We continue from Ukraine: Nerve Agent Civil Defense Part 1.

Nota bene: This is not medical advice. It is an attempt to make accessible a few papers that are somewhat speculative, so that policymakers can ask intelligent questions of their CW defense establishments, (UK) Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and (U.S.) Edgewood Chemical Biological Center. 

Basics. The nervous system contains cells called neurons. In various forms, neurons are the computing elements of the brain. Neurons in the peripheral nervous system connect all the  functions of the body to the brain, for both conscious and involuntary control, by nerve impulses.

Within a single neuron fiber, which can be feet in length, a nerve impulse propagates in a way resembling an electric pulse aided by chemistry. It  isn’t simple, but is simple compared to when it has to jump from one one neuron to another, across a watery gap called a synapse. The sending neuron spritzes a puff of molecules called neurotransmitters into the gap. In mere milliseconds they are sniffed by receptors on the receiving neuron, which causes a new nerve impulse to start  up in the receptor. There are many neurotransmitters in the brain; the one of interest is acetylcholine.

The spritz of neurotransmitter has to go away before the next spritz, or the system locks up — spasms, convulsions, paralysis, death. The cleanup job is handled by a catalyst molecule that destroys neurotransmitters without damage to itself. In this case, AChE. Each molecule of AChE destroys about 25,000 acetylcholine molecules before it takes a hit, so the body replaces AChE very slowly..

A nerve agent binds to AChE, so that AChE can no longer remove acetylcholine from the synapse. The nervous system locks up; death ensues. This is the simple story, upon which orthodox treatment relies:

• Reduce the activity of the excess acetylcholine, with an anticholinergic medication, such as atropine, which fits into acetylcholine receptors, blocking them.
• Reactivate the AChE, by ripping off the nerve agent, with a class of medications known as oximes. A frequent choice is pralidoxime.

There is a challenge to this recipe, asserting that, while it is well motivated by theory,  it is  incompletely supported by evidence based medicine. It asserts that the simple story neglects other effects of nerve agents, which compete with the simple story for lethality. According to the challenge,

• Treating these other effects may be more important than reactivating AChE, which may not be possible, or which may happen anyway  by mechanisms that are not currently understood.
• Some  OTC medications may work better than atropine as anticholinergics.
• These OTC medications counteract another effect of nerve agents, which resembles a massive, lethal allergic reaction.

I take no position. This is an attempt to make the literature accessible.

This discussion has a lot of big words. Digest this; conclusion follows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(CNN) Former sailors on Navy aircraft carrier describe working conditions

The Navy has a culture problem. See Why I Defend Captain Crozier. Quoting,

Sometimes the hardest task is the most perfectly done. Because land warfare is so upfront personal, the Army and the Marines had no choice but to excel in human resource management.  The last steps of perfection have come only in the past few years. The Navy is a little behind.  While PBS Carrier displays the best of Navy human resources, there have been serious lapses, concentrated in the commissioned ranks.

The George Washington is such a lapse, preceded by the firing of Brett Crozier, C.O. of USS Theodore Roosevelt. A  hero to his crew, he actually cared about their welfare. The Navy has endorsed the mindset of (Wikipedia version ) Six Phases of a Project:

1. 1. Unbounded Enthusiasm,
   2. Total Disillusionment,
   3. Panic, hysteria and overtime,
   4. Frantic Search for the guilty,
   5. Punishment of the innocent, and
   6. Reward for the uninvolved.

Defenders of the Navy might point out that it has the (USNI News) lowest suicide rate of the services. Given the specific remediable circumstances,  it’s not good enough.

Contemporary with the George Washington: (Navy Times) ‘Passion bordering on anger’: The inside story behind the CO’s firing on the destroyer Forrest Sherman.

 

(CNN) Putin may soon officially declare war on Ukraine, US and Western officials say.

This would allow mobilization of reserves and open deployment of conscripts to Ukraine. Both are inherently less combat effective than the volunteer core. Reservists lack intense immersive training; conscripts don’t want to be there.  The U.S. makes no use of reserve armor in actual combat roles; it is considered impractical compared to full-up training of new units.

Russian mobilization will be an attempt to swamp Ukraine with massive numbers of troops of even lower quality than those currently deployed, perhaps capable of little more than passive occupation. To increase combat effectiveness, nerve agents may be used, subject initially to the restrictions  outlined in Russian Use of CW Agents in Ukraine, in Detail. 

If  Russian goals continue to be frustrated, these restrictions may not hold, replaced by acts of astonishing barbarity. The reasoning:

• Any lie can be told by state media, and believed by  the majority of Russians. Nerve agents are, compared to tactical nukes, very easy to lie about.
• The transparency of lies outside of Russia is of no concern; Russia is in the late stages of cultural divorce from the West, to become the new “hermit kingdom.” See Exploiting Cracks in the Kremlin; Putin, the New Stalin?
• Kleptocracy in Russia does not imply Putin is himself motivated by personal wealth. Money is simply part of his scheme of social control. The Kremlin will be pressured by economics, but as long as the gas flows, the  cost of ostracism by the West is not anticipated.
• Exposure of Russia as indefensible is intolerable. Failure of the clay-footed Russian military colossus must be disguised at any cost.

Western combatants are issued protective clothing, gas masks, and antidote kits. As prophylaxis, the kits are dangerous to use, possibly causing brain damage. Administered within minutes of exposure, they save lives, though exposed individuals do not remain combat effective. Immediate followup  care is required.

World supplies of antidote kits are not sufficient for a civilian population. A civilian in the bulls-eye of a nerve agent munition, who receives the incredibly small lethal dose of a modern nerve agent, cannot be saved by anything other than an antidote kit. Visualize exposure zones as a set of concentric rings surrounding the bulls-eye.  There may be options for the next zone out, LD50, where half of those exposed die, and more distant rings: those who are sickened, and those exposed to the agent after a delay.

Next: possible OTC nerve agent antidotes.

 

 

(CNN) Two Russian oligarchs and their families found dead within 24 hours.

This  was anticipated in Exploiting Cracks in the Kremlin; Putin, the New Stalin. Quoting,

• • The  oligarchic side of the Kremlin  conflicts with a new power center, with new ideologues, extending into the military.
  • The new ideologues re-legitimize Stalin.
  • Borrowing from Stalin, the new power center applies harsh methods against the oligarchs.

…

How do you play something like this? The romantics will not respond to external pressure. They may respond to pressure from the pragmatists, by accommodation or liquidation. All we can do is amplify the anxiety of the outer cabinet, whose pragmatism shows in a “quant” mindset.

 

 

We consider the possibility of a Ukraine holocaust, and a strategy that may avert this. Postulates are provided in lieu of unknowables, such as Putin’s state of mind, his capacity for cruelty, or his grip on power.

Readers may have wondered at my absence. What I now write troubles  greatly.  Ukraine; Let’s Make a Deal; Suggestion to Vladimir Putin offered three forks in the road to the future. Ukraine and the U.S. courageously chose the most perilous path, leading to freedom, flanked by merciless dragons of fate. A lot of Russian deaths were anticipated; that Ukraine’s valor would rival the Greeks at Thermopylae was a surprise.

Until recently, fear of provoking an unpredictable Putin was a brake on arms transfers. This  fear is an asset that can be cultivated. One could, by amplification, be an unwitting agent of the Kremlin. Zelenskyy warns the Russians may use nuclear weapons; just a month ago, this might have inhibited Western support. So I remind the reader that I have no official associations, and my fear is my own.

A month ago, there was a single trajectory with a single endpoint: A valiant Ukraine would lose. Only the details, such as a possible rump state, were in question. Now there are many trajectories, which can be sketched from a few postulates:

• Putin can’t back up. If he does, he becomes vulnerable to Russian nationalists. See Trump-Putin Summit; An Executive Summary; The Oldest Russia Analyst. His personality, having drifted towards totalitarian, also forbids this.
• A Mandatory goal.  There has been a lot of speculation on what is optional, what is mandatory, what has changed. Plug in your own assumptions.
• Perceived tacit acquiescence by European consumers of Russian gas. As interpreted by Russia, continued purchase outweighs everything else.

In ascending order of aggression,

• Local atrocities, which have become the Russian norm.
• WMDs. If the mandatory goal is not achievable with conventional weapons, WMDs may be employed within the territory of Ukraine: chemical, biological, nuclear, resulting in local extermination.
• Holocaust. In the event that selective application of WMDs fails to eradicate resistance, total extermination of the populace is undertaken, a Ukraine holocaust.

The postulates are not facts. You can replace them with your own, but you really should run the simulations before you do. Correlation of Ukraine success with a holocaust:

• Strong positive.The postulates activate sequentially, in dynamic response to the battlefield, in an almost mechanistic way. The better things get for Ukraine, the worse for Russia, the greater the likelihood of Holocaust.
• Weak negative. Russian reaction to casualties, except for kin, has not been noted. It has been proposed as a future effect.

What of sanctions, which are forms of external pressure? They may have a bipolar effect on the Russian psyche. Ineffectual sanctions may inspire fortitude; severity may result in the conversion we want, to internal pressure, anger at the Kremlin. We pin a lot of hope on this. Obstacles:

• Patent support of the Russian Orthodox church, so extreme as to possibly embrace genocide.
• Effectiveness of Russian state media, rivaling the credibility of closed totalitarian systems, which now depicts a proxy war with NATO, setting the stage for further escalation.
• The willing uptake by Russians of a new totalitarian conformity.

So striking is the picture that we may add a postulate:

• Russian public opinion would favor unrestricted use of WMDs in Ukraine.

Avoiding a Holocaust

We seek a condition where internal pressure, with inhibitory effect, outweighs the positive correlation of external pressure with progression towards a holocaust. Severe sanction, total cutoff of hydrocarbon exports, have these potential effects:

• Objective. Andrei Illarionov thinks this would result in total collapse of the ability of Russia to finance the war.    (CNN) Putin’s ex-adviser says one move could end his war in a month. Maybe. Governments have resorted to scrip and barter.
• Subjective. Conversion to internal pressure,  anger at the leadership, which may potentiate the effects of casualties.
• Inhibition of the use of WMDs that would create the conditions of a holocaust.

The inhibition is rightly questioned. It results from the assumption that Putin is not mad like Hitler, that he is instead a captive to a Russian romantic myth, that he retains some concern for how he will be judged. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Which nation has the power to prevent a Ukraine holocaust? Modern Germany has transformed into a society guiltless of the sins of their forefathers. No one suggests that Germany today has anything to atone for. The main obstacle to avoiding a holocaust is that shutting off Russian gas would throw 300,000 people out of work and cause a deep depression.

Germans, ask this question of yourselves. If a year from now, ten million Ukrainians are dead from the combination of tactical nukes, sarin, and novichok, how will you feel about  saving 300,000 jobs?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You have a malevolent hacker at 95.217.42.100, Hetzner Online, who hit intel9.us 130 times around 4:30 a.m. GMT.

(Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) Were Ukrainian peace negotiators poisoned? The article reports both yea/nay viewpoints. My attention is drawn to an opinion that presumably originates from the U.S. intelligence community. Quoting,

Reuters reported that an anonymous US official said the incident was caused by “environmental” factors and not poisoning. And later an official in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office told the BBC that the Ukrainian delegation was “fine” and that a negotiator had called the poisoning story “false.”

In dissent, my inclination is yes, they were poisoned. The IC doubtless have one of the world’s most comprehensive test panels for poisons. It may omit one poison so common, you can order it from an art supplies store, or in a Korean restaurant. The dish is called Rhus Chicken. See  (PubMed) Ingestion of Rhus chicken causing systemic contact dermatitis in a Korean patient.

Urushiol is Japanese lacquer.  It has been in use for several millennia.  We know it as the irritant of poison ivy. The several-week duration of poison ivy skin irritation could be shortened to that experienced by the negotiators with a solution of reduced urushiol concentration in a solvent with higher mobility. A suitable carrier solvent could be DMSO.

That one of the negotiators was unaffected supports this theory; about 28% of humans are unaffected by urushiol. This is likely not the first use. See Alexei Navalny, Poisoned Again? The Russian Poison Trick. Quoting,

The Russian arsenal also includes agents of embarrassment, such as the dioxin TCDD, used against Viktor Yushchenko in 2004. In July 2019, Navalny asserted he was “poisoned” in his Moscow jail cell.  (Reuters) Kremlin critic Navalny says he may have been poisoned. The nonlethal swelling and skin irritation could have been caused by urushiol, the cause of poison ivy. A subtle warning?

As pure chemistry, the preceding article, Russian Use of CW Agents in Ukraine, in Detail, has limited readership.  This title includes “Political Implications” for humanistic summation: The perpetrators have violated a chivalric tradition thousands of years old, spanning many cultures: safety of the emissary or guest. Though lethal consequences have not (yet) manifested, this is a death-rides-a-horse moment, an overt expression of ancient otherness that should henceforth be at the forefront of our thoughts.

This implies that the ambitions of Putin’s “inner cabinet” (see Exploiting Cracks in the Kremlin; Putin, the New Stalin?) may not be as deflectable by rational pressure as we might hope. Yet the Ukrainians are more  deserving of our support than they were on the first day.

Planning should begin now to sustain Ukraine against the assault of a possibly better Russian army, with massed armor, in early summer.

 

 

Biological warfare agents have effects highly unique to each agent. CW agents can be characterized by a comparatively small number of parameters. So we defer BW to another time. Discussion of CW agents is followed by conditions of use.

CW Agents. Prompt inspection of a suspected site of CW attack  results in complete documentation. Yet for one CW agent, even this level of documentation is vulnerable to the the thinnest veneer of deniability. The agent is chlorine.

Unlike subsequent war gases, chlorine is present in the natural environment. The human body contains about 1/2 ounce, 14 grams, matched with equal quantities of sodium/potassium — mostly table salt! Yet 15mg, 1/1000 of the above, dissolved in a cubic meter of air, repeatedly inhaled, kills. So a victim’s body does not contain significantly more chlorine than an unexposed person. Diagnosis is made from pulmonary edema, and videos of  clouds of green gas that tend to hug the ground. The Russians would point out that pulmonary edema has a multitude of causes, while the clouds were caused by Ukrainians.  Everybody has chlorine for industrial purposes.

To prove a battlefield death is due to chlorine, it would help to find a biomarker, a chemical tell-tale for chlorine. Until 2020, there was no known  biomarker. (PubMed) Determination of 3-chloro-l-tyrosine as a novel indicator of chlorine poisoning utilizing gas chromatography-mass spectrometric analysis proposes one. It may be possible to operate a portable mass spectrometer in a war zone, but preparation of the sample is involved. Russia doesn’t have to worry about this capability, because in the West, chlorine is regarded as primitive.

We focus unduly on VX, Novichok, and sarin, because deniability is still, after so many years, a nuisance rather than a crux. VX and Novichok are not likely to be used. These are liquids with low volatility, that tend to stick around. As they are incredibly persistent in urban nooks and crannies, they are area-denial weapons, akin to chemical minefields.

Quoting (EPA) Persistence of Chemical Warfare Agent VX on Building Material Surfaces, page 6,

…the significant difference between the residual amount of VX observed at the end (4–5 weeks) of these dissipation tests and the PRG indicates that the attenuation of VX by itself is not an
effective approach for remediating a contaminated site.

If Novichok, also a liquid, were used in quantity against an urban area, only extreme efforts could reclaim structures for habitation. While these agents decay quickly in the body, they leave persistent biomarkers. If such a site were open to CW inspection, the corpses would have to be incinerated along with the real estate.

Sarin, though far less toxic than VX and Novichok, is volatile, rapidly transforming to a heavy gas that invades lower levels, basements, and bunkers. It leaves specific biomarkers in the victim, so the Russians would have to be very confident that they could sequester the  bodies. Perhaps this is another reason they brought portable crematoriums.

If they are not confident, there is another possibility, blending less-lethal or nonlethal agents, chlorine or tear gas, with  sarin. I strongly suspected Assad’s forces of this; I might have had a little company, but not much. The idea is to bamboozle the inspectors. A definitive level of sarin metabolite is replaced by “trace quantity”, the clinical signs are inconclusive; not as many people died as expected; the monitor cannot reach a formal conclusion out of those allowed by training. This is all that is required of a CW agent for the thin Russian veneer of deniability.

Conditions of use. Now that we understand the agents, this is simple. To thwart time-critical examination by inspectors, the area subject to CW attack must have low risk of recapture. When the front line includes an unreduced enemy strong point, this is called investment. Mariupol is currently invested. If there is no relief, sarin, or a sarin blend may be regarded as low risk.

It has been suggested that Russian forces stuck to the roads rather than risk mud. When summer dries out the ground, so the opinion goes, Russian tank formations will storm Kiev in something resembling a blitzkrieg. I don’t know if they can do this, but the opinion has it they had to be trained to do at least one thing half well.

If the Russians hold this opinion about themselves, they may resort to  CW attacks ahead of their armored spearheads, confident that the areas of CW attack will not be retaken. It would be new military history; I am unaware of a prior CW – combined arms attack.

From my article Facebook,

We begin with reality of the group mind, not as  the helpful superintelligence of (Wikipedia) collective consciousness, but of the atavistic human, the crowd run amok, the groupthink of hatred, of awakening the Beast in Five Million Years to Earth.

The Beast has awakened in Russia.

 

 

 

 

Western strategists should proceed with the assumption that Russian use of CBW  agents is likely.  From the beginning of the Soviet state, only the thinnest veneer of deniability was required for extrajudicial terror.  The pattern extends into foreign policy. Failure to appreciate this may cloud  thinking that minimizes the possibility.

There are at least two ground situations, which currently exist, that facilitate the thinnest veneer, and a number of chemical agents / methods of application.

Prepare for the worst. A discussion in detail will follow.

 

My father Sylvan was interviewed   for the Veterans History Project (video). He was one of the lucky ones, separated from his unit when they were shipped to Anzio. The 1156 Combat Engineers indulged his taste for cold, hard work, building Bailey bridges across German rivers.

I’m not inclined to mourn. When the tears come, in sudden brief showers,  they seem related to the harsh contradictions of the present, to his labor in  hope for a better world, by a Russia that is more eager to destroy than build, to kill than save, with a virulent nationalism of the kind that may dog the human spirit forever. What did my father’s generation extinguish by their humanity extended to former enemies? Perhaps nothing, perhaps the darkness of humanity can be abated for periods of time, to rise again when the agony of a generation is forgotten.

What follows is a personal remembrance, of the kind that exists outside the horrors of the present.

***

In memory of Sylvan Morein, March 26, 1923 – March 20, 2022

In 1992, my father Sylvan was in hospital, when he almost died from pneumonia. I wrote these reflections then; they serve well now. I have learned that the depth of a person can have multiple dimensions. I’ve learned that the worth of a person is better measured by their positive qualities, rather than their lacks.

Sylvan did not have an abstract mind. His thoughts were governed, not by principles, but by values, burned into his brain during the Great Depression. While my maternal Grandpa Frank, with brilliant intuition, was able to cushion the Green family, such was not the case with the Moreins. Caught between the philanthropic instincts of his father, Joseph, and the severe economy of his mother, Betty, his mind was imprinted with the personal struggle to survive. When I was young, the purchase of a new chair or table was a matter of great fanfare. And old furniture was not thrown out. This house has become a veritable junk pile of old furniture. I once remarked to Grandpa Frank that Dad had no aesthetic sense. With a wry smile, he replied, “Yes, but what can you do about it?”

But as the saying goes, blood is thicker than water. A lifetime with this very different person prompts some observations. There is the realization that the quality of a person is not the same as intellect. A person’s professed beliefs may be at odds with an unerring instinct for fairness and charity in his personal relations. One may not have the framework to extend his concerns to the poor and the homeless at large, yet may be touched and generous in the situations that he personally confronts.

Sylvan practiced dentistry for fifty-three years, and became known as the “painless dentist.” I have, while traveling, and after he retired, patronized other dentists. The discomforts were similar. Yet the patients made broad expressions of affection, verging on love. The only explanation I can think of is his solicitude. An elderly Italian immigrant whose first dental visit was with my dad vowed that upon his retirement, she would never visit another dentist.

Throughout his life, he engaged in surprising acts of personal generosity. These acts, and the bonds that preceded them, seem forged on an ancient tribal model, between the strong and the weak, the powerful, and the insignificant, in a way not encompassed by modern western theories of social responsibility. They have no pattern, no philosophy, but they cannot be denied. His quality was recognized early in his career, when he was groomed by the elders of dental politics, with eventual presidency of the county dental society. What qualities did his elders perceive? They never said. Perhaps there is such a thing as a “man of quality” that defies further description. Comparing myself to my father, my modern intellect and liberality against his deeds, he wins hands down.

When his elder brother Lou was stricken with a brain tumor, he went over to the house with his two nephews, Allen and Barry. Lou could not walk. To get him into his bedroom, the three of them put him in an armchair, and carried the whole thing up the stairs. The image is burned into my brain like the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima. His care for his father and two brothers provided a lesson this nonverbal man would never put into words: “We never leave someone behind.”

His attitude towards mortality was noteworthy. At age seventy, with two brothers deceased, he felt stalked by death. Twenty years later, his fear abated. Today we take our leave, without regret, since. his was a life well lived..