"Chemical Maggie: Thatcher considered chem weapons..." Topic

… stockpile in Cold War standoff.

"Britain's late prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, considered reviving the UK's chemical weapons program in an effort to bolster Britain's "retaliatory capability" against perceived Soviet threats, National Archive papers reveal.

The papers, released under the 30-year rule that compels the publication of secret Cabinet documents three decades afterward, show that Thatcher's government secretly mulled chemical warfare against the Soviet Union in 1984. The plans were hatched as Cold War tensions between the UK and the Soviet Union ran high, particularly during the British miners' strike, in which Soviet leaders were suspected by Thatcher's government of supporting the National Union of Mineworkers' year-long struggle against her plan for pit closures.

The papers show that Thatcher claimed a failure on behalf of the UK government to adequately prepare for potential Soviet chemical attacks would amount to negligence…"
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Amicalemenet
Armand

Seems only reasonable, since the Soviets/W.P. were considering using them as well, in addition to nukes.

Bio warfare was considered by all, too.

I would really be surprised if there was NOT some kind of program in every country, despite policies to the contrary.

I never realised we'd stopped stockpiling them! Essential component of an escalated response before you start chucking nukes around.

A fairly standard tactic for NATO in SPIs Next War was to retreat slowly across Germany spraying chem as they went.