[lastchance]

The thing is that banning certain weapons is good for everyone involved.

This is the Prisoner's Dilemma, yet again at work.

Using certain weapons is always better than being forced not to use them, but you really don't want your opponents to use this weapon.

The only reason that you should outlaw a weapon is because your opponent will outlaw it as well.

This applies to any rule of war, for example, only attacking military personnel, not citizens.

Americans really want their opponents to attack the military personnel, not the citizens. Why should your opponents not be allowed to attack citizens?

There's only one non-moral, pratical reason (war is a pratical thing). And that is that you are willing to not kill citizens either, or not use a weapon, as the case may be.

Rules of war apply to everyone. No country is going to inflict rules of war on itself without some incentive with it's opponents. I doubt either India or Pakistan, for example, would hesitate to nuke each other if they didn't know the other side had nukes too.

The only time a nuclear weapon has been used in the history of civilization was when the US, but none of the US's enemies (Japan) had nukes.

Now, you may accuse me of equating nukes to napalm to attacking civilians, and yes, they're very different. But they are all rules of war, and so they all act this way, which brings me back to my original point.

The only reason that any country applies rules of war on itself is that it wants it's opponents to apply those rules of war.