MNT will change the nature of war in two fundamental ways. One of these is what one would normally expect from a technology that is so novel and powerful: 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. The other way is less obvious, but just as real: MNT will make war between states more likely in the present world system.
Weapons have a history of becoming more deadly over time. Much of the evolution of weapons has been driven by the need to overcome defenses built to counter a previous generation of offensive weapons; the crossbow, for instance, was developed to pierce the plate armour that had been invented to defend against arrows and swords. Other weapons have followed a different path, a path of growing destructiveness that aims for more "bang for the buck." The bomb is the clearest example of this type of weapon, and its history has a clear path from the bombs of the Second World War (the "Blockbuster") to the atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb and finally today's breed of thermonuclear bombs that pack the equivalent of hundreds of Hiroshima bombs.
Nanoweapons will advance the state of the art in weaponry in both ways. Due to the small scale it works on, molecular manufacturing will allow for the creation of invisible weapons, dreadful and insidious in the same way as biological and chemical warfare. But nanoweapons will also be more precise than biological and chemical weapons because of how they are made. Nanoweapons will be made with an atomic precision that will allow the creation of actual robots smaller than the agents used in biological weapons, and as robots they will be programmable. This will mean weapons that can evade defenses and strike predetermined targets, much as cruise missiles do, but on an invisible scale.
Biological and chemical weapons have, and deserve, an ignominious reputation. It is hard to think of them as tools of honest warfare because they cannot be controlled once they are released. They travel with the wind, killing everything they come in contact with, soldier and citizen alike; one cannot surrender before them, and they take no prisoners. They do not even discriminate between "enemy" and "friend." They have only one purpose: to kill. Most other weapons can also be used to bring wars to end through means other than killing: factories can be shelled or bombed, tanks can be crippled, bridges can be brought down with dynamite, missile silos can be blown from the ground. But chemical and biological weapons reek of genocide, of wiping an enemy from existence rather than simply defeating him.
MNT may extend the capabilities of such "dirty" weapons, making total genocide a matter of programming, rather than favorable wind conditions. The possibilities for genocidal weapons are not hard to conceive. It may be possible, for example, to program a release of nanoweapons to move steadily from all sides of the border of an enemy country to the center (taking positional readings from Global Positioning satellites), killing everything they come in contact with, and thus effecting the elimination of an entire nation.
"...[D]evelopment of radically new weapons is always accompanied by a disruption of the rules by which international society is governed," (1) and as we saw above, that will be the case with molecular nanotechnology. Because molecular manufacturing technology will make weapons far more dangerous than they are today, we can expect to see efforts to control them and their spread in one way or another. The most intuitive answer to the problem of a new weapon is to ban it, but this is as unworkable as it is obvious. No attempt to ban a weapon from existence has worked in the past, whether bows and arrows (The Second Lateran Council attempted that in 1159) or nuclear weapons (the U.N. General Assembly attempted that in 1946), and there is no reason to hope that this technology will depart from precedent.
Two somewhat more reasonable approaches remain: disarmament and arms control. Taking them in order of increasing feasibility, let us consider first the possibility of disarmament. Disarmament in recent years has focused on the elimination of nuclear weapons above all else. The desire for a world without them is understandable (2); present stockpiles of the the weapons can destroy all human life on the planet several times over. The nuclear disarmament movement failed to achieve its goal, but that does not mean that disarmament is not possible. There are historical examples of successful disarmament, and an examination of why disarmament has succeeded in the past but failed in the present is instructive. One of the most often cited examples of a disarmament that worked is the U.S./British disarmament of the Great Lakes in North America. This disarmament was a success because both sides felt that they would be secure from aggression by the other side, despite being unarmed. A lack of armaments did not invite aggression because there was no potential aggressor. In this case, peace had already been established, and weapons served no deterrent purpose. Peace, it seems, is the prerequisite for disarmament, and not the other way around; it follows naturally from the circumstance of peace. "Swords are not beaten into plowshares. They rust." (3)
While we have not seen nuclear disarmament, what we have seen to some degree is the second approach named above, arms control. Arms control has worked with both conventional weapons and nuclear ones, but in both cases has relied on something that cannot be hoped for in the age of invisible machines: the ability to detect weapons. Weapons today are detectable, often even against the will of a state that is trying to hide them. Although on-site inspections are an integral part of arm control agreements, the capability of detecting, identifying and counting weapons from space (through the use of "spy" satellites) is crucial. Many weapons built with nanotechnology will be virtually undetectable with anything but the most unacceptably invasive of investigative procedures, and this may prove to be an insurmountable barrier to arms control agreements. States cannot agree to limit what they cannot detect.
Clearly, the types of weapons described above will make warfare far more dangerous than it has ever been before. But the weapons themselves, though frightening, should not be our primary concern. Our primary concern should be the targets of these new weapons, because an advanced manufacturing capability based on nanotechnology will eliminate two of the traditional targets of military action, factories and weapons, leaving only one target: people.
The base of offensive military power today is 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. During the Second World War, it was the factories and workers of the United States that turned the tide against Germany and Japan in the end, not just the brave Allied soldiers. (Note that this is not necessarily the case with defensive power. This power is often derived from other sources, such as geography, as is the case with the U.S. and Switzerland. (4)) Manufacturing ability is embodied in factories, mines, and transportation infrastructures. These all make for large, obvious and inviting targets in time of war, as was demonstrated by the Allied bombing campaign against German factories and bridges in the Second World War. And although thankfully never implemented, the strategic plans of the American and Soviet nuclear forces considered production centers to be valid and attractive targets for annihilation.
MNT will miniaturize not only many products, but most production facilities as well. Ugly grey buildings with tall, smoke-belching chimneys will become a thing of the past. So, too, will easy targets for strategic planners. Beyond this, even if the factories can be found, destroying them will be of little avail; with cheap and fast molecular manufacturing, factories will sprout like weeds. Raze a factory one day, it will grow back again soon after. Targeting production capability hardly seems a formula for success in nanotech-based warfare.
The other target of choice, one that is more tactical in nature, is the enemy's weapons. Destroy his planes, his tanks, his carriers and his bombers, annihilate his military forces and the war is won. But if the superweapons of the nano-age are invisible, then just like invisible factories, they may present no target at which to strike. (5) And like molecular factories, they can be replaced quickly and cheaply if they are destroyed.
Military planners will seek a target that is large enough to find and hit, and that cannot be easily replaced. The natural choice, given the circumstances, will be civilian populations. Targeting civilian populations is not a general characteristic of modern, Western warfare (although there have been instances). Returning again to the example of World War II, we find that when it has occured, as in the German bombings of London, it was usually a choice made in desperation. So, too, will the future targeting of civilians be a choice of desperation, made by planners desperate for something they can find and destroy.
War in the "age of invisible machines," as we can see above, will be far more terrible than at any time in the past. Unfortunately, as these invisible machines make war more terrifying, they also make it more likely. (This point will be explained below in The State of Nature.)
(1)The Elements of International Strategy, Halle, Louis J., University Press of America, Inc., 1984, p. 78
(2)It is understandable, but it is also indicative of a radical misunderstanding of what nuclear weapons are used for. A bipolar system is inherently unstable. Without the threat of total annihilation in the event of hostilities, the U.S./U.S.S.R rivalry may have ended the same way that the Rome/Carthage rivalry did: with the destruction of one by the other. The nuclear deterrent of the Cold War worked, and it preserved the peace. Disarmament, had it taken place, may have open the door to war.
(4)In the case of the U.S., there is an ocean on either side, which makes invasion much more difficult. Invasion is also difficult in Switzerland, which is nestled in a high mountain range.
(5)This will depend on what machines are used to detect and destroy them. Antibodies, for instance, are able to detect and destroy invisible invaders; "invisible" does not necessarily equate to "undetectable" or "indestructible." However, it is in general easier to hide a small thing than it is to find it.