Nanotechnology in a Globalized World: Strategic Assessments of an Emerging Technology.

摘要

Often hailed as the next technological revolution, nanotechnology is being pursued by countries aspiring to enhanced wealth and influence in world politics. Nanotechnologies are enabling technologies with the potential to significantly alter the modern world, from fields as far flung as warfare to industrial design to medicine to social and human engineering. Nanotech is not merely about size, it is about the unique physical, chemical, biological and optical properties that emerge naturally at the nanoscale and the ability to manipulate and engineer such effects. It is a broad new area of science, involving physics, chemistry, biology, materials science, and engineering at the nanoscale. Seizing the technological lead in nanotech is often viewed as an imperative for global economic competitiveness and 21st century defense. Technological change offers both hope and concern over national prosperity and security. It raises the prospects of tremendous increases in wealth, productivity, and quality and length of life. Technological change, however, can disrupt entire national and global industries and dramatically shift the relative wealth of nations if the technology in question is truly revolutionary. Technological change can restructure warfare and defense, empower non-state actors as well as states, and wreak destruction on human life and the environment.