I can see it now: just get the enemy to breathe in a cloud of nanobots, or have the bots enter their body through an open cut that they make, and the enemy’s body is yours: no violence needed.
We live in a terrifying time because there’s just no way to dodge this sort of stuff unless you have the EMP tech, since a Hazmat suit is unsustainable to don long-term.
EDIT: No, I didn’t watch anything! I’ve been reading about how nanobots are currently being used in the medical field to clear plaque from arteries, so I have simply been chugging with that train of thought in a more nefarious direction…
Chemical weapons appear as a much better option than viruses. Enemy is there, drop a nervine agent and everyone is dead. Wait for a while and you’re free to advance.
Viruses in much more difficult to operate: infect someone somehow - I guess a bomb or something like that could be used as well. Wait several months so that enemy actually gets infected on large scale, but not too long because most of them won’t be dying anyway and soon back to battlefield. In the meantime vaccinate the whole of your invasion army. Start producing massive quantities of vaccines just in case it spreads to your own country somehow and you’ll have to treat your own population.
Assuming you were able to create both the virus and the vaccine within the period the war lasted, it may give you some bit of advantage during a period of 1/2 months or something like that. Good enough if you’re able to win the war in such period, but if you’ve got that kind of money to spend I’m sure you’ve got way more efficient options.
Yep. Bio weapons are terrible in every way. Now that RNA vaccines are in production, making new vaccines just got a whole lot faster.