"Nanomania," "Nanoreality," and the future of warfare: Potential controversies of the military application of nanotechnologies

This paper examines the controversies that may arise from the application of nanotechnological innovations to the enhancement of military capabilities in the early twenty-first century, driven by the privileging of the neoliberal version of instrumental rationality at the expense of the formative social and political effects of weaponry. The author starts from the assumption that decision-making grounded in an understanding of weapons as value-neutral instruments of foreign and defence policy-that is, reducing their utility solely to their designed/technical operational characteristics and functions-creates room for new disruptive uncertainties and risks. The analysis adopts a critical-theoretical perspective and draws upon Ulrich Beck's concept of the risk society, Gilles Deleuze's and Félix Guattari's concept of desire, and Benjamin Meiches's concept of the affective power of weapons. It addresses the most plausible controversies, all sharing a common denominator in the form of the porous boundary between civilian and military research, the dual-use nature of nanotechnologies, and the complex regulation of innovations that can be readily redirected toward destructive purposes. The author concludes that the techno-optimism of political and military decision-makers, as a driving force behind the political constitution of nanoweapons, may further undermine the processes of shaping futuristic military imagination, perceiving the level of future threats, and defining the boundaries of acceptable violence.