The Challenge of Exotic Weapons

Definition and Categories

The term “exotic weapon” has been used with reckless abandon by authors, specialists and policy makers with no careful consideration of context. The concept of exotic weapons has found its way into the popular lexicon to describe many different things. This overuse has lead to some confusion and does pose difficulty from an arms control and disarmament perspective, when considering problems of definition for a category of weapons or weapons systems. The word “exotic” has been applied in a manner that overlaps with other terms and nomenclature used to describe the novel nature of weapons or technologies. For example, the notion of exotic weapons has been used to describe nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.¹ The term is used to describe leading edge technologies, warfare agents, diseases, forms of warfare, and methods. The use of the word “exotic” could also denote a technical sophistication not associated with traditional warfare.² Use of the word has even been applied to the mystical nature of personal weapons of the medieval period and those of the martial arts. Exotic weapons might also be interchanged with other terms such as “wonder weapons,” often associated with weapons programs developed by Nazi Germany during World War II. Due to the multiple uses of the term, can a working definition be produced for exotic weapons?

For the purposes of this paper, exotic weapons can be classed as anti-personnel or anti-material in nature. Exotic weapons could have both lethal and non-lethal uses. Such weapons are viewed not only skeptically but also with a certain antipathy because they are not in line with conventional military thinking.³ Many research programs are considered by some to be exotic because they have not had convincing success rates and seem to be outlandish concepts to conventional thinkers. By manipulating physical components, chemical composition, concentration or manipulating DNA, non-lethal weapons could be made lethal and vice versa. Calls by governments for submissions for new technology ideas speak of dispensers/tools with “rheostats” tunable across the entire force spectrum.⁴ This manipulation would be analogous to retrofitting an automobile to increase power and performance. “Once you are into these anti-material weapons, it is a short jump to antipersonnel weapons.”⁵ Weapons could be employed to disable people or electronic hardware with no permanent damage to the human body or physical infrastructure such as buildings or bridges. Other variants may not injure human subjects or buildings but may permanently disrupt or destroy hardware such as computer networks and information systems. Part of the problematic is that the term exotic weapon does not explicitly provide any indication of the potential of these weapons commonly associated with the term Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). This makes it hard for observers to have a conception of the problems and issue areas such as the effects of weapons.

¹ Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William Broad, Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001.

² Unknown author, US Military Non-Lethal Weapons. Submitted by MCCLOSL@towers.com. Online February 25, 2003. Available: http://ourworld.cs.com/soundweapon, 10.

³ Ibid, 159.

⁴ Nick Lewer, “Non-Lethal Weapons Research Project.” No. 2. June 1998. Online. February 5, 2003. Available: http://www.pjproject.org, 7.

⁵ Douglas Pasternak, “Wonder Weapons.” US News and World Report, July 7, 1997, 1.

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