This important article on new weapons systems was originally publisehd in Russian in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, translated by Guerman Grachev for Pravda.ru
Speaking at the Moscow Institute of Foreign Relations on September 1st, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: “An arms race is entering its new stage. There is a threat of new weaponry looming on the horizon.” What exactly did he mean by saying that?
From hypothesis to reality
The pace of continuous progress made by science and technology keeps growing faster. Scientists and military analysts point out the emergence of fundamentally new types of weapons including those of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the new future. In the late 1990s, the then Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev sounded a note of warning as he spoke about “the use of new physical principles for building weaponry with new applications in both strategic and tactical levels, is yet another qualitative leap in the change and development of ways and methods of warfare.”
Hostilities between thousands of armed men involved in physical annihilation of one another in the battlefield may be rendered obsolete by the latest developments in science and technology. The existing types of weapons may be superseded by devices capable of causing latent damage to the human body by disrupting its viability and immune system. As a result, the human body will either completely destroyed or immobilized for a long time.
The results of the use of certain hypothetical types of WMD may be felt in the long run, perhaps years or decades following the exposure to the effects of the above. The effects of certain types of new weapons can be used selectively, and thus an attacker will be able to steadfastly decimate an opponent’s personnel while effectively reducing the number of its own casualties. The above circumstance creates more incentives for developing new types of weapons.
Geophysical weapons ...
EMP weapons ...
Laser weapons ...
Acoustic weapons...
