The past several years have seen an increased interest in the use of toxic weapons -- i.e., weapons that incorporate inexpensive and easily attained chemicals and industrial waste -- on the part of both state and nonstate entities. Such weapons have been sought out by virtue of their abundance and ready availability and because they allow hostile entities to improve their capabilities within the context of symmetrical warfare. Despite these trends, however, the level of threat such weapons represent has yet to be precisely determined. Accordingly, this report seeks to provide a qualitative overview of the threat toxic weapons pose as well as to identify key vulnerabilities the United States and the U.S. military face. Toward this goal, the report describes the composition and sources of toxic weapons as well as their potential for harm, and it then outlines the use of such weapons by state and nonstate actors over the past decade. Following this analysis, the report focuses on the implications of toxic weapon use both for U.S. forces engaged in military operations and for the U.S. homeland. The author concludes that toxic warfare must be better understood so that the threat can be more effectively incorporated into military and civilian crisis response planning.

"MR-1572." "Mr-1572-AF."

Recent Examples of Toxic Warfare --The Ubiquity of Raw Materials for Toxic Weapons -- The Impact of Toxic Weapons -- About This Report -- What are Toxic Weapons? -- The Components of Toxic Warfare -- Sources of Toxic Substances -- The Impact of Toxic Warfare -- Recent Use of and Thinking About Toxic Weapons -- Poisoning with Chemicals, Sewage, and Pesticides -- The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict -- Chemicals, Gases, and Smoke -- Bosnia -- Croatia -- Sri Lanka -- Chechnya and Russia -- Trends in Toxic Warfare: Escalation of Use, Increased Sophistication, Exotic Combinations -- Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden -- The ELN and FARC -- LTTE Sea and Land Attacks -- Raising the Level of Violence? -- Toxic Threats in Expeditionary Settings -- U.S. Operations and Toxic Warfare in the 1990s -- U.S. Thinking About Toxic Threats -- Remaining Issues for Expeditionary Operations -- Toxic Threats in the United States -- Areas of Vulnerability -- Steps for Protecting the United States from and Responding to Toxic Warfare -- Final Thoughts.