With the threat of nuclear war looming over the horizon, the issue of chemical warfare and the consequences of the use of chemical weapons seems to be declining in importance throughout the international community. However, chemical warfare should remain in the spotlight of the international community as it still exists as a significant threat to various populations.
While nuclear warfare is significant and definitely holds the potential for the most destructive form of weaponry in the modern world, the use of chemical weapons is more widespread. Chemical weapons devastate populations and countries significantly and can be extremely difficult to treat and protect against. In addition, chemical warfare is used more commonly by various other actors. Governments have been caught using chemical and biological weapons against warring factions and their own populations and citizens in order to keep insurrection at bay and to maintain power. The Assad regime in Syria is notorious for utilizing mustard gas and other forms of chemical weaponry against civilian populations in efforts to wipe out insurgent forces within Syrian cities. The biggest examples of the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime is the devastation that occurred in Aleppo, where roughly 400,000 people died as a result of bombings and chemical assaults.
In addition, getting proper medical aid to victims of chemical assault and chemical warfare is very difficult. One of the main functions of the Organization for the Protection Against Chemical Weapons, the UN committee in charge of overseeing chemical weapons development and preventing the use, escalation and capabilities of chemical weapons, is to organize humanitarian and medical aid to victims. However, that mandate has become very difficult to ensure and guarantee as chemical warfare continues to develop and its use becomes more common by outside governments and non-governmental actors. OPCW has struggled in restricting access to chemical weapons as foreign governments continue to proliferate their arsenal and continue to lose excess weaponry to non-state actors, opening up a vacuum in which terrorist organizations are then able to acquire these dangerous weapons. Organization humanitarian aid has also proven to be difficult as the attacks lead to thousands of civilians being internally displaced and located elsewhere who have been damaged and are in need of assistance. However, the biggest detriment to aid has been foreign governments' response (particularly the Assad regime) to outside forces trying to assist civilian populations. These governments have dropped additional bombs and weapons on medical and humanitarian aid, creating a deterring force against any sort of assistance.
While nuclear weapons and nuclear weaponry should be a significant issue in the realm of global and naitonal politics, so should chemical weapons and chemical warfare. The effects of chemical warfare have been much mroe disastrous than the history of the use of nuclear weapons as a result of deterrence theory.
