Desperate measures: when existential threats drive states to kill their own in new and terrifying ways

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr. Daniel Chiu, director of the Institute for Defense Analyses’ Joint Advanced Warfighting Division (JAWD), and Dr. Kevin Woods, JAWD deputy director, for their valuable feedback on my contribution to this issue.

Notes

1 HRW, Death by Chemicals: The Syrian Government's Widespread and Systematic Use of Chemical Weapons (New York, 2017), <www.hrw.org/report/2017/05/01/death-chemicals/syrian-governments-widespread-and-systematic-use-chemical-weapons>; Arms Control Association, “Timeline of Syrian Chemical Weapons Activity, 2012–2017,” June 2017, <www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Timeline-of-Syrian-Chemical-Weapons-Activity>.

2 Michael C. Horowitz and Neil Narang, “Poor Man's Atomic Bomb? Exploring the Relationship between ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction,’” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 58, No. 3, (2013), pp. 1–27, <http://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Journal_of_Conflict_Resolution-2013-Horowitz-0022002713509049.pdf>; Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed (New York: W.W. Norton, 2002).

3 See, for example, Ronald M. Atlas and Malcolm Dando, “The Dual-Use Dilemma for the Life Sciences: Perspectives, Conundrums, and Global Solutions,” Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, Vol. 4, No. 3 (2006), pp. 276–86; Jonathan B. Tucker, ed., Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001).

4 Though a small number of works exist on this topic, there is certainly room for Cross to add to the discourse. One example of such works is Joost R. Hilterman, A Poisonous Affair: America, Iraq, and the Gassing of Halabja (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

5 For a description of this model, see for reference Anthony Downs, Bureaucratic Structure and Decisionmaking (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1966); Margaret G. Hermann, “How Decision Units Shape Foreign Policy: A Theoretical Framework,” International Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (2001), pp. 47–81.

6 For an example of a study on third-party counterinsurgency, see Brett J. Vernetti, Three's Company: The Efficacy of Third-Party Intervention in Support of Counterinsurgency (Fort Leavenworth, KS: United States Army Command and General Staff College School of Advanced Military Studies, 2009); Thomas Rid and Thomas Keaney, eds., Understanding Counterinsurgency Warfare: Doctrine, Operations, and Challenges (New York: Routledge, 2010).

7 HRW, Death by Chemicals; Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), “OPCW Director-General Shares Incontrovertible Laboratory Results Concluding Exposure to Sarin,” press release, April 19, 2017, <www.opcw.org/news/article/opcw-director-general-shares-incontrovertible-laboratory-results-concluding-exposure-to-sarin/>.