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Disruptive Tech: "3D Printing Could Undermine Sanctions," “Reducing barriers to arms manufacturing” is just one of the consequences playing out from the adoption of revolutionary 3D printers. The price of printers has come down from half a million dollars to less than $10k, and the expiration of several key patents is making much more possible. It has the power to decentralize production and, powered by robotic factory work, forever alter the economics of manufacturing. 3D printing may even have the power to undermine the reach of defense contractors, who build weapons, tanks, planes and more that reach American troops, and through foreign aid and weapons transfers, foreign military forces – friend and foe alike – around the world as well. Already, a true next-gen entrepreneur named Cody Wilson has caused a stir with his plastic 3D printed gun known as the “Liberator.” The blueprint for this legal, lethal do-it-yourself weapon was downloaded over 100,000 times and can be built from any location with a consumer-grade 3D printer. It became something of a philosophical threat to the establishment. Homeland Security, the FBI, the ATF, the Joint Regional Intelligence Center and others took notice. News outlets like ABC News highlighted it as a threat to security, labeling the ‘invisible, nearly untraceable’ weapon an “assassin’s dream”: Inventor Cody Wilson, on the otherhand, identified it as a political act of resistance against the collectivist system:
Today, it is not just individual weapons, but the larger system that has has experts and analysts paying attention. 3D printing stands to shake up the status quo for defense contractors, distant military outposts and asymmetrical warfare including from so-called “terrorist” groups:
Consider a conflict zone like Afghanistan, where the effectiveness of soldiers is constantly undermined by rough terrain, difficult supply chains and the cooperation of local tribe leaders. Plans for manufacturing goods, textiles, weapons and even food can be downloaded and enable production anywhere that printers and raw materials are available.
For better or worse, those inside the Heart of Darkness aren’t as cut off any longer when it comes to the materials that could make or break military campaigns. That could empower small bands of resistance fighters, too, including those branded as terrorists.
Again, 3D printing is a double-edged sword with effects for better and probably also for worse. Morally neutral technology that is proving more and more likely to disrupt the established norms. It may also have enormous impact on the the effectiveness of sanctions as alternate means to war-without-war. As it stands today, countries like Russia or Iran, who are perceived to be rogue, hostile or heavy-handed on the international stage can be weakened or controlled through economic pressure on imports and exports – much as siege in war cuts of supplies and forces capitulation. But that, too, may change:
Key patents have now expired, allowing more points of production with increasingly advanced techniques – potentially anywhere, and everywhere:
All this makes human labor cheaper than ever, too, with the possible impacts on the economy far reaching and perhaps crippling. Yet, the freedom to create components and parts, and eliminating the need to source and ship them, could also unleash new modes of productivity. How will 3D printing change your life? Will it empower an independent and sovereign lifestyle, or doom the masses to poverty in a collapsed system run by robots and computers? It all just depends…
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