Nano, the New Nuclear?

Sreeram Yashasvi, reporting from the Disarmament and International Security Council (DISEC), tracks an interesting discussion as the committee tried to tackle the growing threat of new weapons.

The discussion started off with the Delegate of Saudi Arabia stating that unconventional weapons were still primitive and that it would take at least another fifty years to be deployed in the battlefield. He assured the committee that these unconventional weapons were not of immediate concern.

This drew a flak from the Delegate of People's Republic China (China) who highlighted that robots which could be remotely hacked were already a reality. This he said translated into a serious threat which could have some serious implications. The Delegate stated that in the 21st century, anything virtual has the potential to be lethal and had to dealt with great care.

Several new weapon-technologies like the Directed Energy Weapon (DEW), Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV), and drones were mentioned by the Delegate of India. The Delegate also alleged that China was developing highly advanced hypersonic missiles and requested the committee to look into this.

Nano-weapons can be deadlier than Nuclear weapons warned the Delegate of Norway. He reminded the committee that their size makes it all the harder to even detect and prevent an attack. He suggested that nano technology prowess could define superpowers in the twenty-first century. He also warned the committee about nanobots which could be a very tricky issue to deal with as it has some serious applications in medicine as well as military.

The definition of these new, unconventional weapons should be on the basis of principle and not on the basis of the criteria felt the Delegate of the Russian Federation. He went onto elaborate on three possible categorizations which could efficiently classify the unconventional weapons and gives countries more space to manoeuvre.

This categorization was opposed by many countries notably by the Delegate of Germany who pointed to historic evidence which showed how a definition by principle had not gone down well in the United Nations.

The committee was able to cover a lot of new technologies which could prove to be highly disruptive in the near future but fell short on the important job of properly defining what an unconventional weapon is or would be.