As you may have seen in some of our other shows, while it may seem a contradiction to
some people, in conflicts all sides should follow a set of rules concerning the ethics
of warfare.
You have likely heard of the Geneva Conventions, which are a set of treaties and protocols
that ask countries if they should fight against each other, they should at least try to do
that following humanitarian principles.
For example, countries should care for the wounded, they should not abuse POWs, they
should respect a soldier’s religion, and they should not use weapons deemed unfair
play on the battleground- and it’s the latter which we will discuss today in this episode
of The Infographics Show- banned weapons in warfare.
Blinding Laser Weapons We will start with weapons that sound kind
of modern, and these are the tools that could be used to destroy the eyesight of enemies.
These types of weapons were banned under Protocol IV of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional
Weapons, and the protocols covered weapons that could permanently blind someone, not
just temporarily dazzle a person.
Do such weapons exist?
Motherboard wrote in 2014 that indeed the USA has many lasers that could permanently
blind a person, but the country does not use them for that purpose.
That’s against the law.
That article stated that such weapons were being used to dazzle people, but sometimes
there was a fine line between dazzling and doing much worse.
The U.S. media has said China has some very similar technology, calling some weapons blinding
lasers, and while no soldiers have been blinded as yet, the U.S. military has asked if these
weapons don’t breach the protocols.
Landmines Possibly a soldier’s worse nightmare are
landmines, explosives which have been used in various war movies to show us just how
barbaric war can be.
Under the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other
Devices, landmines are now at least restricted.
Non-detectable anti-personnel mines are not allowed, as are mines that are placed outside
fenced areas.
According to the UN, a lot of damage is still being done as there are still so many mines
lying around the world.
According to an article written by UNICEF, there are around 110 million mines globally
that are just waiting for someone to walk over them.
There is no date on this article, but it said 100s of people around the world are still
being killed by landmines every year.
As for booby traps, you can find lots of articles written about how they were used during the
Vietnam War.
Thankfully, in conventional warfare these things are now also banned.
Flame Throwers Another weapon you may have seen in numerous
war movies is the flame-thrower.
These are called incendiary weapons, and they are now banned for certain uses under the
Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the use of Incendiary Weapons.
They are not completely banned, it just depends on what you intend to do with them.
You cannot, for example, use them to destroy houses and the people inside those houses.
You are not even supposed to use them to burn down forests or even bushes.
You can, however, use them for clearing woodland if that land is thought to be hiding combatants
or other things related to combat.
Historians tell us that all sides during the two world wars were big on using these devices,
mostly to do things like empty trenches and holes where soldiers might be hiding.
The website The Balance tells us, “During the Korean and Vietnam Wars United States
Marines also used flamethrowers.
In those combat environments, flamethrowers were used to destroy forts, bunkers, and vehicles.
They were also used to inflict psychological terror on enemy soldiers who were terrified
of being burned alive.”
Not surprisingly, these weapons were very controversial, and in 1978 the U.S. said enough
is enough, we are not using them again.
The same goes for napalm, while it’s not completely banned, it can’t really be used
in warfare to kill people.
Cluster Bombs Many countries around the world have signed
the Convention on Cluster Munitions treaty.
These are bombs designed to be dropped and then expel a number of smaller bombs, sometimes
called bomblets.
For this reason, sometimes in the U.S. they got the nickname popcorn bombs or firecrackers.
As you can imagine, these things can be a bit unpredictable and so it’s not always
easy to judge what will be destroyed.
This is the reason many countries have now agreed that they should be used no more.
This only happened fairly recently, though, and you can find examples of when these kinds
of bombs were used by the UK, the U.S. and many other countries not that long ago.
One of the main reasons for trying to stop the use of these things is that those bomblets
might remain unexploded, and then one day a very unfortunate civilian comes across one
of them.
Nerve Gas If any of you have seen the TV show “Homeland”
you will know that possibly one of the most frightening things in this world is what’s
known as nerve gas.
In that show the use of Sarin, a kind of nerve gas, was explored.
While Homeland could be said to be quite implausible at times, how it depicted Sarin was by no
means over the top.
What basically happens when you are hit by nerve gas is your body malfunctions, your
nervous system stops working.
Internal hemorrhaging happens, and death is likely to follow.
Before that you might start foaming at the mouth, suffer convulsions and then pee and
poo yourself.
Your organs will then stop working, and that’s the end.
Mustard Gas This is another nasty chemical agent that
does very nasty things to people.
You can see what it did by reading about the two world wars.
Those that experienced mustard gas poisoning might experience temporary blindness, they
might suffer horrible burns on their skin, and their lungs can be severely damaged.
If they don’t die, soldiers often had to endure horrific pain from severe burns.
Nowadays it’s unlikely you’ll see the use of this gas as most countries have ratified
the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Mustard Gas is known as a blister agent, but other gases such as Phosgene Gas and Hydrogen
Cyanide are also banned.
Tear Gas You might be surprised to hear that tear gas
is banned in war, just because it is still quite regularly used on citizens.
It is still a chemical weapon, but it is one of the least harmful weapons of its kind.
For that reason it can still be used to disperse crowds of rioters, but using it on the battleground
would be sending a bad message.
In a riot, it is believed this gas can prevent a more deadly, or at least aggressive, use
of force.
That’s why it is still being used today.
Spike Pit It sounds like something John Rambo might
come up with, but these pits were used in some conflicts until they were outlawed under
the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.
Also known as punji sticks, they were basically a hole in the ground with some very sharp
sticks.
The hole was then covered with something so that anyone walking in its direction wouldn’t
notice anything.
When it was stepped on the soldier would fall into the pit and land on the spikes.
This would cause severe pain and it would be incredibly difficult to get out of this
trap.
It’s also said that sometimes the spikes would be covered with poison, or even human
feces, so that infection would occur.
The point would not be to kill someone, but to maim them and so slow down everyone else.
Biological Weapons You may have seen in some of our other shows
that militaries all over the world have spent a considerable amount of time in trying to
invent ways to spread disease among enemies.
Sometimes called germ warfare, we might look back to the 18th century when the English
military were busy trying to spread smallpox through some native American societies.
We are told that with a green light given by Winston Churchill, tularemia, anthrax,
brucellosis, and botulism were made into weapons during world war two.
It wasn’t only the British though, France, Germany, the USA and Japan were all busy weaponizing
disease.
You name it, all the leading nations of the world were doing the same thing, at times
weaponizing even the bubonic plague.
Thanks to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention we hope that those days might be
over, although that won’t have any effect on the work that terrorists do.
We might also add that in the past such weapons weren’t only designed to hurt people directly,
but they were there to spoil crops and make livestock sick.
Dirty Bombs These things were designed to radiate an area
and so make that place uninhabitable.
These did not have a blast, but as we said, just created a lot of radiation over a given
area.
We are told that they likely wouldn’t even have caused that much damage, but they instilled
fear in communities and so were useful.
Bat Bombs We have designated an entire show to these
utterly strange things, so you should take a look at that.
What these were is what they sound like, which were bats carrying small bombs.
They were designed by the USA to fly over Japan, and there lots of bats would be released
and each bat would go find a safe place to hide down in the city.
Many buildings at the time were made from wood, and when the bat bomb went off a fire
would start.
Such things these days would be banned under the Protocol III of the Convention on Certain
Conventional Weapons.
You can’t exactly control where the bat will go, and you are not allowed to use weapons
when you have no idea what the target will be.
This could cause untold harm to civilians.
Invisible Fragments An entire protocol in the Convention on Certain
Conventional Weapons is Protocol I, which restricts weapons with non-detectable fragments.
This is simple enough, you can’t employ any kind of weapon which might leave bits
of itself in another person that cannot be seen, even with x-ray.
That means you are not allowed to make a weapon that leaves plastic in the body, as this can
be hard to find.
You can use plastic in a weapon’s production, but plastic shouldn’t be part of the design
primarily to hit the person or persons.
We should add at the end here that many countries have agreed not to use these weapons, but
others have not signed the treaties.
Some countries have also signed, but done that with what are called “reservations.”
Do you think these weapons should have been banned?
Would you like to see anything else added to this list?
Tell us in the comments.
Also, be sure to watch our other video What Is Banned In War.
Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time.