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 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.
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On the last page of her 4-page testimony of April 9, 2003, to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, allocating funds for nanotechnology, Christine Peterson, president of Drexler's Foresight Institute, wrote two lines that are so paradoxical, horrible Ñ nay, obscene Ñ that I am not sure it is proper to quote them publicly. She wrote at the very end of her statement that
there is no guarantee that the U.S., an ally, or other democracy will be the first to reach molecular manufacturing, and failure to do so would be military disaster.
Dr. Peterson did not mention China. That would have been so scandalous that the Congressional Committee would no doubt have requested her psychiatric examination. She merely conjectured that not all countries are democracies, and not all of them are as small as Iraq or North Korea. Hence, a dictatorship, such as China, or perhaps Russia if it becomes a dictatorship again, or both of them in Òstrategic partnership,Ó may be the first to reach molecular manufacturing, that is, molecular nano weapons (Dr. Peterson did not mention the words ÒweaponsÓ or ÒwarÓ either). In short, her testimony contained the most delicate hint possible, but the meaning of such hints has been so outrageous to nano businessmen that they have been insulting Dr. Eric Drexler (the founder of nano technology in general) as an ignorant and dangerous quack, war monger, and enemy of mankind. Thus, Richard Smalley, working in a peaceful and practical field of nanotechnology, declared that Drexler had invented a ÒmonsterÓ that Òscared our children.Ó
Why children? Well, a normal adult will not believe Drexler's nonsense Ñ only children are its victims.
But here is Drexler in a different key. It seems that he is described by his favorite disciple from the Foresight Institute. We learn that as Òa pioneer of nanotechnology, Dr. K. Eric DrexlerÓ
introduced the term ÒnanotechnologyÓ in the mid-1980s. It describes atomically exact molecular manufacturing systems and their products. Afterward, he received the first and only doctorate Òin the field of nanotechnologyÓ from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991. By publishing his research work, ÒNanosystems,Ó in 1992, he introduced to the world the core physical principles of nanotechnology.
And so it goes on:
A leader in nanotechnology design, he is still engaged in nanotechnology research. He will undoubtedly be considered a hero of the technology of the next century.
Next century? Yes, the above hymn to Drexler was published on Oct. 15, 2001. Where? In ÒChina Daily,Ó a government tabloid of the People's Republic of China.
The article is entitled ÒAll Things Are Possible.Ó
The title is crucial. From 1938 onward some nuclear scientists who had fled from anti-Semitism in Europe to the United States insisted, led by Einstein, that Òthe atom bombÓ was possible. Others claimed that these scientists were simply in a panic at the prospect of Hitler's world domination. Still others opined that Òthe atom bombÓ might be possible, though it was not clear when.
No private corporation would touch the Manhattan Project with a barge-pole. To be acceptable by business, the project should have cost, say, $100 billion (in $2004 U.S. dollars) before its completion and then sell for a price no lower than 30 percent above its cost. Profit!
Actually, while its cost was to be indefinitely high, its profit was zero except the victory (over Japan), but this is not a profit in the business sense. From the point of view of business, the Manhattan Project was a tremendous money-loser.
After 3 or 4 years of procrastination, the U.S. government started the Manhattan Project in 1942 in all earnest because Hitler had launched in 1939 a conventional war for his world domination Ñ the United States was at war with Germany, which was developing Òthe atom bombÓ as those terrified Jewish nuclear scientists from Europe (plus Fermi, whose wife was Jewish) kept reminding.
ÒAll things are possibleÓ with molecular nanotechnology, including molecular nano weapons. But the development of molecular nano weapons, able to create a nano Mutual Assured Destruction, may be no more expensive than was the development of Òthe atom bomb,Ó yet no more profitable in the business sense of the word Òprofit.Ó
Even in Russia I knew that in the United States, business, profit, private enterprise, are held in greater reverence than in any other country. But recently I saw that I had not known enough. A billionaire, who inherited his billions from his father after the latter's demise (at the age of 90) and began to work every weekday from 9 to 5 to obtain the maximum profit from the money inherited, told me, without any acrimony: ÒYou have never worked a day in your life.Ó
He knew that my life was daily work: before our emigration from Russia in 1971, I translated Russian classical literature into English, from 1972 to 1991 I tried to draw Western public attention to the danger of Soviet development of post-nuclear superweapons, and from 1986 to this day I did the same with respect to China. I physically wrote, studied, edited, or spoke on radio and television every day, including weekends.
But to this billionaire who inherited his billions of dollars from his father I never worked a day in my life, for work is business (from the word ÒbusyÓ) and hence profit. Now, where are my billions of dollars?
Where are Drexler's billions of dollars? On the other hand, Mark Modzelewski called Drexler's pastime Òplaying with futuristic sci-fi notionsÓ and helped the Congress to deny any government allocations to Drexler and his Institute. To be sure! Modzelewski was at that time the head of the NanoBusiness Alliance. The very name suggests billions of dollars in profit, and surely they would become this pushy young businessman, looking on the photograph like a schoolboy, but he has lost his high business post.
The Congressional Committee that left Drexler without Òallocations,Ó that is, the United States without defense, was chaired by Senator John McCain. The other day I saw him in a television interview. Asked why France had opposed the United States on the Òpreemptive warÓ on Iraq, he answered that France is like a woman still expecting men to pay for her dinner, but finding that they do not.
This witticism (shall I call it a McCainism?) cannot be interpreted or commented on. It can only be accompanied with a TV image of his puffy face (do women pay for HIS dinner?).
Similarly, discussing the allocations for nanotechnology, Senator McCain said:
Had I the chance to do it [his life[ again, I would strongly consider a career in the nanotechnology industry after all the millions of dollars in Member adds nanotechnology received in this bill.
From this McCainism, it is clear that McCain was against allocations for the entire nanotechnology. But finally nano business received its allocations for the next few years of the 21st century, while the nanotechnology essential for the defense against the nano annihilation of the United States (or the West in general) was ÒomittedÓ from the Act for the forthcoming years.
Suppose that though Drexler et al. have shown that the nano Manhattan Project will be not so expensive and prolonged, a certain nano sage has convinced the credulous world that the probability of development of molecular nano weapons is only 1 percent, provided the investment will amount to 1 trillion.
The U.S. nano businessmen like that youthful but now retired Modzelewski would roar with laughter: ÒWhat idiots would invest in such a project?Ó
The Òsupreme leadersÓ of China. Those who will win such a 1% prize will gain the world. While Modzelewski will be reduced to atoms.
On July 6, 2004, it became known that in 2002 China accounted for more than $2.5 billion worth of Russia's military export contracts signed that year, that is, far more than all other countries put together. This seems illogical. The Òsupreme leadersÓ of China are planning the takeover of the globe by post-nuclear superweapons and here they buy those conventional Russian weapons which they cannot buy from Boeing or General Motors because the United States do not produce them (as yet).
Here there is an analogy between money in business and power in dictatorship. In business, money is never enough. The question: ÒWhy do you need $10 billion, if $1 billion is enough to last you and your wife, and provide for your children?Ó is irrelevant. Similarly, military power for dictatorship is never enough. It should come from all possible sources. The more the better.
There is an old Oriental ditty about the argument between the gold and the sword.
Lev Navrozov's (navlev@cloud9.net] new book is available on-line at www.levnavrozov.com. To request an outline of the book, send an e-mail to webmaster@levnavrozov.com.
The gold: ÒI will buy all there is on earth.Ó
The sword: ÒI will take all you will buy.Ó