Uruguay

A weapon of mass destruction (WMD or WoMD) is a nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological or other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans or cause great damage to human-made structures (e.g. buildings), natural structures (e.g. mountains), or the biosphere. The scope and application of the term has evolved and been disputed, often signifying more politically than technically. Coined in reference to aerial bombing with chemical explosives, it has come to distinguish large-scale weaponry of other technologies, such as chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear. This differentiates the term from more technical ones such as chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons (CBRN).

EARLY USE OF THE TERM:

The first use of the term "weapon of mass destruction" on record is by Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1937 in reference to the aerial bombardment of Guernica, Spain:

At the time, the United States (with help from Western Allies) had yet to develop and use nuclear weapons. Japan conducted research on biological weapons (see Unit 731),[2] and chemical weapons had seen wide battlefield use in World War I. They were outlawed by the Geneva Protocol of 1925.[3] Italy used mustard gas against civilians and soldiers in Ethiopia in 1935-36.[4]

Following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II, and progressing through the Cold War, the term came to refer more to non-conventional weapons.

He credits James Goodby (of the Brookings Institution) with tracing what he considers the earliest known English-language use soon after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (although it is not quite verbatim): a communique from a 15 November 1945, meeting of Harry Truman, Clement Attlee and Mackenzie King (probably drafted by Vannevar Bush– or so Bush claimed in 1970) referred to "weapons adaptable to mass destruction".

That exact phrase, says Safire, was also used by Bernard Baruch in...