Challenge: Chemical Weapons Normal

Specifically, the continuous usage of chemical weapons after WW1, like any other weapon. It never comes under treaty regulation, or that treaty is completely ignored in every conflict.

So, doable? Also, basic TL please?
 
Specifically, the continuous usage of chemical weapons after WW1, like any other weapon. It never comes under treaty regulation, or that treaty is completely ignored in every conflict.

So, doable? Also, basic TL please?

Uhh, without American intervention, the Great War eventually peters out. The various powers refuse to commit to a ban on chemical weapons, wanting to keep it in their arsenal for future wars. In a later war, once the atomic bomb is invented, chemical weapons lose their punch as a WMD, and become just another, if relatively extreme weapon.
 
The cynic in me thinks that politicians saw the dangers to themselves of chemical weapons, especially delivered by aircraft. Drench Parliament or the Reichstag with a chemical cocktail and you kill all the pollies, so it got banned.

If you want to normalise chem weapons retard the development of the long range bomber, which will be no mean feat.
 

Cook

Banned
Uhh, without American intervention, the Great War eventually peters out. The various powers refuse to commit to a ban on chemical weapons, wanting to keep it in their arsenal for future wars. In a later war, once the atomic bomb is invented, chemical weapons lose their punch as a WMD, and become just another, if relatively extreme weapon.
If we were discussing the continued use of the shotgun in warfare then America’s absence from World War One would be relevant, but Chemical Weapons were used well before America entered the war and their use banned by international agreement at a time when America didn’t take a leading role in international affairs.
 
I think the biggest restriction on the use of chemical weapons would be that they aren't really in military terms all that useful. I think if they were "off the table" during conflicts like, say, the OTL Soviet-German war there was probably a reason other than international law.

If you look at the OTL use of chemical weapons- the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, World War One, the Sino-Japanese war, and the Iran-Iraq war, you can see that extensive use of poison gas occurs when powers are grasping around for some, any sort of military advantage or edge against superior numbers/a quagmire AND are free from retaliation (Iraq, Italy, Japan) or have exhausted all other options to break a stalemate AND are short of conventional munitions (World War One).

If chemical weapons become a "normal" part of warfare they'll have a niche role in especially nasty sieges and colonial wars, but I don't think they'd wind up in heavy use in conventional peer-to-peer conflicts, because they debilitate the user about as much as the target, and are paradoxically easy and really really inconvenient to defend against.
 
Don't chemical weapons have massive use securing a flank? Or is the issues that wind constantly blows them back at you?

To be fair, gas mask development would probably severely limit their use, although ones like XV require far more substantial protection, which could cost a significant amount in military funding.
 
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