[denton-scratch]

> If you investigate all banned weapons though, you'll find it's more to do with practicality+cost+optics than some high minded agreement.

The only "banned" weapons that aren't still being used routinely are nukes.

I don't think it makes sense to ban weapons of war. People don't go to war for fun; they fight out of desperation, whether it's a desperate struggle for national survival, or a desperate struggle for the political survival of some despot. If they can't buy precision glide-bombs and cruise missiles, they use barrel-bombs and gas. Rape as a weapon of war is banned as a warcrime, but it happens in every war, because killing seems to give men a stiffy.

Waging war on civilians is a warcrime, but all wars are fought against civilians; siege warfare is as old as warfare itself, and is the epitome of war against civilians. The same applies to carpet-bombing, and most kinds of economic sanctions. Armies don't usually go to war - countries go to war.

(The situation in Sudan looks anomalous to me; the warring parties seem to be two branches of the same military force, fighting over control over illegal mines).