I was distressed to see the estimable Matthew Yglesias, whom I considerably respect, say:

Gregg Easterbrook makes the excellent point that chemical weapons don't really work [...] Similarly, bioweapons, though they seem to have the potential to cause mass suffering on a scale exceeded only by, well, regular plagues have a record that, in practice, is not very impressive when compared to that of bullets. His argument is that in the case of Iraq it's really only nuclear weapons that we need to be worried about. [...] [the international] bans [on chemical and biological warfare are] not really as well-motivated as one might have thought.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden, one of the most brilliant people I've ever known, and there is no one I respect more, thought Easterbrook's piece "interesting," and apparently took away from Easterbrook that:

biological and chemical weapons are overrated as "weapons of mass destruction."

Patrick said of Easterbrook's piece:

It pointed out that, by and large, they haven't been anywhere near as efficient at quickly killing large numbers of people as nuclear weapons are.

But, as I pointed out to Matthew Yglesias, influenza killed more people in 1918 than everyone killed in WWI. Without the intentional aid of a single human being. Without any genetic engineering. Without any refining.

Here we see:

Between September 1918 and March 1919, an epidemic of Spanish influenza swept through the United States and the world. The flu virus caused the deaths of more than 500,000 Americans and 25 million people worldwide.

Here it is said:

The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history.

[...]

It infected 28% of all Americans (Tice). An estimated 675,000 Americans died of influenza during the pandemic, ten times as many as in the world war. Of the U.S. soldiers who died in Europe, half of them fell to the influenza virus and not to the enemy (Deseret News). An estimated 43,000 servicemen mobilized for WWI died of influenza (Crosby).

Why this is reassuring, I do not understand. What comfort, of any sort, or what information of any value, was in Easterbrook's piece, I'm utterly failing to get. That's why I'm completely puzzled at people citing it as "interesting" and "worthwhile."

What Easterbrook said, in many cases, wasn't true. From his piece:

Chemical weapons are dangerous, to be sure, but not 'weapons of mass destruction' in any meaningful sense.

In World War I, casualties from gas were:
Total British Empire: Non-Fatal: 180,597; Deaths: 8,109; Total: 188,706

France: Non-Fatal: 182,000; Deaths: 8,000; Total: 190,000

United States: Non-Fatal: 71,345; Deaths: 1,462; Total: 72,807

Italy: Non-Fatal: 55,373; Deaths: 4,627 60,000

Russia: Non-Fatal: 419,340; Deaths: 56,000; Total: 475,340

Germany: Non-Fatal: 191,000; Deaths: 9,000; Total: 200,000

Austria-Hungary: Non-Fatal: 97,000; Deaths: 3,000; Total: 100,000

Others: Non-Fatal: 9,000; Deaths: 1,000; Total: 10.000

Grand Total: Non-Fatal: 1,205,655; Deaths: 91,198; Total: 1,296,853

If that's not "mass," I don't know what is.

Let's not forget, as well, the other mass use of chemical weapons in war in modern times. Who did that? Oh, yes, Saddam Hussein.

Similarly, biological weapons are widely viewed with dread, though in actual use they have rarely done great harm.

Japanese attempts to use biological weapons against China during World War II were of limited success.

Before making their escape at the time of Japanese surrender, Japanese in Unit 731 set free scores of thousands of infected rats that caused widespread plague in 22 counties of Heilungchiang and Kirin provinces that took more than 20,000 Chinese lives.

Note: Here is a statement that

Sheldon Harris, a historian at California State University, in Northridge, estimates that more than 200,000 Chinese were killed in germ warfare field experiments. Hams - author of a book on Unit 731, 'Factories of Death' also says that plague-infected animals were released as the war was ending and caused outbreaks of the plague that killed at least 30,000 people in the Harbin area from 1946 through 1948.

Easterbrook's piece is full of smaller misleading statements leading up to a terribly untrue set of conclusions which it's important people not believe.

Deliberate, systematic distribution of weapons-grade anthrax in the United States in 2001 killed five people--terrible, but hardly "mass destruction...."

Because actual attempts to use bioweapons have been few, it's hard to be sure; but it may well be that, like chemical weapons, biological agents will prove less dangerous than conventional arms, as well as more difficult for armies or terrorists to use.

The phrase "weapons of mass destruction," then, obscures more than it clarifies. It lumps together a category of truly terrible weapons (atomic bombs) with two other categories that are either less dangerous than conventional weapons (chemical arms) or largely an unknown quantity (biological agents).

This conflation, moreover, muddies the American rationale for military action against Iraq. That rationale should be to prevent Saddam from acquiring atomic weapons. This alone is reason to go to war.

I won't even be very happy at dozens of missiles with chemical weapons raining down on Israel, or, heck, even Saudi Arabia, or Jordan, or another neighbor of Iraq. I wouldn't even be happy to see it happen to Syria . I'm just funny that way, and think preventing that, if that's what it were to come down to (which is a stipulation, and an entirely separate discusion), sounds like it's a likely candidate for being worth risking war.

Fewer than 1 percent of battle deaths during World War I, the only war in which chemical arms were extensively employed, were caused by gas.

Know why they called it mustard gas?

The most lethal of all the poisonous chemicals used during the war, it was almost odourless and took twelve hours to take effect. Yperite was so powerful that only small amounts had to be added to high explosive shells to be effective. Once in the soil, mustard gas remained active for several weeks.

The skin of victims of mustard gas blistered, the eyes became very sore and they began to vomit. Mustard gas caused internal and external bleeding and attacked the bronchial tubes, stripping off the mucous membrane. This was extremely painful and most soldiers had to be strapped to their beds. It usually took a person four or five weeks to die of mustard gas poisoning. One nurse, Vera Brittain, wrote: "I wish those people who talk about going on with this war whatever it costs could see the soldiers suffering from mustard gas poisoning. Great mustard-coloured blisters, blind eyes, all sticky and stuck together, always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying that their throats are closing and they know they will choke."

Then there are biological agents. Supposedly these weapons kill very rapidly in huge numbers.

The same uncertainty of effect that Easterbrook cites in a negative fashion also applies in a positive fashion.

So Easterbrook's argument that bioweapons are not "weapons of mass destruction" or "truly terrible weapons" worth considering as serious a threat as nuclear weapons is utterly false.

And on and on it goes in his piece, with untrue statements, omissions, straw men, and wrong-headed comparisons. I'll bore you to death if I pull each later one apart, if I've not already, so I'll stop here.

In summary: Easterbrook's claim that nuclear weapons are inherently several orders of magnitude more dangerous than biological weapons is false. His claim that chemical weapons aren't serious weapons of mass killing is false. His claim that only nuclear weapons are worth going to war over: well, you'll have to decide for yourself. I don't buy it, myself.

ADDENDUM: Bruce Rolston of the fine Flit, whose military expertise I greatly respect, responds (though I only found it because I happen to read his page; apparently my belief that it's a courtesy to let people know when you link to, mention, or respond to, them, is a rarity in the blogoverse).

Unfortunately, I think in this case Bruce's military perspective steers him a bit wrong, because he chides me for not responding about the tactical utility of these weapons, and because I instead discuss them primarily as weapons of terrorism. Well, yes, I thought it was entirely clear I was doing so. Regrettably, Bruce starts by saying:

Easterbrook is talking about the value of "weapons of mass destruction" as military weapons...."

"These are not weapons designed for the purpose of defending Iraq. These are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale."

In his 2002 State of the Union address, for example, the president stated that the United States would not "permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most dangerous weapons," citing chemical, biological, and atomic arms as equal concerns.

That, having introduced the topic of debate as to whether these weapons are useful for "the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale." and proceeding to his task of attempting to refute that, Easterbrook then slides into the intellectual sidestep -- among others -- of discussing biological and chemical weapons as if battlefield use were the only relevancy as to whether they could be used to "threaten us" -- before then dancing back to discussion of general use of these weapons, leaving behind the odd logic that having critiqued their limitations on the battlefield, that such a critique is relevant to their use against civilian populations -- was one of my main points.

That battlefield use is beside the point of whether chemical and biological weapons can "threaten us" was my point.

Bruce also, regrettably, fails to distinguish that I distinguished between Japan's mass killings of prisoners with biological agents, and the use of biological weapons in the wild in China. So, no, by "Farber's standard, wouldn't we consider the gassing of Jews a successful example of chemical warfare, too?" No.

Bruce says:

Easterbrook says that bioweapons have not yet been successfully militarized... but influenza has killed millions, Farber responds, completely beside the point.

Bruce concludes that:

The simple counter-argument to Easterbrook, of course, the one that Farber does not make, is that successful battlefield use is not the only criterion anymore.

If one wants to argue for the limits of battlefield utility in the modern day of chemical weapons, sure, they are limited as a decisive weapon, without question. Anyone who knows anything about military tactics and procedures knows that.

In the end, I can't see anywhere Bruce is actually disagreeing with me, except that he focuses only on Easterbrook's emphasis on the use of these weapons on the battlefield, and my point was that the use of these weapons on the battlefield is scarcely the prime concern.

Passing note: at the moment I write this, Blogdex says this is the 26th most-linked post.

Thomas Nephew writes a post paralleling mine. Jim Henley responded to both of us. Bruce Rolston responded to my response. Eugene Volokh posted on the topic and added a link to my piece with a couple of observations on it. Joe Katzman wrote this at Winds of Change. I neglected to mention that Matthew Yglesias quite promptly posted:

After reading Gary Farber's reply to WMD naysayers I think I'm convinced that biowarfare is massively destructive enough to be worried about. [....]