Will Eric Drexler save the West from nano annihilation?

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See the Lev Navrozov Archive By Lev Navrozov SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM Lev Navrozov emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1972 He settled in New York City where he quickly learned that there was no market for his eloquent and powerful English language attacks on the Soviet Union. To this day, he writes without fear or favor or the conventions of polite society. He chaired the "Alternative to the New York Times Committee" in 1980, challenged the editors of the New York Times to a debate (which they declined) and became a columnist for the New York City Tribune. His columns are today read in both English and Russian.

The predecessor of hypothesized nano superweapons was Òthe atom bomb,Ó which was hypothesized since 1900 and became a reality in 1945. How and why did the United States win the Òatom bombÓ race against Hitler's Germany?

A Russian surrealist poet, Andrei Belyi, wrote in 1900: ÒThe atom bomb in the experiments of the Curies. . . .Ó The French scientists Marie and Pierre Curie had discovered in 1898 radioactivity. In 1938, the German scientist Otto Hahn discovered the chain reaction.

The Jewish nuclear scientists who had emigrated from the Nazi and Fascist Europe to the United States were ÒhystericalÓ: what if Hitler had developed the atom bomb ahead of the United States? Then the world would be his.

On their insistence, Einstein wrote a letter to Roosevelt, who ignored it. But the United States was at war with Hitler's Germany! So finally, in 1942 (not in 1938!) the Manhattan Project was in full swing, and in 1945 the atom bomb was ready.

Let's have a look inside Germany. Before launching in 1939 his conventional war for world domination, Hitler had asked Robert Schumann (yes, the composer's grandson!), in charge of the nuclear project, about the atom bomb: was it a scientific fantasy, or if it was real, when could it be experienced? Schumann was afraid to commit himself and was evasive. So Hitler launched the conventional world war. If he had not, and had concentrated, instead, on the atom project, the world would be his, as the Jewish emigre scientists feared.

Eric Drexler did not write a letter in 1986 to President Reagan about the possibility of development of nano superweapons in Soviet Russia or in China ahead of the United States. Instead, he published a book entitled ÒEngines of CreationÓ and subtitled ÒThe Coming Era of Nanotechnology.Ó

If I still had had an influence with President Reagan, I would have convinced him to read the book as he might a letter addressed to him by Drexler, the Einstein of nanotechnology, who coined the word ÒnanotechnologyÓ itself. But Reagan's National Security Advisor, Richard V. Allen, through whom I had dealt with President Reagan, had been fired as a result of an idiotic smear campaign in the media.

In the United States today there are no Jewish emigre nano scientists from China who would be ÒhystericalÓ that the autocrats of China will develop the molecular nano assembler ahead of the United States.

Let me recall again that molecular nano assemblers are expected to do in warfare what nuclear weapons cannot, for all their awesome ability to ÒblastÓ New York, Moscow, or Beijing. World peace has been based on Mutual Assured Destruction. If a nuclear power nukes another nuclear power, the latter has means of nuclear retaliation (such as submarines deep under water with nuclear missiles aboard), which nuclear weapons cannot destroy and which will destroy the nuclear attacker in nuclear retaliation. Molecular nano assemblers as they are hypothesized by Drexler are ÒenginesÓ or Òmachines,Ó or Òrobots,Ó or Òcomputers,Ó out of atoms and can find a submarine deep under water and destroy it together with its nuclear missiles. Whereupon the attacked country can be reduced by the nano attacker to dust without any danger of nuclear retaliation from the country attacked.

But how many American have heard even the word ÒnanoÓ itself?

On June 19, 2000, Jiang Zemin, at that time Òthe supreme leader of China,Ó spoke in his interview about nanotechnology, and his interview was broadcast, telecast, printed and quoted all over China. In the United States? What president spoke of nanotechnology?

Besides, while in 1942 the United States was at war with Germany, today the United States is at love with China, as Barry Farber quipped, when I spoke on his radio program on Dec. 6 and 7.

Drexler, the Einstein of nanotechnology, is no part of any government nano Manhattan Project. This role belongs to the NNI, National Nanotechnology Initiative, while Drexler co-founded in 1986 a nonprofit called ÒForesight Institute,Ó of which he is chairman.

And here comes the supreme irony of it all: the U.S. NNI policy has tacitly denied the military aspects of nanotechnology. Imagine the U.S. Manhattan Project policy of tacit denial of the military importance of nuclear power, the implication being that the Manhattan Project, with all the money allocated for it, should concentrate on the development of nuclear power as fuel. Long ago Drexler challenged: would anyone defend scientifically the U.S. policy in nanotechnology?

One reservation is in place. Dr. Drexler is not that kind of defense fiend who sees nothing in nanotechnology except its prospective ability to nano-annihilate the United States if a Òstrategic adversaryÓ develops it, and except the need for defense of the United States against this nano-annihilation. His book of 1986 is entitled ÒEngines of Creation.Ó It is about the boundless creative possibilities of nanotechnology. But Dr. Drexler has not been closing his eyes to the ugly truth that, just as nuclear power was not, in 1942, only the prospective fuel for electrical stations, nanotechnology may turn out to be not only the boundless creativity for the benefit of mankind. Hence one chapter in his book is entitled ÒEngines of Destruction.Ó

On December 1, 2003, it became known that Rice University Professor Richard Smalley had responded to a longstanding challenge by Dr. Eric Drexler to defend what he regards as the erroneous direction of U.S. policy in nanotechnology. In his ÒEngines of CreationÓ and other books (see the next paragraph!), Drexler defined the original goals for nanotechnology. Drexler fears that national policyÑwhich currently rejects those goalsÑis hampering dialog, increasing security risks, and failing to deliver on revolutionary expectations. Smalley, a specialist in carbon nanotubes, has been the most vocal detractor of the original goals. Their four-part exchange, sponsored by the American Chemical Society, is the Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) cover story. As described by Deputy Editor-in-Chief Rudy Baum, the controversy centers on Òa fundamental question that will dramatically affect the future.Ó

Drexler's book of 1986 is too well known to be ignored even by detractors. But they seem to ignore the fact that he wrote an advanced technical text, ÒNanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and ComputationÓ (Wiley, 1992) which outlines technical development plans and designs for components of molecular manufacturing. The study is certainly a major contribution to a fundamental literature behind molecular nano assemblers and makes Drexler's argument much more lucid and cogent.

Drexler and his associates, disciples, and followers are NOT arguing about increasing the relative importance of assemblers versus, for example, carbon nanotubes. It should be understood that the current governmentøNNI policy completely excludes research involved in molecular nano assemblers because of the false non-feasibility argument as put forward by Smalley with peremptory categorical zeal.

Dr. Smalley's research has nothing to do with the military applications of nanotechnology. Molecular assemblers, Ònano robots,Ó or ÒnanobotsÓ will, in his opinion, never exist, and certainly their development should not be financed by the U.S. government.

Smalley sounds like a pacifistÑhe does not want to see any possibility, no matter how remote, of any military danger of molecular nano assemblers, developed by a geostrategic adversary ahead of the democratic West. What else is new? In 1938 and until Hitler gobbled up the Òrump of CzechoslovakiaÓ in 1939 and invaded Poland, many or probably most inhabitants of the democratic West believed that Hitler was a man of peace. Hence some American scientists (not the Jewish emigres from Europe) opined that the nuclear bomb was just a figment of scientific imaginationÑnot a single book, published before 1945, about Òfuture weaponsÓ or Òfuture warsÓ mentioned nuclear weapons.

Drexler has answered Smalley along the lines he reasoned in 1986ÑSmalley has said nothing new. Regarding U.S. policy, Drexler warms: ÒIn the global race toward advanced nanotechnology, the U.S. NNI leadership has its eyes closed, refusing to see where the race is headed. This creates growing risks of a technological surprise by a strategic adversary, while delaying medical, economic, and environmental benefits. It's time to remove the blinders and move forward with public dialogue and vigorous research, embracing the opportunities identified by Richard Feynman [the world-famous physicist whom Drexler considers his forerunner].

So, in China, its Òsupreme leaderÓ discussed nanotechnology in June 2000, and its military applications have been featured in the mass press such as ÒEvening Beijing.Ó In the United States, the Einstein of nanotechnology has still (in December 2003, and 17 years after the publication of his seminal book) to persuade the U.S. government as to the military applications of nanotechnology as against the pro-government voice of Smalley, bravely refusing to see the world beyond his carbon nanotubes.

Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that Drexler is wrong and Smalley is right. What would be the danger? The U.S. government would spend, without any practical result, on the development of molecular nano assemblers and the defense against them, 3 or 10 or 20 billion dollars, a tiny fraction of what has been and will be spent on the war in Iraq and its restoration.

Now, let us conjecture, for the sake of argument, the opposite. What would be the danger? That the West, including Dr. Smalley and his carbon nanotubes, would be reduced to dust or would surrender unconditionally to become a vast Hong Kong.