What are US weapons of mass destruction and what do they do?

Answer 1

There are three main arms of WMD's: Nuclear, Chemical and Biological. While other possible variants exist, they can easily be categorized in one of these three forms.

The US and all the largest industrialized nations have and employ a nuclear weapons capacity. Thermonuclear weapons, in the most simplistic sense, have three attack modalities: Electromagnetic (Heat through light in the spectrum), kinetic, and ionizing radiation. The the three, ionizing radiation or radioactivity is the least effective and least desirable, for reasons I'll discuss more under Chemical Attack.

Chemical attack is the oldest category of WMD. While arguably introduced ages ago, it didn't hit it's peak until WW-I with simplistic gas attacks using mostly corrosive toxins. While the grisly aspects of gas attacks are well publicized, the truth is that gas attacks have never been very effective against a military adversary. And from WW-II on, gas countermeasures became more and more effective, so that, against a military adversary, results were always dubious.

The reason for this is that gas attacks are extremely unpredictable. Humidity can effect the chemical weapon, sometimes disabling it entirely. Winds may be an even worse problem: In WW-I some reports have winds reversing gas attacks so that the were deployed over friendlies more often than the enemy.

In modern warfare, chemical agents have, unsurprisingly, been improved. Particulates have been developed that are -- sometimes -- weather-resistant. Persistent weapons have been devised, that don't wash off in the rain -- and these have the same missions as minefields: denying territory to the enemy. But most of the problems remain the same, e.g. the vast unpredictability induce by natural conditions. And the same applies to nuclear fallout, where it's stunningly hard to control (especially is this era when nuclear devices can create their own micro-weather systems). In short, chemical weapons are truly WMD's, but have not found a major place in modern, general warfare.

The US does not confirm the existence of chemical weapons programs. And while the US has the capability to deploy chemical weapons, the usefulness of this attack modality is questionable, and very situational.

Biological weapons have been reported as early as the crusades, but have not been deployed effectively in a military context in recorded history, although perhaps apocryphal instances of deployment of biological weapons in every specific circumstances have circulated.

Biological weapons have many missions, ranging from the battlefield to the local to world economy. Discussing the strategic or economic application of biological weapons exceeds the scope of this discussion. Tactically deployed biological weapons can be used for a wide variety of missions, including "mission kills" (disabling not only the infected individual but their rescue team and recovery support staff), disallowing access of territory to the enemy (same as chemical), and localized attacks on non-mobile adversaries (this last applied somewhat to static elements of battle, such as trench-deployed groups in WW-I, but more to non-military population that lacks tactical mobility). Against a modern, highly mobile military force, bio-warfare is of limited effectiveness.

The US denies the current development of biological WMD's. However, it is generally accepted that the US does indeed develop these agents. The Amerithrax attacks in 2001 may have been rumored to originate from a military base involved in bio-weapons development.