New Weapons, Old Debates: A History of Weapons Prohibitions

In 1868, military experts representing seventeen states gathered at the Russian War Ministry in St. Petersburg to prohibit the use of explosive bullets under international law. This event marked the beginning of debates about the relationship between the weapons of industrial modernity and humanity in war. From 1868 to 1939, contestations over the legality of expanding bullets, airships and bombing, gas and bacteriological weapons, tanks, railway guns, and submarines extended beyond diplomatic practice and legal scholarship to journalists, novelists, surgeons, scientists, and everyday people. During this period, three intellectual traditions crystallized. Techno-utopians argued that ever more destructive weaponry would make war impossible. Techno-optimists suggested that the introduction of new armaments would make wars shorter or more humane. Techno-pessimists, finally, called for the prohibition of some new weapons by warning about their catastrophic effects, ranging from the infliction of unnecessary suffering to the end of Western ‘civilization’ and even of humanity itself. At a moment of debates about the legality of lethal autonomous weapons systems and nuclear weapons, this talk will situate present-day contestations in a history that is as old as industrial modernity itself.

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Host or Publisher Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies