In politics, diplomacy and export control, dual-use items refer to equipment, machines, goods and technology (both hardware and software) that can be used for both civilian and military applications.Exporting dual-use goods. European Commission (accessed Aug 2022)
More generally speaking, dual-use can also refer to any matériel or technology which can satisfy more than one goal at any given time. Thus, expensive technologies originally benefitting only military purposes would in the future also be used to serve peacetime civilian commercial interests if they were not otherwise engaged, such as the Global Positioning System developed by the U.S. Department of Defense.
The so-called "dual-use dilemma", where technologies that were initially developed for peaceful applications later undergo weaponization, has long been known in chemistry and physics. It was first noted with the invention of the Haber process for mass production of ammonia, which revolutionized agriculture with modern fertilizers but also led to the creation of chemical weapons during the First World War. The advent of nuclear physics and associated technologies, while first utilized in medicine in the form of radiography and radiation therapy, became instrumental in the development of mass-destruction atom bombs during the Second World War and Cold War, subsequently causing concerns regarding nuclear escalation, proliferation and the threat of nuclear terrorism and dirty bombs. These have led to international conventions and treaties, including the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Drones
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, are an example of dual-use technology, as similar systems may be used for civilian purposes such as photography, surveying and inspections, as well as for military reconnaissance, surveillance and other security applications. Their operation is subject to airspace restrictions, including no-drone zones and other geographical zones established around airports, military facilities, critical infrastructure and other sensitive locations. For example in Poland, civilian drone operations are regulated according to their level of risk and may fall within the open, specific or certified category.
The growing use of UAVs has also created challenges for military forces and operators of critical infrastructure, contributing to the development of counter-UAS systems, including interceptor drones designed to detect, track or neutralise hostile UAVs. Depending on their technical characteristics and intended use, such systems may be subject to military-product, aviation or export-control regulations, illustrating the difficulty of distinguishing between civilian and military applications of dual-use technologies.
Missiles
Originally developed as weapons during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union spent billions of dollars developing rocket technology which could carry humans into space (and eventually to the Moon). The development of this peaceful rocket technology paralleled the development of intercontinental ballistic missile technology; and was a way of demonstrating to the other side the potential of one's own rockets.
Those who seek to develop ballistic missiles may claim that their rockets are for peaceful purposes; for example, for commercial satellite launching or scientific purposes. However, even genuinely peaceful rockets may be converted into weapons and provide the technological basis to do so.
Within peaceful rocket programs, different peaceful applications can be seen as having parallel military roles. For example, the return of scientific payloads safely to earth from orbit would indicate re-entry vehicle capability and demonstrating the ability to launch multiple satellites with a single launch vehicle can be seen in a military context as having the potential to deploy multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles.
Nuclear Dual-use nuclear technology refers to the possibility of military use of civilian nuclear power technology. Many technologies and materials associated with the creation of a nuclear power program have a dual-use capability, in that several stages of the nuclear fuel cycle allow diversion of nuclear materials for nuclear weapons. When this happens a nuclear power program can become a route leading to the atomic bomb or a public annex to a secret bomb program. The crisis over Iran's nuclear activities is a case in point.
Many UN and US agencies warn that building more nuclear reactors unavoidably increases nuclear proliferation risks. A fundamental goal for American and global security is to minimize the proliferation risks associated with the expansion of nuclear power. If this development is "poorly managed or efforts to contain risks are unsuccessful, the nuclear future will be dangerous". For nuclear power programs to be developed and managed safely and securely, it is important that countries have domestic “good governance” characteristics that will encourage proper nuclear operations and management: These characteristics include low degrees of corruption (to avoid officials selling materials and technology for their own personal gain as occurred with the A.Q. Khan smuggling network in Pakistan), high degrees of political stability (defined by the World Bank as “likelihood that the government will be destabilized or overthrown by unconstitutional or violent means, including motivated violence and terrorism”), high governmental effectiveness scores (a World Bank aggregate measure of “the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures [and] the quality of policy formulation and implementation”), and a strong degree of regulatory competence.
Artificial intelligence
As more advances are made towards artificial intelligence (AI), it garners more and more attention on its capability as a dual-use technology and the security risks it may pose. Artificial intelligence can be applied within many different fields and can be easily integrated throughout current technology's cyberspace. With the use of AI, technology has become capable of running multiple algorithms that could solve difficult problems, from detecting anomalies in samples during MRI scans, to providing surveillance of an entire country's residents. Within the United States’ mass surveillance, the government uses AI in order to distinguish citizens with less than satisfactory records among crowds. This becomes apparent in the banking system as credit score. Every new invention or application made with AI comes with its own set of positive and negative effects. Some claim that, as potential uses for AI grow in number, nations need to start regulating it as a dual-use technology.
Chemical
The modern history of chemical weapons can be traced back to the chemical industries of the belligerent nations of World War I, especially that of Germany. Many industrial chemical processes produce toxic intermediary stages, final products, and by-products, and any nation with a chemical industry has the potential to create weaponised chemical agents. Chlorine is a chemical agent found within several household items such as Bleach and provides various benefits with its wide array of applications. However, its gaseous form can also be used as a chemical weapon.
Biological
The July 2007 terrorist attacks in central London and at Glasgow airport was a recent biosecurity wake-up call when it was discovered that doctors which could have access to pathogens were among the suspects. The challenge remains to maintain security without impairing the contributions to progress afforded by research.
Reports from the project on building a sustainable culture in dual-use bioethics suggest that, as a result of perceived changes in both science and security over the past decade, several states and multilateral bodies have underlined the importance of making life scientists aware of concerns over dual-use and the legal obligations underpinning the prevention of biological weapons. One of the key mechanisms that have been identified to achieve this is through the education of life science students, with the objective of building what has been termed a “culture of responsibility”.
At the 2008 Meeting of States Parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), it was agreed by consensus that: States Parties recognized the importance of ensuring that those working in the biological sciences are aware of their obligations under the convention and relevant national legislation and guidelines...States Parties noted that formal requirements for seminars, modules or courses, including possible mandatory components, in relevant scientific and engineering training programmes and continuing professional education could assist in raising awareness and in implementing the convention.UN (2008) "Report of the Meeting of States Parties", BWC/MSP/2008/5, 12 December 2008.
The World Health Organization in 2010 developed a "guidance document" for what it called "Dual Use Research of Concern" (DURC) in the life sciences, regarding “research that is intended [to] benefit, but which might easily be misapplied to do harm".
Along with several similar stipulations from other states and regional organisations, biosecurity education has become more important. Unfortunately, both the policy and academic literature show that life scientists across the globe are frequently uninformed or underinformed about biosecurity, dual-use, the BTWC and national legislation outlawing biological weapons.Mancini. G & Revill. J (2008) Fostering the Biosecurity Norm: Biosecurity Education for the Next Generation of Life Scientists, November 2008. Minehata. M and D. Friedman (2009) Biosecurity Education in Israeli Research Universities. Research Report for the Wellcome Trust Project on Building a Sustainable Capacity in Dual Use Bioethics. http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/sbtwc/dube/publications/Israel_BioSecReport_Final.pdf Moreover, despite numerous declarations by states and multilateral organisations, the extent to which statements at the international level have trickled down to multifaceted activity at the level of scientists remains limited.
The US federal government (USG) developed several policy documents on DURC. In May 2024, the White House published the "United States Government Policy for Oversight of Dual Use Research of Concern and Pathogens with Enhanced Pandemic Potential", "a unified federal oversight framework for conducting and managing certain types of federally funded life sciences research on biological agents and toxins." The policy superseded several prior documents, published in 2012, 2014, and 2017, and it follows the directives established by the 2022 National Biodefense Strategy and Implementation Plan.
Night-vision and thermal imaging Night-vision devices with extraordinary performance characteristics (high gain, specific spectral sensitivity, fine resolution, low noise) are heavily export-restricted by the few states capable of producing them, mainly to limit their proliferation to enemy combatants, but also to slow the inevitable reverse-engineering undertaken by other world powers.
These precision components, such as the image intensifiers used in night-vision goggles and the focal-plane arrays found in surveillance satellites and thermal cameras, have numerous civil applications which include nature photography, medical imaging, firefighting, and population control of predator species.
Night scenes of wild elephants and rhinos in the BBC nature documentary series Africa were shot on a Lunax Starlight HD camera (a custom-built digital cinema rig encompassing a Generation 3 image intensifier), and recolored digitally.