Warfare When the World Spins Nano:

Paradigms, Promises, Perils

 

MAJ GEN YASHWANT DEVA, AVSM (Retd)

 

Defence and Technology Analyst,

Past President and

Distinguished Fellow of the IETE.

 

© Yashwant Deva

 

“Military applications of molecular manufacturing have even greater potential

than nuclear weapons to radically change the balance of power.”

 

—   Admiral David E Jeremiah, USN (Retd)

                   Former Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs to Staff US

                                                                                                November 9, 1995

 

 

Introduction

 

Molecular Nano Technology (MNT), which propounds and presages building objects bottom-up, tinkering with atoms and molecules, and assembling them, billions at a time, into smart and unique materials, is the marrow of civilisation’s Fourth Wave set to come1. In this century, the information revolution will propel into the nano revolution and the Third Wave of Alvin and Heidi Toffler will give way to the Fourth Wave of civilisation’s onward march from an information society to one focused on “matter” — how it is created, how manipulated. Man will control matter, magnifying his cognitive powers and physical prowess vastly. Eric Drexler writes that digital electronics brought an information-processing revolution by handling information quickly and controllably “in perfect and discrete pieces, i.e. bits and bytes;” likewise, nanotechnology would bring a matter-processing revolution by handling matter quickly and controllably “in perfect, discrete pieces: atoms and molecules.”2 Building similarity between “the programmable computer” of the Third wave with “the programmable assembler” of the Fourth wave, he states that “the digital revolution has centred on a device, the programmable computer, to make any desired pattern of bits, likewise, the nanotechnological revolution will centre on a device, the programmable assembler.”3

 

Globally much work is being done in developmental labs, overtly on conceptualising and accomplishing the merits and boons along with attempts to recognise the downsides and the perils of nanotechnology; and covertly on developing MNT weapons. In a couple of years a lot of venture capital money is expected to flow into nanotechnology. In the US, President George W Bush had given a boost by 17 percent for the year 2003, which amounts to $710 million4 for the funding of a National Nanotechnology Initiative,5 a programme initiated in 1999 under Bill Clinton. He even declared April 29 as National Nanotechnology Day.6

 

Lest the government and decision makers in India, elsewhere in the developing world too, reflexive, uninformed and unresponsive as they often are, remain oblivious to what is happening in the nano-field, this paper spurs them to heed the clarion nano-call and look to nano opportunities on the horizon; dangers too, that lurk ahead.

 

Paradigm Gained, Paradigm Lost

 

The applications that Drexler foresaw will impact every facet of human existence with molecular machines specially programmed and groomed to make products superior to those of today while using a fraction of the labour and producing no pollution, to repair diseased cells, clean up toxic waste, halt or reverse aging, endow humans Herculean muscle, even immortality, create new species or revive extinct ones. With nano devices we could rebuild the Bamyan Buddhas and World Trade Centre (WTC) from the ground zero up cheaply and quickly. On the positive side of the spin, famine would end, so would environmental degradation, and power and watershortage. The technology would banish hunger and disease, and what is highly significant, the technology would be dirt-cheap. Incidentally “nano bomb” is a misnomer, rather an apt-nomer; it refers to the benevolent variety that fights cancer.7 That is the “paradigm gained”: philosophically, the “paradise coveted”.

 

The spin is more likely to throw the tail-end face up. Nanotechnology will sire new ordnance termed Molecular Nano Technology (MNT) weapons. These would be tiny, smart, self-reproducing, invisible, and deadlier than Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) of the current top-down lineage and variety. A few bombs in a test tube would outstrip in destructive potential of all the Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) stockpiles of all the countries of the world. Then there would be devices “more destructive than invasive biological species though probably “less dangerous than all-out war with MNT-built weapons.”8 This is what the technology is headed for, and the shape of things to come. These are the sinews of power evident in the Fourth Wave long since ebbing and knocking at our door. Artificial intelligence (AI) would bestow self-enhancement in design and assemblers would lend self-replication in production of weapons, which would make current strategies and structures obsolete and decision-making shift from the realm of “human-space”9 to an intelligence-driven cyberspace singularity. “This is not to suggest that there will ever be an overriding decision to exclude humans from decision-making. Instead, we will continue to pretend to be in complete control while leading ourselves gradually and incrementally toward systems whose logic demands that human control become more abstract with less and less direct participation.”10 The complexities in decision-making would beat human cerebrum but then the nano-technology may come up with human power-ups that enhance the cerebral computing and logic per se.

 

On the negative side, the anti-civilised, terrorists and anarchists could destroy the human race and bring pralay (apocalypse); that is if they get hold of the technology; thus auguring the “paradigm lost” —virtually, “paradise gone astray”.

 

The Concepts

 

It was in the fifties that scientist came up with the nano theory of building matter bottom up, molecule by molecule, atom by atom. Richard Feynman’s talk at CalTech in 1959 set the catchphrase “There is Plenty of Room at the Bottom.”11 He said that “The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of manoeuvring things atom by atom. It is not an attempt to violate any laws; it is something, in principle, that can be done; but in practice, it has not been done because we are too big.”12

 

The US Government, however, took notice of the potential of nanotechnology in the nineties only. It was in 1992 that Eric Drexler testified before a US Senate Subcommittee13 and spelt out the possibilities of creating smart materials, dwelling on the thesis that he had advocated in his famous book Engines of Creation.14 He briefly defined the field of nanotechnology, mapped out its challenges, and articulated its most promising avenues of research. .With the US Senate taking serious note of Dexler’s presentation, the scientific community went wild with anticipation and nanotechnology graduated from science fiction to science discipline, branching into the study of nanomaterials, nanostructures, nanodevices, nanoelectronics, nanoinformatics, nanomechanics, nanobiology, nanomanufacturing, nanosensors, nanocontrols, nanomicrology, etc. each of significance to the national economy and national defence. Of greater suspense is Dexler’s prediction that large-scale applications of nanotechnology would arrive by 2007, which apparently, or perhaps seemingly, has gone awry.

 

Undoubtedly, Drexler’s thesis is debatable. However, it would be wrong to suggest that nanotechnology is mere kite flying. It is incredulous yes, but certainly not beyond man’s reach. Admittedly, much of it is hypothetical, in early investigational stage, highly provisional, speculative and demanding, besides being the butt of Doubting Toms to whom it appears widely premature and unconvincing, and that of environmentalists, up in arms because of apprehensions that it would disturb the fragile eco-equilibrium. But there are hopes that the positive speculations are sound and fructuous and that nano-reality is round the corner. As of today the research, is restricted to national laboratories, universities, and a few corporate houses, that too generally confined to the developed world. Significant progress has been done in the field of self-assembling nanotubes, nanodevices and direct manipulation, but like any science, progress is too slow and in halting steps. Steve Fennessy makes a cutting remark “Anyone who signed on to Drexler’s utopian visions may have a long wait ahead.”15

 

The focus of contemporary research in the field of nanotechnology is on creation of 3D, aperiodic structures that are specified with atomic precision and do not violate physical laws. Accuracy, inexpensiveness and ability to manoeuvre molecules and atoms with ease are its hallmark. It endows control over matter and augurs a revolutionary bond to atoms, as elemental and deep as computing was in altering our relationship to bits. Ralph Merkle says, “Nano- technology will replace our entire manufacturing base with a new, radically more precise, radically less expensive, and radically more flexible way of making products.” [16] And that includes weapons, fighting robots, impregnable kavach (shields) and combat platforms.

 

Chemistry today, characterised by the adjective “wet”17, is lab-conditioned and controlled, the processing of which entails a large number of molecules reacting to form a product; whereas the aim of molecular nanotechnology is to develop a molecular assembler - “a set of hands that will let us put molecular parts exactly where we want them.”18 Nanotechnology depends on three critical devices, viz. a nano computer that executes instructions, a nano robot or a  nanobot that plucks or picks atoms from a bin and places them at the right place knitting a pattern, and a nanoassembler that combines the function of the two. The nanoassembler is the Holy Grail of nanotechnology; once a perfected nanoassembler is available, almost anything becomes possible. This, then, is both the greatest hope and biggest fear of the nanotechnology community. Assemblers could vastly increase the range of molecular structures that can be built. This would eventually lead to self-reproducing assemblers to achieve low cost, industrial scale manufacturing. Its impact on future weapon systems would be incredible. Once a universal assembler is created and WMDs put to nanoscale, nuclear tally between India and Pakistan would be a dumb question.

 

Promises

 

Nanotech applications are in the fields of information systems, building materials, medicines, environment, and of course defence, which is the prime focus of this paper. Future information systems will pack more computing power into a sugar-cube sized device than the sum total of all the computer power that exists in the world today. It would store more than 1021 bits in the same volume, and deliver the equivalent of more than a billion Pentiums operating in parallel.19

 

Instead of using photosynthesis to grab carbon atoms out of the air and polymerise glucose into cellulose, future building materials will utilise MNT to arrange carbon atoms into diamondoid sheets and structural materials,20 50 times the strength of current metallic alloys. These would cost a pittance of the order of say ten rupees for a kilogram 21 enabling us to do the unthinkable, viz. rebuild our cities, distributeabundance, industrialise, perhaps inhabit space. A field engineer would emerge as a genie from the bottle to carry out the commander’s bidding, and build bunkers and bridges at unprecedented speed, if not literally in at a jiffy.

 

The greatest benefit would come the medical way in fighting illness and disease, which are abused primarily by damage at the molecular and the cellular levels. MNT will enable fabrication of surgical tools that are precise in size, scope and scale, hitherto unimaginable. Embedded computers, which are smaller than a cell, will be able to guide these surgical tools. Today, the inability to repair cell structure is because it cannot be diagnosed. Future cell repair systems will infer malfunction promptly, preserve and restore functional integrity precisely and enable structural repair in situ.

 

Most pollution today is a byproduct of industrialisation, of foul and grimy manufacturing, transportation, and energy production. Nanotech produces zero emissions, because it is atomically precise. It could also be used to clean up toxic waste by disassembling noxious and contaminated chemicals into harmless trash. This would enable a total redesign of our pollutant-spewing factories, overcrowded cities, choked-up transportation system, toxic-producing fossil power supply, etc. and instead stimulate and impel human obligations to preservation of environment.

 

Prospects of colonisation of space and inhabitation of wastelands will open up new frontiers and make us realise the importance of Saichin and vast tracks of land occupied by China, which we were somewhat dismissive of “where not a blade of grass grows.” Currently, space industrialisation is hindered by high vehicle and payload costs. MNT will be a boon in reducing overly high price. It would enable the structural mass of launch vehicles to be reduced by about a factor of 50. It is estimated that the cost per pound for the structural mass may come down to less than a dollar, which implies that the cost of a low earth orbit satellite will decrease by a factor of better than 1,000.22

 

Perils and Nanotech Power Play

 

All the aforesaid applications are pertinent to the weapon systems and platforms too and would impact the sinews of power. “The objective is a pervasive change in manufacturing — a change that will leave virtually no product untouched. Economic progress and military readiness for the 21st century will depend fundamentally on maintaining a competitive position in nanotechnology — The first groups to develop assemblers will have a historic window for economic, military, and environmental impact.” 23

 

Nanotechnology is a powerful and invasive technology that will afflict and agitate the very mores and pores of human existence, let alone the international relations and the power play that characterise these relations. It bodes unintended risks too as a horde of undesirable MNT viruses, disorder afflicters and destructive devices, e.g. “teratogens, carcinogens, mutagens, toxics, unchecked, replicators, non auto degradables”24 and nanoised WMD in all their fury may make an eerie appearance. “Knowledge can bring power, and power can bring knowledge. Depending on their natures and their goals, advanced AI systems might accumulate enough knowledge and power to displace us, if we don’t prepare properly And as with replicators, mere evolutionary ‘superiority’ will not make the victors better than the vanquished by any standard but brute competitive ability”25 Nanotechnology may spill instability in the complex bio-web and introduce shortcuts to the delicate ecological balance. Likewise, it may militarise space if the powers that hold the balance so scheme. Further, it may prompt another unstable arms race, which would be difficult to restrain and contain as nanotech weaponry defies surveillance. It may land in the wrong hands too. “States could use special replicators directly to wage a sort of germ warfare — one made vastly more practical by programmable, computer-controlled ‘germs’  Depending on their skills, AI systems could serve as weapon designers, strategists, or fighters Military funds already support research in both molecular technology and artificial intelligence.”26 Writing in the same vein, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) have this to suggest “Rapid development of new weapons technologies means less opportunity for surveillance and more uncertainty about the enemy’s future capabilities. Many factors tempt a pre-emptive strike if a temporary advantage is gained in an MNT arms race. The likely outcome of a strike would be either global domination requiring Draconian measures including denial of technology, or a series of increasingly destructive high-tech conflicts. Once weapons or the systems that produce them are dispersed, preventing guerrilla use of them would require inspection of literally every cubic millimetre, or continuous surveillance of entire populations”27

 

Warfare in Nano Age

 

The precepts of warfare would change; technology, stealth, and knowledge taking hold of top of the perch. So would the nature of warfare, become bloodier, more precise, invisible, genocidal and inevitable, permitting a unique symbiosis of bio-genetic, neuro-cognitive, and molecular-nano with AI at the driving wheel. Weapons of destruction, conventional or mass, have always aimed for more “bang for the buck”. The journey of the bomb from the “Blockbusters” of the second World War vintage to the atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb and to the hitherto penultimate thermonuclear bomb bears testimony. The nanotech is the decisive, definitive too, with varieties tagged to all the known WMD, viz. nuclear, biological, chemical and electronic; and unknown ones, e.g. genetic, neural and cerebral of the kind. Weapons have a history of becoming more deadly over time. Much of the evolution of weapons has been driven by the need to overcome defences built to counter a previous generation of offensive weapons Nanoweapons will advance the state-of-the-art in weaponry in both ways, viz. as an initiator and a counter. It will make war far more dangerous and devastating than it has been at any time in the past, due to its ability to create weapons of extreme destructiveness. Molecular manipulation and manufacturing will “allow for the creation of invisible weapons, dreadful and insidious in the same way as biological and chemical warfare”28 MNT will miniaturise not only many products, but most production facilities as well. “Raze a factory one day, it will grow back again soon after. Targeting production capability hardly seems a formula for success in nanotechbased warfare”.29

 

Nanoweapons will allow creation of robots smaller than the agents used in biological weapons, and as robots they will be programmable and smart. “This will mean weapons that can evade defences and strike predetermined targets, much as cruise missiles do, but on an invisible scale”30 Besides being more powerful, weapons could be endowed with unparallel artificial intelligence. Though as yet crude in design, “brainy robots” have already made a commercial debut.“ The military systems (including weapons) now on the horizon will be too fast, too small, too numerous, and will create an environment too complex for humans to direct. Furthermore, the proliferation of information based systems will produce a data overload that will make it difficult or impossible for humans to directly intervene in decision-making.... Weapons and other military systems already under development will function at increasingly higher levels of complexity and responsibility — and increasingly without meaningful human intervention”31

 

MNT will combine chemistry and fabrication to produce precise machines and manufacturing systems at the nanometric scale. Made to atomic exactitude, nanoweapons would be more precise, mission-specific and target-defined. They would lend a sharper sting to biological and chemical weapons and make genes warfare32 a dreaded reality “of wiping an enemy from existence rather than simply defeating him”33 MNT may extend the capabilities of such “dirty”34 weapons, making genocide a matter of precision and programming and an agenda of a future Hitler. The possibilities for genocidal weapons are not hard to conceive. These weapons defy warfare ethics because they cannot be controlled once they are released. Replication of universal assemblers, nanites and thinking machines pose serious threats for two reasons. One, what Drexler suggests that “today’s organisms have abilities far from the limits of the possible, and our machines are evolving faster than we are; within a few decades they seem likely to surpass us.”35 And second, today military power is directly proportional to manufacturing ability. It depends on the capacity of a state to produce the tools of war, to produce them in large quantity, and to produce them quickly and continuously in the case of protracted fighting. Robots, engineered organisms and nanobots share a dangerous amplifying factor: they can self-replicate. “Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech- are threatening to make human an endangered species.”36

 

Another worry is that assemblers could run amok and the entire surface of the planet - plants, animals and even rocks, reduced to dust in just a matter of little more than 72 hours. Amongst the nanotechnology wizardry, this threat has come to be known as the “gray goo problem”37. It could happen either intentionally or accidentally, i.e. if a nanoassembler were released into the environment with instructions to be merely productive and simply proliferate. The “gray goo problem” acts a damp against nano-boons, unbounded as they appear to be

 

Networked clusters could be created of invisible weapons. They could be released in space as swarms of bees that orbit in space in the form of networked satellites delivering global telecommunications or MNT ordnance, or worse sticking as parasitic leeches and ticks to the space bodies and destroying them. The Chinese have already developed an anti-satellite called Parasite38; imagine this to be in nano-scale and part of a self-replicating cluster. On the upside, “nanosatellites represent a revolutionary breakthrough in future statellite development. They are a type of distributed satellite structural system. Such distributed systems, in contrast to integrated systems, are able to avoid the damage that follows the malfunction of an individual satellite, and thus will increase the survivability and flexibility of future space systems. The best application of nanosatellites is their deployment in local satellite groups or in distributed constellations.”39

 

In the Mahabharata, Daryodhan wore a natural prosthetic kavach, he could only be hit below the belt. Similar body shields and power ups in the form of cybernetic implants and prosthesis are being thought of, which could enhance the physical powers of the body and the brains too. DARPA Defense Sciences Office has an ongoing programme called “Exoskeletons for Human Augmentation (EHPA) under their Smart Materials and Structures Division. “The overall goal of the EHPA Program is to develop devices and machines that will increase the speed, strength, and endurance of soldiers in combat environments. Projects will lead to self-powered, controlled, and wearable exoskeletal devices and/or machines and demonstrations of their utility in military applications.”40 Inclusion of exoskeleton technology into land-based operations could potentially increase the capabilities of the soldier and radically alter military doctrine. Technology will extend mission payload and range of operation, increasing lethality and survivability of ground troops for short-range missions and special operations.41 Four EHPA projects are underway at DARPA that will lead to a fully integrated exoskeleton system. Some projects are concerned with the development of power producing devices that could be integrated into a complete augmentation system.42 In another project, DARPA in collaboration with the Center for Biologic Nanotechnology has tested nanoemulsions as agents for disinfections and decontamination of surfaces, including skin and mucus membranes. It is claimed that nanoemulsions are highly non-toxic, being made from food substances, or food ingredients.43 The anti-infective effects are entirely due to their nanotechnological construction.

 

Technology has come a long way in creating cybernetic organisms (cyborgs) of “I Cyborg”44 type. There is a concept of nanocyborg in transhumanism too45 heavily enhanced with nanotechnological subsystems, beyond mere symbiotic implants. The Nanosystems enhance their capabilities, allow shape-shifting to greater or lesser degrees, rapid healing or reorganisation as well as the ability to manufacture new parts. Nanocyborgs move beyond biology in many respects, and often gradually transform themselves fully into post-biological states.

 

 

Conclusion

 

Nanotechnology should be a topic for discussion not only amongst the technologists, but also policy makers and planners in all fields. It would be highly pernicious to exclude the defence services and diplomatic community from such discussions. The diversity and complexity of ethical issues and latent problems, viz. those concerning economic, strategic and environmental matters that we would face, defy simple solutions. Besides, the technological breakthrough, the inevitability of which is indisputable, may come so suddenly that we may be caught unprepared. Therefore, it is time we included the technology in engineering and general knowledge curricula at all levels and initiated a public debate on the shape of things to come.

 

Lastly a point to remember is: howsoever attractive the “offensive action” and “first use” may appear, defence against WMD of current descent, or for that matter, MNT weapons of the future, too, vests with nanotechnology. Further, if we can resolve the problems of water, food, energy and clean environment, many a casus belli may disappear. I end this paper with a quote from Francis Bacon, “He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.”

 

Notes

 

1. The civilisation’s waves in tandem are Agricultural, Industrial, Digital (informational or post industrial) and thence to Molecular Nano Age.

 

2.  K Eric Dexler, “Looking Forward”, Ch. 1. Unbounding the Future: The Nanotechnology Revolution at <http://www.foresight.org/UTF/Unbound_LBW/chapt_1.html>

 

3. Ibid.

 

4. Steve  Fennessy, “Promises and Perils of Nanotechnology,”  Atlanta  Creative  Loafing.com, 6-16-2. Also see Richard P Terra,  “National Nanotechnology Initiative in FY2001 Budget” at <http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update40/Update40.1.html>

 

5. Steve Fennessy, Ibid. Also see Richard P Terra, “Strong Call for National Nanotechnology Initiative: Congressional Support Developing for Doubling Nanotechnology R&D Funds” Foresight Briefing Paper number 5 originally published in 1999 at <http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Briefing5.html>

 

6. Steve Fennessy, Ibid.

 

7. See Discovery Channel at <http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050808/ nanobomb.html>

 

8. Chris Phoenix, “Molecular Manufacturing: Start Planning”, FAS Public Interest Report at <http://www.fas.org/faspir/2003/v56n2/nanotech.htm>

 

9.  Robert J. Bunker, Five-Dimensional (Cyber) Warfighting (Carlisle, Pa.: US Army War College, Strategic, Studies Institute, 10 March 1998), pp. 7-8. Also see Thomas K Adams, “Future Warfare and the Decline of Human Decisionmaking.” Parameters, Winter 2001-02, pp. 57-71.

 

10. Adams, ibid.

 

11. The transcript of this classic talk given on December 29th 1959 at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) was first published in the February 1960 issue of Caltech’s Engineering and Science, at <http://www.zyvex.com/ nanotech/feynman.html>

 

12. Ibid.

 

13. See C L Peterson, “Testimony before the Committee on Science,” U.S. House of Reps, April 9, 2003 at <http://www.house.gov/science/hearings/full03/apr09/peterson.htm>

 

14. K Eric Dexler, Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology Web Version at <http://www.edrexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC.html>

 

15. Steve Fennessy, n. 4.

 

16. Ralph Merkle of Xerox PARC and a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, as quoted in Richard P Terra, n. 5.

 

 

17. Neil Jacobstein and Herry Crown, “Nanotechnology and Molecular Manufacturing: Oppor- tunities and Risks” at <http://scpd.stanford.edu/scpd/courses/proed/engelbartcolloquium/ session 3-slides/jacobstein/tsld020.htm>

 

18. Ibid.

 

19. Ibid.

 

20. Ibid.

 

21. Al Globus, David Bailey, Jie Han, Richard, Jaffe:Creon Levit, Ralph Merkle, and Deepak Srivastava, “NASA Applications of Molecular Nanotechnology” Published in The Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, volume 51, pp. 145-152, 1998, reproduced at <http://science.nas. nasa.gov/Groups/ Nanotechnology/publications/1997/applications>

 

22. Mark Pesce, “It’s a Small World”, Nanotechnology Magazine, <http://www.nano-technology.com/nanozine.>

 

23. Al Globus et al, n. 21.

 

24. Tom Mc, “Generation of Crisis: A Warning to the Nanocogniscenti.” Newsletter of the Molecular Manufacturing Shortcut Group of the National Space Society, Volume 7, Number 1 & 2 First and Second Quarter, 1999 at <http://islandone.org/MMSG/99jan.htm#_Toc456110958>

 

25. Ralph Merkle of Xerox PARC and a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, as quoted in Richard P Terra, n. 5.

 

26. K Eric Drexler, n. 14.

 

27. Chris Phoenix, n. 8.

 

28. “War in the Age of Invisible Machines” at <http://www.mccarthy.cx/WorldSystem/war.htm>

 

29. Ibid.

 

30. K Eric Drexler, n. 14.

 

31. Adams, n. 10.

 

32. Yashwant Deva. “Genes Warfare: The Dreaded Possibility Coming True” <http://www.ipcs. org> and <http:www.ydeva.info>

 

33. “Nanotechnology: The Downside,” Foresight Institute at <http://www.wildirisdesign.com/ nano/downside.html>

 

34. For a description of dirty bomb, see Yashwant Deva, “Dirty Bomb: A Hoax or a scoop,” at <http://www.ipcs.org/dbomb/>: and <http://www.ydeva.info. A dirty bomb contains a conventional explosive like the TNT and is “salted with radioactive material” in and around it. The radioactive material is speculated to be Cessium-137 with a half-life of 30 years; Cessium-137 is used to treat cancer and maintain accurate atomic clocks and the isotope emits gamma rays and ultra high electromagnetic energy.

 

35. K Eric Drexler, n. 14.

 

36. Bill Joy, “Why the future doesn’t need us,” Wired, April 2000 at <http://www.wired.com/ wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html>

 

37. K Eric Drexler, n. 14. The first known technical analysis of the “gray goo” problem has been published by the Foresight Institute, in a paper entitled “Some Limits to Global Ecophagy” April 2000 by Robert A. Freitas Jr. The paper concludes that the best defence against deliberate abuse is preparedness and vigilance i.e., early detection.

 

38. Jon Dougherty, “China develops anti-satellite weapon: Low-cost but lethal ‘parasitic’ space

technology successfully tested” at <http://www.WorldNetDaily.com>

 

39. Sun Bailin, “Nanotechnology Weapons on Future battlefields” This paper by Maj Gen Sun Bailin of the Academy of Military Science is excerpted from National Defense, June 15, 1996 and appears in Chinese-Views of Future Warfare, Part Four. He extensively quotes from the Rand paper on MEMS. MEMS in the scale of ten raised to the power of minus six follow the classical top-down approach of miniaturisation and have gained a fair degree of development, whereas nanotech systems in the range of ten raised to the power of minus nine follow bottom-up, and have yet to show a major breakthrough.

 

40. See DARPA project, “Exoskeletons of Human Performance Augmentation,” <http://www. discover.com/feb_02/feattech.htm/>

 

41. Ibid.

 

42. Ibid.

 

43. Ibid.

 

44. Kevin Warwick, I Cyborg, (London: Trafalgar Square Books, 2003). Warwick is a professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, UK.

 

45. See Anders Sandberg, at <http://www.aleph.se/Trans/>Transhumanism is a philosophy that invokes humanity can and should strive to higher levels, physically, mentally and socially. It encourages research into such areas as life extension, cryonics, nanotechnology, physical and mental enhancements, uploading human consciousness into computers and megascale engineering.