U.S. President Joe Biden attends a news conference March 24 following the NATO Extraordinary Summit at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. (Michael Kappeler/Picture Alliance/Getty Images)
US President Joe Biden said Thursday that NATO would respond if Russia used chemical weapons in Ukraine, and has previously warned that Moscow would “pay a heavy price” if it did.
Using such weapons against the Ukrainian people would mean a dramatic escalation of the Russian invasion and would likely require severe retaliation from the West.
But concerns are growing that Russia may be planning the move after the Kremlin floated the baseless idea that Ukraine and the US could use the weapons. “It’s an indication that they may be preparing for this themselves and then trying to pin the blame on someone else,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said earlier this month.
Why should their commitment be so important? Chemical weapons contain toxic substances designed to inflict death or damage on their targets. They can spread dangerous chemicals such as asphyxiants, bladder and neurotoxins that attack the body and can cause death on a large scale indiscriminately and over a large area if used in a bomb or artillery shell.
Their use is prohibited under international law. Russia has signed those treaties and claims it has no chemical weapons, but the country has been linked to using nerve agents against critics in recent years. Such cases include the poisonings of Alexander Litvinenko, Sergei Skripal and Alexei Navalny.
A painful story: Widespread horror at the use of chemical warfare agents during World War I led to the Geneva Protocol, signed in 1925, outlawing chemical weapon attacks.
Nonetheless, according to the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, as many as 25 countries worked on developing chemical weapons during the Cold War. Protracted negotiations eventually led to the passage of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1992, which requires nations to destroy stockpiles and ban the development, manufacture or use of chemical weapons.
However, there have been few occasions when they have been used in combat – and those occasions have led to political ramifications around the world.
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein used a variety of chemical weapons against Iran in the 1980s, and their use in Syria over the past decade has posed the threat of US intervention in that country’s civil war.
The attacks in Ghouta in 2013 and in Khan Sheikhoun in 2017 both involved the alleged use of sarin gas, a nerve agent banned under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.
In 2013, the use of the gas, reported by United Nations investigators, crossed one of then-President Barack Obama’s self-proclaimed red lines, but no military action followed. Instead, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) went to Syria to oversee the destruction of the country’s chemical weapons program.
Warnings to Russia: While Biden’s statement may conjure up memories of Obama’s ill-fated “red line” warning in 2013, the current US president has a united NATO on his side.
On Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would strengthen its chemical, biological and nuclear defense systems amid concerns about Russia’s intentions.
In a joint statement on Thursday, G7 leaders warned Russia against using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
“Any Russian use of chemical or biological weapons “would be a violation of all rules, all agreements and all existing conventions,” added Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “We can only say: Don’t do it!”