Well-Armed and Very Dangerous

As NATO mounts its air campaign against Yugoslavia, much has been made of the mismatch of the combatants' conventional weapons capabilities. Although that imbalance is unlikely to change, too little attention has been given to Belgrade's weapons of mass destruction potential. In the near term, this danger principally involves chemical weapons. A longer-term, but not distant, threat relates to nuclear arms.

Before the breakup of socialist Yugoslavia in 1991, its army had an advanced chemical weapons program dating back to the 1960s. According to the late Croatian Gen. Zlatko Binenfeld, Yugoslavia produced the deadly nerve agent sarin, mustard gas, the choking agent phosgene, the hallucinogenic incapacitant BZ and tear gases. These toxic chemicals were put into a variety of munitions, including artillery shells, aerial bombs, rockets and chemical mines.

Much of the former Yugoslavia's offensive chemical weapons infrastructure, production capacity and expertise was inherited in 1991 by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro). Three of the four known chemical weapons production facilities in the former Yugoslavia were on Serbian territory, and equipment from the fourth such plant, near Mostar, Bosnia, was reportedly dismantled by Yugoslav troops and moved to Serbia in 1992.

Yugoslavia maintains a significant chemical defense posture. An offensive capability also may have been demonstrated during the Bosnian war, which saw repeated allegations of the use by the Bosnian Serbs of Yugoslav-supplied tear gas and BZ. Moreover, Belgrade has refused to sign the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention banning development, possession and use of chemical arms.

In contrast to the immediate chemical threat posed by Yugoslavia, the principal nuclear danger is prospective. It derives from more than 50 years of Yugoslav nuclear science research, a large and well-trained cadre of nuclear scientists and engineers, a stock of weapons-usable material and a history of at least two prior efforts during the Tito regime to acquire nuclear arms.