Preface | xi Much that is contained in this volume is dis- turbing and even frightening it is impossi­ ble to write a cheery encyclopedia about weapons whose primary purpose is to con- duct postindustrial-scale mass murder. The sad truth of the matter is that chemi- cal, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons reflect the willingness of humans to go to great lengths to find increasingly lethal and destructive instruments of war and violence. We are pleased to note, however, that much of what is reported in this book is historical in nature and that civilized people everywhere now reject the use of chemical and biological weapons. International law is replete with treaties, agreements, and regimes whose purpose is to proscribe the use of these weapons or to mitigate the consequences of any such use. In addition, the world has successfully avoided using nuclear weapons for almost 75 years, reserv- ing them as deterrent weapons of last resort. Our encyclopedia covers a wide range of topics, some historical and some drawn from today’s headlines. We describe many of the pathogens, diseases, substances, and machines that can serve as weapons of mass destruction. (For reasons of space, however, we do not emphasize the vehicles that are used to deliver WMD payloads.) We encouraged our contributors to highlight ongoing controversies and contemporary concerns about WMD and current interna- tional arms control and nonproliferation efforts intended to reduce the threat they pose to world peace and security. Even a work of this length, however, cannot com- pletely cover the history, science, and per- sonal stories associated with a topic of this magnitude, so we have included references to help readers take those initial steps for further study of the topics we survey. Acknowledgments The editors’ primary debt is to the contribu- tors who made this volume a reality. It is nearly impossible for three people to be experts on all the subjects covered in this volume, and without the contributions of our authors, this encyclopedia would never have been completed. We also want to express our appreciation to our acquisition editors at ABC-CLIO, initially Steve Catalano and then Pat Carlin, as well as the copyeditors who worked dili- gently to help get this manuscript into print. The commitment of our publisher to this topic and the dedication of the production staff at ABC-CLIO greatly facilitated the completion of this volume. We hope that this encyclopedia will help inform the public debate about weapons of mass destruction and international security policy, with the goal of never again seeing such weapons used in anger. Jeffrey A. Larsen Rome, March 2018
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