CHINESE NANOWARFARE COULD DESTROY OUR ABILITY TO DETER OR RETALIATE AGAINST A NUCLEAR ATTACK

CHINESE NANOWARFARE COULD DESTROY OUR ABILITY TO DETER OR RETALIATE AGAINST A NUCLEAR ATTACK

"The word ‘nano’ means ‘one billionth.’ Nanotechnology is a field of many fields, some of them civilian, dealing with such small systems. What is of interest to us is tiny systems (they are called ‘assemblers’) of molecular nanotechnology. Such assemblers can penetrate molecules and transform or destroy them.
"The world peace has been based on Mutual Assured Destruction. That is, every nuclear power such as the United States, Russia, or China has had means of nuclear retaliation, which an enemy nuclear attack cannot destroy. Thus, nuclear weapons can destroy New York, Moscow, or Beijing, but they cannot destroy submarines deep underwater, carrying nuclear missiles, underground nuclear installations, or bombers on duty high in the air carrying nuclear bombs. Nano assemblers are expected to be able to find these means of retaliation and destroy them by penetrating in between their atoms. Thus an attacked country can be destroyed safely by nuclear weapons because it has no means of nuclear retaliation to retaliate after the enemy nuclear attack and destroy the attacker by way of Mutual Assured Destruction. …
"Let me recall the description a nanotechnologist has e-mailed to me. A molecular assembler I spoke about is a device capable of breaking and creating the chemical bonds between atoms and molecules. Since a molecular assembler is by definition able to self-replace, the first could build a duplicate copy of itself. Those two then become four, become eight, and so on. This compounding capital base could lead to a massive and decisive force within days. As Eric Drexler described it in his book – which he published in 1986! – ‘a state that makes the assembler breakthrough could rapidly create a decisive military force – if not literally overnight, then at least with unprecedented speed.’
"Such a device is capable of rapidly manufacturing and deploying billions of microscopic/macroscopic machines at relatively little cost. These machines could comb the oceans for enemy submarines and quickly disable the nuclear arsenals they carry. Similar acts of sabotage could be carried out simultaneously against land-based nuclear facilities and conventional military forces in a matter of hours, if not minutes.

"The race to build a molecular assembler, if won by China, will result in its worldwide nanotechnic dictatorship. We are certainly at a crucial juncture in history, not unlike 1938 and its nuclear scientists who foretold the atom bomb. This time, we cannot afford to be caught sleeping." 

Source: Lev Navrozov, NewsMax.com, 9/26/03