Nanotechnology paves way for new weapons
By Andrew Oppenheimer JCBW Editor
Nanotechnology has great potential in the fields of biotechnology and medicine. Bio-nanotechnology is concerned with molecular-scale properties and production of materials and devices including tissue and cellular engineering scaffolds, molecular motors and biomolecules for sensors and drug delivery. While bio-nanotechnological products are seen as around 10 years off, medical application is promising, with intense research being conducted in disease diagnosis, drug delivery and molecular imaging.
As with many technologies, the medical applications may be adapted for offensive purposes. Manipulation of biological and chemical agents using nanotechnologies could result in entirely new threats that might be harder to detect and counter than existing CBW.
Chemical weapons
Chemicals in nanoparticulate form currently account for only a tiny fraction of the world total (around 0.01 per cent) currently produced, although the market for nanoparticles is expected to increase during the next decade.
While the production of new chemical weapons is banned by the majority of nations, future techniques, depending on cost and ease of production, may be adopted by remaining countries with chemical weapons programmes and terrorist groups. A nano-enhanced chemical such as cyanide could be synthesised in far smaller amounts. The design of new agents that attack specific body organs such as the central nervous system would enable far smaller amounts of the chemical to be made without detection and would require only small, low-level facilities.
Other nanotechnology-based weapons might emerge from otherwise benign fields such as law enforcement in the creation of 'non-lethal weapons' for riot control and other policing operations. Some of these are currently permitted under the Chemical Weapons Convention. New delivery mechanisms to make incapacitating substances target more selectively could be adapted to more lethal uses.
