Chemical Weapon Proliferation
Despite numerous efforts to reduce or eliminate them, many nations continue to research and/or stockpile chemical weapon agents. Most states have joined the Chemical Weapons Convention, which requires the destruction of all chemical weapons by 2012. Twelve nations have declared chemical weapons production facilities and six nations have declared stockpiles of chemical weapons. All of the declared production facilities have been destroyed or converted to civilian use after the treaty went into force. According to the United States government, at least 17 nations currently have active chemical weapons programs.
To the right is a summary of the nations that have either declared weapon stockpiles, or are suspected of secretly stockpiling or possessing CW research programs.
Read more about Chemical Weapon Proliferation: Chemical Weapon Details, Per Nation
Famous quotes containing the words chemical and/or weapon:
“We are close to dead. There are faces and bodies like gorged maggots on the dance floor, on the highway, in the city, in the stadium; they are a host of chemical machines who swallow the product of chemical factories, aspirin, preservatives, stimulant, relaxant, and breathe out their chemical wastes into a polluted air. The sense of a long last night over civilization is back again.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“What is the imagination? Only an arm or weapon of the interior energy; only the precursor of the reason.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)