~ MonteSite

a 1999 science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke and Michael P. Kube-McDowell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trigger

It is an excellent attempt to explore the sociological impact of rapid
militarily significant technological change.

A group of scientists invent, by accident, a device that detonates all
nitrate-based explosives in its vicinity.

This provides good protection against most modern conventional weapons.

As the technique becomes more refined, safer, and more widely aplicable,
those who are threatened by it, and those who are threatened,
the old and the new, military, political, and economic, interests,
become more and more entrenched and embattled as benefactor
and threat relations change, yet seek to remain the same.

Some will always seek more change, and some will always seek more the same.