When the crew of the Star Trek Enterprise face a thorny situation where life
must persevere but opponents subdued, the order is given to ‘set phasers
on stun’. After a moment of adjustment and aiming, phasers deliver a measured
force that always has the intended effect of knocking out those targeted for
a short time.
Today there is considerable interest across policing, peacekeeping, or warfighting
settings in developing ‘non-lethal’ weapons that cause only temporary
injury.
Past and future non-lethals
There is little new, however, about the search for such devices. Ancient Chinese
armies employed ground pepper to momentarily blind opponents. For many years
Western police and military forces have posed a variety of devices generally
described as ‘non-lethal’: kinetic projectile munitions such as
plastic bullets; chemical irritants such as tear gas; and devices that employ
electricity such as ‘stun guns’. In recent years, this form of weaponry
has figured in protests in Seattle, Genoa and elsewhere, though the possibilities
for their deployment extend well beyond such events to include routine policing,
incarceration and warfare.
To believe some, the old fashioned technologies are soon to give way to a far
broader spectrum of options: acoustic weapons which shatter windows and cause
internal damage; electromagnetic pulse beams designed to knock individuals down
and cause seizures; and chemical agents which act as calmatives. In Europe and
the US, considerable funds are being dedicated to the search for novel weaponry.
It is hoped that such equipment will reduce much of the controversy that often
comes with the use of force.
Technological solutions
For those familiar with disputes about science and technology, it will be of
little surprise that past attempts to resolve debates about force through the
introduction of technology have often floundered. Experience suggests the perfect
phaser remains a promise reserved for future worlds. In the confusion and complexity
of conflicts, ensuring non-lethals are non-lethal requires acting in highly
prescribed ways in relation to populations where individuals have very different
susceptibilities to injury. Deaths of adults and children from plastic bullets
(in places such as Northern Ireland, the Occupied Territories, and South Africa)
have done little to foster support for this class of technology.
To varying degrees, the possibility for injury is acknowledged by proponents.
While non-lethals may result in significant harm, a more qualified argument
in support of them is that they entail comparatively more acceptable options
than other means. Better a plastic bullet that might kill than a conventional
bullet that almost certainly will. If debates are framed in terms of whether
it is better to be shot with a conventional or less-lethal munition, then the
way ahead is straightforward.
Lowering the threshold
A past danger with non-lethals though has been that they are employed at a lower
threshold than originally stated or they complement (not substitute for) lethal
force. During the Vietnam War, CS gas irritant was initially justified as a
benign means of controlling riots and separating civilians from combatants.
As commanders became familiar with the technology, its range of uses expanded
considerably. Between 1964 and 1970, nearly 16 million pounds of CS was procured
for a variety of operations in Vietnam, such as making areas uninhabitable or
forcing Vietnamese out of underground hide outs (then followed by bombing runs).
In a very different instance, hand-held CS sprays were deployed by many British
police forces starting in 1996. While initially justified as a last step in
restraining extremely violent individuals, complaints have been made that it
has become something of a first step form of intervention.
Bizarre questions
The new weaponry envisioned today under a non-lethal banner requires addressing
bizarre and disturbing questions about how death and injury ought to be weighed.
When members of the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons
gathered in 1995 to discuss banning laser weapons designed to blind, states
such as the US initially opposed any restrictions by arguing it was better to
be blind than dead. Those ultimately successful in pushing for controls countered
that the question which needed to be addressed was not whether it was better
to be dead or blind, but whether the almost certainty of blinding from such
weapons in war was more inhumane than the possibility of injury or death through
conventional firearms and explosives.
Adding to these complications, sorting hope from hype has often been difficult.
When Mace chemical incapacitant sprays were launched over 25 years ago for police
protection they were billed as much more humane than the revolver or baton.
Initial claims about their effectiveness and efficacy were later judged as ‘wildly
exaggerated’ by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. Recently, much
promise has been attached to infrasound acoustic weapons as possible means of
incapacitating persons without lasting injury. Yet, enthusiastic safety and
effectiveness claims have been deemed ‘plainly untrue’ by some scientists.
Along side these debates are questions about the desirability and purpose of
non-lethal weapons. Depending on how effects are assessed, the principle of
minimum political reaction or minimum force is said to be driving developments.
Much of the concern voiced about non-lethals is whether they are indeed safer
options or whether they only appear so. Poignantly, one commentator noted ‘We
all remember how badly Rodney King was beaten by L.A. police, but no one remembers
how many times King was shocked [with electrical device] and how much voltage
he received.’
GM non-lethals
In the strange twists and turns that often typify discussions about non-lethals,
fact may soon be inspiring fiction. US defence establishments have begun research
into genetically engineering microbial and biocatalysts that supposedly degrade
materials such as runways or lubricants as well as psychopharmacological drugs
that might serve as the next generation of human incapacitants. With regard
to the latter, it is hoped advances in genetics will enable the targeting of
receptor sites in the brain that have been identified with causing specific
behavior such as submissiveness. Such programmes threaten to radically redefine
notions of proper conduct vis-à-vis biological weapons controls (such
as the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention) by introducing a distinction
between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bioweapons.
Given the often diametrically opposed views about the legitimacy of force, much
is at stake in discussions about the acceptability of non-lethal weapons. Just
what force should be used, to what ends, and with what effects are matters of
dispute. When weapons with uncertain effects, whose proper use requires following
highly proscriptive rules are introduced into volatile settings, it is often
difficult and contentious to determine who has responsibility for what. Past
controversies about these weapons have turned on appeals to practical necessities,
power, idealism and morality. Perhaps one of the most basic points to acknowledge
about non-lethal weapons is that while they may be instruments for controlling
action, debates about their merits are also characterized by attempts to control
the key issues at stake.
Brian Rappert is a Research Fellow at the School of Sociology and Social Policy,
University of Nottingham and author of Technology, Politics and The Management
of Conflict: Non-Lethal Weapons as Legitimating Forces? (forthcoming, Frank
Cass).