Talking nano at Stanford: Commercialization, not weaponization

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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.

When I received an invitation from yet another nanotechnological forum, I automatically decided not to go Ñ even without looking at its title.

In India, the largest democracy in history, to say nothing of China (the largest dictatorship in history), the word ÒnanotechnologyÓ includes military connotations. On July 1, 2004, President Abdul Kalam of India said that nanotechnology would Òrevolutionize total concepts of future warfareÓ and called on the country's scientists Òto make a breakthrough in this cutting edge technology.Ó

Curiously, the U.S. media did not report the speech, and I learned about it only because Isak Baldwin, manager of our Center for the Survival of Western Democracies, Inc., had found it in the Hindu News Update Service.

In the West, with the exception of Eric Drexler (the U.S. founder of nanotechnology) and some associates of his in his U.S. Foresight Institute, ignored by the U.S. government financially, the potential ability of molecular nano manufacturing to annihilate, for example, the United States, without U.S. retaliation, does not exist. Imagine the pre-1945 United States in which the military connotation of the word ÒnuclearÓ would not exist, while Nazi Germany would be developing nuclear weapons instead of launching a conventional war in 1939.

Here in front of me is a characteristic Western document of our time: ÒConference Programme 2004ø05Ó issued by the Institute of Nanotechnology (of the Royal Society, London). Four nanotechnological conferences are scheduled from November 2004 to March 2005. One of them is devoted to Òcrime prevention,Ó another to Òsmart textiles,Ó still another to Òscents and flavors,Ó and the last one to Òeducation and training.Ó Not a hint at molecular nanotechnology, able to lead to post-nuclear global-scale weapons. We are living under the pretense of a demilitarized world. India must thank her lucky stars for her independence, for otherwise she would be nano-annihilated by the dictators of China along with Britain.

The nanotechnological Forum in San Francisco took place on July 14, but on July 13 I had a two-hour telephone conversation with one of its organizers, Brian Sefton. He was the second speaker at the Forum.

He amazed me. He sounded as though he had read what I had been writing about Òthe China threat,Ó agreed, and reinforced my arguments with examples from China, where he had lived.

In our times of overall bureaucratization, my Internet readers ask me who ÒcontrolledÓ the 19 suicidal terrorists of Sept. 11 if I have demonstrated that Bin Laden had nothing to do with the suicidal terrorist act. So, you see, even suicidal terrorists who sentenced themselves to death cannot act on their own, but must belong to some bureaucracy. Similarly, many would assume that Brian was in China on behalf of a bureaucracy. Amazingly, this amazing man lived in China as part of his personal Òcircumnavigation of the globeÓ! No wonder he was so astute, mentally independent, intellectually bold in his observations!

He is in nanobusiness Ñ indeed, he consults it. But this does not prevent him from thinking freely and creatively about the development of molecular nano weapons in China. Indeed, he believes that the Stanford Research Institute in whose auditorium the Forum took place should do well to create an international nanosecurity section to watch and report the weaponization of molecular nanotechnology in China. Otherwise if the ÒChina threat crisisÓ comes, all nanotechnologists will be blamed for their lack of professional attention to the weaponization of nanotechnology in China though this weaponization has been figuring in the Chinese mainstream media for many years.

So my trip was worthwhile if only in order to meet Brian! WorldTribune.com paid my hotel and other expenses. I flew from New York at night, and in the morning of July 14, I was in the Stanford Research Institute Auditorium in San Francisco.

Here we were in a hall capable of seating 275 nanotechnological participants of the Forum. As is fashionable now, they were seated in chairs on a floor that sloped steeply from the podium, where the speaker was, to the top of the hall, where I sat. This was good for the speaker, since the audience could thus see well the screen above him on which his slides were projected. This was also good for me because if I stepped into the aisle between rows of chairs at the top of the slanting floor, I would be well seen by the entire audience, and nature has endowed me with the voice of a public speaker of 20 or 25 centuries ago, when there were no microphones.

I had guessed right: all the 6 half-hour presentations were about nanotechnology as business Ñ nanobusiness. One of the speakers, Dr. Nobi Kambe, Vice-President and founder of Nanogram, Inc., wishing to stress the international growth of nanotechnology, said that in the United States 15 percent of students study nanotechnology, while in China the figure is 50 percent.

That was my chance. After all, this was a FORUM Ñ I was surely entitled to express my opinion right after Dr. Kambe had finished.

I do not need reproduce all of my speech, since most of it is known to readers of my columns. I said that Dr. Kambe had mentioned the tremendous growth of nanotechnology in China compared with the United States. But he didn't tell us that in the United States, and in particular in this Forum, by nanotechnology is meant nano-business Ñ the nanocommercializtion, while in China the key direction of nanotechnology is not its COMMERCIALIZATION, but its WEAPONIZATION. You can see it even by reading the controlled Chinese mass press or the Internet.

And so on, in the spirit of my relevant columns.

What was Dr. Kambe's answer to my statement?

In my experience, one standard answer has been to say that I proceed from Drexler's theory, but Drexler (the founder of nanotechnology) is wrong (several insults follow as the best proof).

My objection is that if Drexler and his American supporters are wrong, then the Chinese nanotechnologists who respect Drexler and develop nano weapons are also wrong, as is the president of India with her inhabitants of about one billion. What if during WW2 the U.S. government had sided with those who were saying that the nuclear physicists believing in the possibility of nuclear weapons were wrong, while Nazi Germany would have developed them from 1939 to 1943 instead of launching a conventional war?

The other standard answer to my arguments would be that in the United States there exists a secret nano Manhattan Project for the development of molecular nano weapons. Surely the nuclear Manhattan Project was secret, and no one knew about it except those who worked for it. A Òsecret projectÓ was possible in Stalin's Russia: the scientists and all others connected with it lived within a closed territory under conditions luxurious by Soviet standards, and when one of them died, he or she was buried within the same territory in a special graveyard so that their corpses (if they were not cremated) could not be used by foreign intelligence/espionage to steal their identity.

The Manhattan Project was not secret in this sense. The families of its nuclear participants gossiped, and the knowledge of the project spread. The Soviet intelligence/espionage knew everything about it. The media did not report it only because it was wartime, and its laws applied.

If there existed a secret nano Manhattan Project, Drexler and its Foresight Institute Ñ as well as the Chinese intelligence/espionage would know about it. If the media reported it, no wartime laws would apply because there is no conventional Sino-American war.

Dr. Drexler is unique. He is an internationally known man of genius, the founder of nanotechnology. Who plays his role in that alleged secret nano Manhattan Project? An unknown secret Drexler, with an unknown secret Foresight Institute? While the real Drexler and his real Foresight Institute know nothing about their secret doubles?

However, Dr. Kambe had possibly never heard of an attack of nanobusinessmen on Drexler, nor of the canard that a secret nano Manhattan Project exists in the United States Ñ in peacetime!

So in his answer to me Dr. Kambe spoke of the need for friendly cooperation with all nations, including the Chinese people. To the left of me, near the left wall of the hall, there was a thin ripple of applause, but I stood up and declared to the speaker and the audience: ÒI have not been convinced.Ó

Curiously, anyone could argue with me (was it not a forum?), but no one did. Nor did any speaker after Kambe raise the issue.

After the lectures, the audience poured into an adjoining hall for a ÒreceptionÓ (or farewell party), and here the nanotechnologists began approaching me, expressing their interest in, and/or agreement with, what I had said in the auditorium. Those who gave me their calling cards for further association included Bo Varga, Managing Director, U.S. Business Development, ÒSilicon Valley Nano Ventures,Ó who had opened the Forum; Yigal Blum, Project Manager, Stanford Research Institute International; Sandra Kay Helsel, President, Sk Helsel; Robert D. Cormia, Foothill College; and Valerie K. Sermon, Director, NASA/Ames & Private Sector.

Needless to say, Brian and I parted as dear friends, co-thinkers, and, I hope, future collaborators.

I was riding to the San Francisco Airport with the young PR lady of the Forum. She said that had she known before the Forum about my statement at the Forum, she would have told about it to the media, and their sensational attention to the Forum might have ensued. As it was, the mainstream media had totally ignored the Forum, since nanobusiness is no longer news of general interest.