Nano warfare could end the need for soldiers going to war
nowpublic.com | Oct 24th 2008 2:47 PMMy stance is an anti-war one and I am very concerned that most wars to day are geared to corporate interest. That, military service personnel are sent to war by our leaders on behalf of capitalistic entities the politicians puppet masters.
The problem is with today’s weaponry, that not only do patriotic indoctrinated military personnel get killed or maimed, but also innocent civilians and their children as there is no set battle fields for bombs and missiles and then the urban warfare.
Of course there are now smart bombs and smart missiles but these can only be as smart as the programmers and controllers. When the ground forces are sent in many innocent people get caught up in the crossfire between the defensive so called enemy and the deployed invading military. War is a very callous act the guys that initiate the event sit back behind their desks of power not actually caring how many innocent people or military personnel are killed to achieve their aims. The PR is stepped up and words like we are giving the people in this war zone their freedom, or this is a just war, or state how evil the enemy leaders are or those magic word is repeated over and over again WPD.
But in the future things will change as the world is moving into nano technology and this technology may see no need of large invasions of military might, no longer will innocent civilians be collateral damage. This new technology will give the ability to eradicate the leaders on each opposing side; of course the corporate puppet masters will become targets in this new type of warfare. The additive is nano technology is inexpensive so this new warfare is not going to cause a rise in taxes or make a fortune for the arms trade. Ironically the very people that start wars for greed and power will become the cannon fodder and us innocent citizens can sit back and observe the ingenious tactics of nano warfare through our nation’s news media.
Too good to be true, yes and I expect there will be a halt on investing in nano technology however countries such as China may see great value in pursing nano weaponry and that will of course see the need of everybody else following suit.
I have included the following blog that explains Nano weaponry, however it does not show the “what if” factor shown in my opinion above the other side of the coin. Where as nano technology could be the answer to my prayer that the leader go to war on each other and not send indoctrinated troops into battle to murder innocent people as the by product of modern warfare.
Molecular manufacturing raises the possibility of horrifically effective weapons. As an example, the smallest insect is about 200 microns; this creates a plausible size estimate for a nanotechnology-built antipersonnel weapon capable of seeking and injecting toxin into unprotected humans. The human lethal dose of botulism toxin is about 100 nanograms or about 1/100 the volume of the weapon. As many as 50 billion toxin-carrying devices—theoretically enough to kill every human on earth—could be packed into a single suitcase.
Guns of all sizes would be far more powerful, and their bullets could be self-guided. Aerospace hardware would be far lighter and higher performance; built with minimal or no metal, it would be much harder to spot on radar. Embedded computers would allow remote activation of any weapon, and more compact power handling would allow greatly improved robotics. These ideas barely scratch the surface of what's possible.
An important question is whether nanotech weapons would be stabilizing or destabilizing. Nuclear weapons, for example, perhaps can be credited with preventing major wars since their invention. However, nanotech weapons are not very similar to nuclear weapons.
Nuclear stability stems from at least four factors. The most obvious is the massive destructiveness of all-out nuclear war. All-out nanotech war is probably equivalent in the short term, but nuclear weapons also have a high long-term cost of use (fallout, contamination) that would be much lower with nanotech weapons. Nuclear weapons cause indiscriminate destruction; nanotech weapons could be targeted. Nuclear weapons require massive research effort and industrial development, which can be tracked far more easily than nanotech weapons development; nanotech weapons can be developed much more rapidly due to faster, cheaper prototyping. Finally, nuclear weapons cannot easily be delivered in advance of being used; the opposite is true of nanotech. Greater uncertainty of the capabilities of the adversary, less response time to an attack, and better targeted destruction of the enemy's resources during an attack all make nanotech arms races less stable. Also, unless nanotech is tightly controlled, the number of nanotech nations in the world could be much higher than the number of nuclear nations, increasing the chance of a regional conflict blowing up.
Admiral David E. Jeremiah, Vice-Chairman (ret.), U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, in an address at the 1995 Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology said: "Military applications of molecular manufacturing have even greater potential than nuclear weapons to radically change the balance of power."
An excellent essay by Tom McCarthy explores these points in more detail. He discusses the ways that nanotechnology can destabilize international relations: It will reduce economic influence and interdependence, encourage targeting of people as opposed to factories and weapons, and reduce the ability of a nation to monitor its potential enemies. It may also, by enabling many nations to be globally destructive, eliminate the ability of powerful nations to "police" the international arena. By making small groups self-sufficient, it can encourage the breakup of existing nations.
Industry groups will generally say that these conclusions are far-fetched, or at least so remote that they need not alarm us now. But CRN believes nanotechnology development could accelerate at such a pace that we might be caught unaware and unprepared.
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