This tiny excerpt in Jane's hints that nanotech could be used to increase the potency of chemical weapons by permitting them to selectively target organs.
Almost 80% of the article is reserved for subscribers. Let's see what a bit of scanning of open sources on the net can reveal about the likely content, shall we?
A January piece in Technology Review points to the use of nanometals to create superthermites via nanoaluminum and iron oxide; such nanoenergtics promises thermobaric cave-busting thermobaric weapons much more powerful than the vaunted "Daisy Cutter" or MOAB. Not that portable thermobarics couldn't be used for urban ops or cave assaults.
Nanotech could possibly enable compact nuclear detonators, making briefcase nukes capable of taking down a building a reality. A Jane's expert is quoted as saying that the United States, Germany, and Russia were funding research in that direction.
This 2004 piece in The Bulletin warns that carbon nanotubes could conceivably be used to enhance toxin delivery in bioweapons, even enabling them to bypass immune defenses acquired by vaccination, as well as making more durable bioweapons. Nonlethal anti-materials nanotech is also mentioned, though such weaponry was conceptualized at least as far back as 1994.
The United States is currently leading in nanotech investment, though China claimed to be third after Japan for nanotech patents in 2003.
It's not all bad. Nanotech is also being developed for defensive purposes against biological and chemical weapons.
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