Biology Reference
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surprise attack, and it negated the utility of BZ to repel attacks. Because
onset would be variable, early high-dose “sentinel” victims might allow
recognition of a BZ attack and reinforcement or replacement of enemy
troops before the combat effectiveness of “low dose” troops was signifi-
cantly reduced.
The visibility of the cloud rendered surprise or a successful clandestine
attack highly unlikely. Well-equipped troops would mask immediately,
and irregulars might flee the cloud or improvise mask protection. Be-
cause BZ was not absorbed through though the skin, simple mask protec-
tion was effective. Although BZ had been demonstrated to disrupt the ef-
fectiveness of small-unit infantry forces and crew-served weapons such
as artillery and tanks, the persistent delirium produced by BZ was itself a
problem.
One potential use of BZ was in limited warfare areas containing non-
combatant civilians. Because enemy soldiers were likely to be better pro-
tected than civilians, BZ might well result in large numbers of mentally
deranged civilians in an environment of active combat. Civilians might
no longer seek shelter or avoid fields of fire. Even if BZ effectively neu-
tralized organized enemy resistance, the presence of thousands of heavily
armed mentally deranged enemy soldiers posed a daunting obstacle to
“mop-up” operations involving disarmament and confinement. The de-
lirium induced by BZ made such operations particularly hazardous: the
initial hours of torpor were followed by days of excitation, irrationality,
and paranoia. “Reviving” pockets might become irrational “berserkers”
unappreciative that the battle had been lost, and even disarmed POWs
would remain for days subject to episodes of violent irrationality, a body
of unpredictable and uncooperative mental patients.
The second potential use of incapacitating CW was as a step in a “mea-
sured escalation” in a conflict with the Warsaw Pact. Chemical warfare
advocates believed that use of nonlethal CW could overcome Soviet su-
periority in conventional arms by rendering combat units ineffective and
disordering supply and lines of communication. This proposed strategy
relied on the debatable assumption that the Soviet leaders would recog-
nize the incapacitant CW attack as such, and interpret such use according
to the uniquely American contention that “nonlethal” CW did not vio-
late the rules of war and warrant lethal CW retaliation.
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However, use of BZ as the incapacitant made this scenario even more
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