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> As the article notes, the 1995 sarin attack in Japan injured over 1,000 people. Sure, but an equivalent conventional high explosive would have likely killed all those 1,000 people, wouldn't it have? > In a sense, chemical weapons are a kind of 'poor man's nuke'. Russia and America are standing down their chemical weapons because they have actual nukes, and don't need to also have 2nd rate knock offs. The article explicitly notes this as well, that chemical weapons are only really used by weaker, less-monied, static-system militaries. And even then, they're only effective against similar adversaries, not against more modern enemies. But "poor man's nuke" isn't even really a great characterization from the perspective of the US or Russia: with a modern military, chemical weapons do less damage than a cheaper, lighter, easier-to-deploy explosive. They're not a "poor man's nuke", they're just a poor man's weapon, period. |
Looking it up on wikipedia, most suicide bomber vests weigh roughly as much (5 kg) or up to 4 times as much (20 kg) as all the sarin used in this attack (5.45 kg). I've never heard of a single suicide bomber, using a vest, injuring 1,000 people. So I am inclined to think the chemical approach is more efficacious.
In fact that's another little nitpick I have with the article - it's high explosives that heavily benefit from tightly packed situations, as they're a one-and-done sort of deal. The sarin gas though was able to be spread all along a tube system, and cause problems for huge amounts of people.