Recent events as they relate to the war on terror make it abundantly clear that the rapid detection of chemical warfare nerve agents is essential. While the detection of these agents clearly falls into the purview of the analytical chemist, the importance of the organic chemist in the development of new techniques or approaches remains intact. This review serves to introduce the reader to a number of methods for detecting nerve agents with a focus on those techniques which rely on synthetic chemistry to improve overall performance with respect to selectivity, sensitivity and analysis time.