Weapons of mass destruction

A basic and deliberately limited definition for the term weapons of mass destruction, also known as WMD, comes from the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction of 2002:

"Weapons of mass destruction (WMD)--nuclear, biological, and chemical--in the possession of hostile states and terrorists represent one of the greatest security challenges facing the United States." Also included in this category are missiles capable of reaching both the United States and U.S. interests abroad.

This limited "NBC" definition also occurs in other official and quasi-official projects such as the Nuclear Threat Initiative. However this focus may be a distraction, similar to the notion of cyberterror or cyberwar, intended to move attention away from several facts that are rarely or never mentioned by any official American document:

• The United States "enjoys" clear superiority in nuclear weapon, biological weapon and chemical weapon technologies, and has stockpiles of nuclear and other weapons sufficient to wipe out Earth's whole population.
• The United Nations prefers a wider definition of WMD than the old NBC trio - including radiological weapons. Also the American Committee for the United Nations University in its 2001 State of the Future report cited the Swedish Peace Insitute and other sources as arguing that artificial intelligence, genetics, proteomics, molecular engineering had vastly greater potential than NBC weapons to destroy not only human but all life on Earth, within credible near-term development pathways. Early promoters of some of these technologies actually tend to have the most cautionary views: Hugo de Garis, K. Eric Drexler, Bill Joy, and recently Martin Rees, the UK Astronomer-Royal, have made such apocalyptic predictions.
• Various US think tanks, e.g. Foresight Institute, and corporations, e.g. Zyvex, and even some nonprofit 'charities', e.g. Singularity Institute, are actively researching these technologies and effectively promoting them - they have been successful in achieving vast investments from the US military-industrial complex, e.g. the National Nanotechnology Initiative funded under the Clinton Administration. By contrast the Chinese initiatives in this area have been mostly privately funded with medical or materials objectives.

Aside from the pro-technology propaganda implied in, and spurred by, the above, use of industry-friendly experts (e.g. Richard Smalley, Hans Moravec or Ray Kurzweil) or balanced experts (as Drexler and de Garis have become), some use of raising standards of evidence and a very notable degree of replacing credible with sensational claims is common in any debate around such an expanded debate on the destructive potential of post-NBC weaponry.

Given their "lead", it is absolutely inimical to the interests of the US military-industrial complex to see open debate of such technologies, or of their relenquishment along lines Joy advises, or a cessation of research in certain fields as Rees has advised. The debate over whether nanotechnology requires a Precautionary Principle approach has been marked by strong positions taken by the Texas Nanotechnology Initiative and National Nanotechnology Initiative that molecular engineering does not lead necessarily to dangerous technology such as artificial life, while the ETC Group and Center for Responsible Nanotechnology take the opposite position. The Foresight Institute has taken a middle position but is often discredited by the cautionary side for its pointing out and then ignoring ethics issues, and for the promoters for pointing them out at all.

What is truly remarkable is that these increasingly public debates which have gone on for years, are successfully kept out of the spolight reserved for "NBC" threats. This suggests that the public relations crisis of US complicity in spreading dangerous technology has, so far, been quite successfully managed.

Other Related SourceWatch Resources

• ETC Group
• Homeland defense
• Homeland security
• Foresight Institute
• Nuclear Threat Initiative
• Pro-technology propaganda
• Texas Nanotechnology Initiative
• National Nanotechnology Initiative
• Center for Responsible Nanotechnology
• House Science Committee Hearing on the Societal Implications of Nanotechnology

External Links

• Weapons of mass destruction - Wikipedia
• Nicholas D. Kristoff, Missing in Action: Truth, The New York Times, May 6, 2003.