1. Conference on Disarmament, Report of the Ad Hoc
Committee on Chemical Weapons to the Conference on Disarmament, Aug. 26, 1992,
Nos. 22, 25, 34 (CD/1170).
2. The full name of this treaty is "Convention
on Prohibition or Restriction of the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which
May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate
Effects."
3. Louise Doswald-Beck,
ed., Blinding Weapons: Reports of the Meetings of Experts Convened by the
International Committee of the Red Cross on Battlefield Laser Weapons, 19891991
(Geneva: Internal Committee of the Red Cross, 1993).
