3 Questions: Christopher Capozzola on the history of chemical-weapons bans
The ongoing civil war in Syria has focused global attention on the use of chemical weapons — and the long-running efforts by the international community to ban them. Christopher Capozzola, an associate professor of history at MIT, has written extensively about the relationship between military policies and civilian politics. MIT News recently discussed the ongoing chemical-weapons controversy with Capozzola. Q. For how long have chemical weapons been considered an especially egregious type of warfare, and in what form have we seen these objections raised?A. The taboo against chemical weapons in battle is very old, and can really be traced back to ancient history, when the use of poisons was considered a treacherous and dishonorable form of warfare. The international community first attempted to pass a systematic ban in the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases. But that was evaded or violated during World War I — first by the Germans...