Building Futuristic Weapons

Nanodot says:

It had to happen somewhere: the first country to publicly state they are planning to use nanotechnology in weapons is -- Israel.

They quote two news articles. First, the Sydney Morning Herald:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has given the green light for Israel to set up a special office to develop a nanotechnology arsenal.

Yediot Aharonot said that Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres had been told to choose 15 top thinkers to focus on developing futuristic weaponry. The 15 would be selected from within the security establishment, the world of hi-tech and academia.

And then, Spiegel Online:

"The war in Lebanon proved that we need smaller weaponry," said Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres. "It's illogical to send a plane worth $100 million against a suicidal terrorist. So we are building futuristic weapons."

Foresight's Christine Peterson says what we always say:

Misuse of nanotech-based weapons may be the biggest problem of the 21st century.

That's right.

Finally, a couple of commenters at Nanodot make great points. First, Tapani:

Creating even more deadly weapons, then those used today, is not development. It is stupidity, large scale, dangerous stupidity. Inabilty to figure out and maintain solutions, that would not require killing those who are somehow opposed to your political and ecomical goals.

I’m not suprised, but still I feel disappointed. Our species can never achieve its fullest potential, we are too busy destroying ourselves.

Second, John Joyce:

We use to aspire from 'swords to plowshares' now it it seems to be the other way round.

Amen.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Comments

[Brian Wang]

I also put this at the nanodot site: It sounds to me like the Isreali's are working on advanced robotics, MEMS and maybe NEMS.

In terms of advanced weapons being usable by the enemy, the side that makes advanced weapons usually has far better access to them than their enemy. Captured weapons are a small percentage. Plus for weapons for which there is some concern, a military version of lojack (anti-car theft) systems can be put into them. Advanced tech also allows for other security measures to be taken relatively easily.

It is not necessarily more deadly weapons that are being created. But sensors to make targeting more effective and cost reduction for more cost effective measures.

Current military choices are to use far more force to be effective or to use less force and be ineffective.

None of the announced programs sound that different than some of things that DARPA has in the works.

[George Elvin]

Action speaks louder than words, and while Israel may be the first to publicly acknowledge its military nanotech agenda, let's not forget that in the US 1 out of every 3 federal nanotech research dollars goes to military applications, as Michael Berger at Nanowerk points out.

"Of the $352m spent on nanotech by the DoD in 2005," he says, "$1m, or roughly 0.25%, went into research dealing with potential health and environmental risks. In 2006, estimated DoD nanotechnology expenditures will be $436m - but the risk-related research stays at $1m."

[NanoEnthusiast]

Why settle for LoJack? Why not let enemy capture your weapons then remote detonate them while the sit in the enemy's weapons bunker? When the search for Osama began after he was flushed out of Tora Bora, I thought about his need for kidney dialysis machines. Would it have been possible to replace all the dialysis machines in a 100 mile radius with ones that would transmit their location whenever they are used?

[Phillip Huggan]

In the context of nanotech I don't mind some of the DoD research dollars. Remote sensors of all types will be needed to learn more about Global Warming and biosensors in particular will be great anti-pandemic tools.

Israel (like Canada) is currently a 3rd-tier nano-player. But they have a large enough military budget to buy any novel nanoweaponry sold by other non-hostile contractors.