New "WMD" Definition?

Via Mark Grimsley, Peter Singer of the Brookings Institute suggests that the new definition of "weapons of mass destruction" will be genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics - "GNR" - instead of nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons.

Yesterday Peter Singer, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, gave a presentation at Ohio State’s Mershon Center entitled “Wired for War: Science Fiction, Science Reality and the 21st Century Battlefield.” In it, he argued that GNR would replace NBC as the acronym for the most feared forms of technological warfare. NBC, of course, stands for “Nuclear, Biological, Chemical.” GNR stands for “Genetics, Nanotechnology, Robotics.”

The presentation was basically a report on a book in progress concerning the weaponization of these technologies and the development of other weapons of future war. Singer said that a lot of these projects were direct outgrowths of ideas from science fiction, that science fiction writers have been regularly consulted by the DoD, and that, to get funding for a project, a solid reference to science fiction is de rigueur.

I like the idea in concept. NBC weapons are so twen-cen. The Singer link unfortunately has no transcript to allow much discussion, but it's interesting that people want so badly to associate mass casualties with particular forms of technology, without considering how they're used, against what targets, in what quantities and under what conditions. That is to say, GNR weapons sound sexy, but will they result in the same lack of historical use and overexcited predictions of "it's not a matter of if but when" as NBC weapons have?

Comments

[Urinated State of America]

"That is to say, GNR weapons sound sexy, but will they result in the same lack of historical use and overexcited predictions of "it's not a matter of if but when" as NBC weapons have?"

Man, it's hard to think of a worse lump-unrelated-crap together concept than NBC/WMD, but Singer has done it.

If you exclude chip making from nanotech (and I would), nanotech doesn't have a friggin' decent commercial application yet, except paints and stain-proof fibers. And here we are shitting ourselves over fantasy boogey-things like grey goo and Drexel machines.

"That is to say, GNR weapons sound sexy, but will they result in the same lack of historical use and overexcited predictions of "it's not a matter of if but when" as NBC weapons have?"

Is there any doubt about this? We'll be chasing our fucking tails about Lego robotics sets and the kids 'CSI' DNA testing kits they're selling at Target.

This needs strangulation at birth.

[Robot.Economist]

I like Peter Singer - he's definitely an innovative thinker - but I think his "GNR" formula won't pan out. Nanotech is definitely an unknown quantity when it comes to weapons, but I don't really see how robotics qualifies. We have plenty of smart weapons and unmanned vehicles, but the smart or unmanned parts aren't what is dangerous - its the type of weapons associate with them.

Genetics could go either way. Genetically engineering disease vectors to afflict certain targets (i.e. races or genders) seems plausible. I am dubious as to whether such a threat will materialize because it may be impossible to arrest the natural mutation process outside of lab conditions. Man has a history of timidity when it comes to biological weapons (too afraid to spread disease among neutral or friendly populations). I don't know if advances in genetics will take away some of the more dangerous question marks.

[Chris]

"and that, to get funding for a project, a solid reference to science fiction is de rigueur."

Well, that makes me feel warm and fuzzy about the review process for funding. If you send a model of the Enterprise from Star Trek, do you get 120 percent of what you asked?