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U.S. Air Force Developing Microwave Weapon
Makarand writes "A weapon that uses an intense microwave pulse to fry electronics in computers
and communication systems is being developed by the US Air Force
according to this BBC News article. This weapon is totally harmless to people and could be used in
situations where hitting targets could result in civilian casualties.
This weapon could be carried by an unmanned drone or a cruise missile." EMP weapons have, in general, been under discussion and research for a very long time.
How is disabling electronics completely safe for civillians?
Just imagine this being used near a busy traffic intersection, or near a hospital.
people with pacemakers, or anyone nearby on life support or similar would still be affected.
This weapon is totally harmless to people and could be used in situations where hitting targets could result in civilian casualties
I don't think any army has ever been overly concerned with civilian casualties. The real boon for this is that it leaves strategic buildings intact for use by the bomb's owner.
The article itself is very light on information and does not offer anything other than pure speculation: "A micro-wave weapon may be under development... This weapon may be completely harmless to humans", yadda, yadda, yadda.
I think the United States are kind of pushing up one notch the "psychological warfare" and disinformation on Iraq.
This is not a troll: if you were going to launch a war soon, you'd want your enemies to believe you have several new, exotic and deadly weapons in your arsenal.
In the first Gulf War, Some Iraqi soldiers surrendered as soon as they saw unarmed drones. Drones are now armed, and dangerous, and some Yemenis terrorists learned this the hard way (meaning they were blown to smithereens by a Predator-launched missile.
Add some rumors -- before the conflict -- on how some drones may now carry some super duper microwave weapons and watch even more Iraqi soldiers surrender real quick when a drone flies over them...
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Yup. The news media can be explained simply in one word. Ratings.
People like smart weapons, so the media shows them. People like watching disasters and war, so the media shows them. Best personal analogy is slowing down to take a nosy at a car wreck.
If television news is your primary source of "news", then you simply don't have a clue.
To observe the obvious: the terrorists involved in 9/11 have no objection to "messy" images. They did target the WTC as a symbol of the US's economic hegemony, and the Pentagon as a symbol of the military -- but their specific targets had everything to do with inflicting lots of casualties in a "spectacular" way, too. "Terror" has a lot to do with bodies.
Forgive the lack of a clever twist on this post, but there it is.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
that the article mentioned that we could use these weapons in the war on Iraq...I didn't realize that we are at war with Iraq yet...
SIGFAULT
How many casualties have you actually seen in the news these days? From afghanistan or elsewhere?
Watch for casualty pictures in the news during the next gulf war (I hope not, but I'm a pessimist these days). Chances are, you might hear about casualties, but look for any actual dead bodies. They will not show them, because then it makes the war "real", and dirty, and unpopular.
1) Every description so far makes it sound like its just a case of stockpiling Faraday cages. Surely it can't be that simple to protect against?
/. posters suggest, and a simple bit of work with some metal in (1) doesn't protect against them, how powerful a battery-powered one can you fit in a 40ft container on the back of a lorry on Wall Street, in the centre of London, or even, say, a suburb of Redmond as an example? This strikes me as a far more useful weapon of Terror than those messy chemicals and biological agents that Frys or Radio Shack wouldn't sell you.
2) If a high power EMP device is as simple to make as several
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Then you'd get the 12 kg of Pu vaporized and in the air causing cancer for the next million years or so. Probably preferable to have it localised where it impacts and more easily recovered. (Unless that's the centre of a city.)
despite the fact that the US has signed treaties
...cause if someone believed that they can indeed survive a MAD scenario they may actually push the button.
That treaty had an exit clause that we chose to excercise. You can disagree with the policy but we are not doing anything "despite signing a treaty" nor are we "breaking a treaty." We have fulfilled every requirement of the treaty. In either event the treaty did not bar research only deployment in more than one location. (We never deployed any ABM systems despite being allowed by the treaty to do so in one location - IN SOVIET RUSSIA they chose to protect Moscow with an ABM system)
Even before the proliferation of nuclear weapons to many more unstable and unpredictable countries there was a good argument for ABM systems to *preserve* MAD. Prior to the development of precision guidance systems you could nuke your enemies missle silos but the weapons were so imprecise and the silos so well protected that even with nuclear warheads you were unlikely to destroy them. That all changed when the USA and much later the Soviets developed dependable precision warheads. A preemptive attack could have (for the most part) worked. We could have nuked them or vise versa and had a good chance of getting their weapons on the ground - the stability of mutual suicide was already being undermined. ABM would have restored it - nobody thinks or claims it would have been 100% effective but it would have made a preemptive strike infeasible.
In todays world things are different - we are worried about a handful of countries with only a handful of nukes each - There is no MAD balance of power between us and Korea, Pakistan, India, (Iran - soon)(Iraq - fairly soon if not prevented) or even China (for the moment, they're bulking up fast) A preemptive strike on our part against any of these countries would be effective. Right now it would be our only defense against being nuked by them if a crisis turns really ugly. If you don't think our military planning regarding Korea during this current crisis doesn't include nuking the location of the one or two nukes (assuming the CIA knows their location) as a last resort during a war you are naive. And if you don't think that this president (or ANY president) wouldn't use that option if he *thought* the likely alternative was several thousand American and several million South Koreans being reduced to glowing cinders you are very much mistaken. The absense of another alternative is much likely to cause us to rush into using an nightmare option which can only work if we beat them to the punch. Our options in a really nasty crisis with a minor nuclear power could narrow down very quickly to "nuke them... it's the only way to be sure". In the next decade we have no idea what kinds of crises we may be involved in. China is very close to invading Taiwan (which is certainly advanced enough and desperate to have their own nuclear program), A nuclear war between Pakistan and India is frighteningly likely. A preemptive strike by Isreal against Iran or Iraq (whichever gets nukes first) or vise versa will be a real possiblity by the end of the decade. How will we be involved, at what risk to our troops or our mainland (China can already hit us, N. Korean missile development which they will sell to the highest bidder is getting very advanced). I for one would rather we have options other than either rolling over to who knows what nightmares or unleashing a nightmare ourselves.
This is precisely why I'm glad I know how to fish, start a fire without matches, and otherwise generally survive in the wild.
Imagine if you will your world with no electronic devices. Not a lack of electricity, just a lack of devices that are working currently. No computers, no internet, no car, no stop lights, no elevators, no microwave ovens, no pizza deliver, nothing that requires electronic components.
Could you live in that world were you suddenly thrown into it?
The super market wouldn't have food for very long and of course everyone instantly becomes a looter.
Luckily buildings would still be standing. But could you heat and cool your home?
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
The U.S. Army doesn't "build" such weapons anyway, government contractors do, which are ordinary corporations whose goal is to make and sell products to make a profit and stay afloat. Any old customer will do, so they sell some of these weapons to other friendly nations. Those nations turn around and sell them to somewhat questionable nations. Those turn around and sell them to nations that we would never sell to, such as Iraq (for a huge sum, probably).
So, now, if we and our enemies both have such a weapon, who will sustain the most damage from its use? The U.S. of course! We are more dependent on electronics guidance systems and computers and radios than any 3rd world nation!
Iraq/Palestine/Al Qaeda are probably jumping for joy at this news. Dammit.
Sigh, you're right about deploying a system and I actually knew that and wasn't thinking of it (From what I understand my father actually did some work on this system). To be fair though a system that was deployed and abandoned the same year doesn't really seem worth much consideration.
All of the countries out there know what the use of nuclear weapons means. None of them are so stupid as to threaten the United States with the handful of weapons that they possess. Any American retaliation would mean annihilation. Yes North Korea is run by an evil man - but he's not insane enough to fire a missile at America.
Many of the nations we are talking about are not exactly the most stable, In North Koreas case neither is the individual in charge. Sure none would intentionally precipitate a crisis that leads to a nuclear exchange but it is naive to suppose that they wouldn't under any circumstances or to suppose that they have the wisdom to avoid those circumstances. Take North Korea for one example - the population is starving off by the hundreds of thousands, China has seen a sharp increase in the number of refugees despite the fact they are repatriated as a matter of course and usually killed or tortured & put into concentration camps. The regime is strong but brittle and has never shown any concern for the deaths of millions - what desperate risks might such a regime be willing to take to preserve itself? A war might be good for moral, a successful invasion of the south might change the situation on the ground in the north? With the US and South Koreas technological superiority such a move would probably be doomed but maybe they figure sheer numbers, suprise and speed could effect a fait accompli before the US could intervene? When their strategem's flaws are revealed with a massive counter attack would they stay their hand or attempt to cauterise the invasion route with a nuclear attack? Would we be so fearful of that possiblity that we preempt? The world is not a stable place, things change in unpredictable ways - history is NOT over no matter what Franicis Fukuyama says. It's getting interesting and that is a very bad thing.
And as the Devil's Advocate in Chief here, I have to ask - why shouldn't other countries have the right to the ultimate protection?
In short, because if they get them they might nuke us, our allies or each other. As a moral issue? As an issue of "rights"? or "fairness"? Since when has international politics dealt with such issues? I'm not really so concerned about being fair to North Korea or Sadaam Hussein who don't seem to hold morality, fairness or rights in very high esteem when dealing with their own people or their neighbors. I suppose it's only "fair" that when dealing with those regimes those pleasant concepts that don't trouble their thinking don't trouble ours either.
I have a foster brother from Cambodia. He was a young teen when he escaped the killing fields - his experiences make me less sanguine about insane Maoists getting the bomb as being "only fair" and I am a little less tolerant of the moral equivalence and lack of seriousnes about the risks involved that underlay such "fair minded" reasoning.
Another argument is that many of the countries that are currently developing this technology don't have the social or political maturity to have developed it on their own without the seepage of technological advancement beyond their native capabilities from countries that ARE more socially and politically advanced. (I may be accused of racism for this argument but it is really culturalism (if there is such a term)) The technological explosion in the west that produces such weapons is made possible by social and cultural and political forces and structures that have other advantages that mitagate against the use and abuse of such weapons. If you don't believe me try having a peace march protesting government policin downtown Bagdad or Pyongyang - try casting a vote against the chosen policy in either of their parliments etc. or just try opening a business without masses of money to bribe local officials. The ideas that the law is superior to the ruler, that government is accountable to the governed, that individuals are accountable to a law superior to clan kinship, the dictates of honor or loyalty to the "supreme leader" are all ideas that on rare occasions are imperfectly realized here but are *completely* alien in some of the nations striving to master a very dangerous technology their culture could never have developed on it's own. Think of it as the "prime directive" arrogant - damn straight, but also prudent and less likely for everybody to end up glowing in the dark.
It seems sometimes that those "against" nuclear ware (as though anyone is FOR it) aren't really against it as such - they seem perfectly fine with nuclear weapons in the hands of anyone other than the western powers - especially the USA. I am deeply worried about our policy towards Iraq but it ultimately is a very aggresive policy of non-prolifieration. Our more tender non-prolifieration policy towards N. Korea obviously didn't work and our more tender non-prolifieration policy towards N. Korea now is the result of the earlier policy not working.
The USA is not the only actor on the world stage - nations are not developing Nukes just because of us but because of their own squabbles and rivalries. China developed nukes and that made it imperitive for India to have nukes which made it imperitive for Pakistan to have nukes. North Korea has nukes and if we listen to the pacifist left and isolationist right we will pull out of South Korea, without the security guarantee of a few thousand US troops on a "tripwire" and a Nuclear opponent South Korea will be tempted to develop nukes, Japan too will be tempted all of which will lead China to enlarge their stockpile. Iran is on a crash program to develop nukes. How long would it take various Arab nations to respons in kind to the shia Persian threat? What are they already doing about the more real Isreali threat" Iraq is likely doing *something* would the Saudi's sit out? Would Egypt? Regardless of what we do proliferation will increase exponentially as various rivals pop up with the nuclear option. Right now some of the most advanced nations aren't bothering because of the USA's conventional security guarantees but will that be enough now that our slaveish desire to avoid offending Pyonyang reveals such guaranatees as toothless in the face of a nuclear opponent? As proliferation increases and various complex "balances of power" are established and increasingly unstable, incompetant, corrupt regimes are involved I think it is very likely that we will see nuclear war in our lifetimes. Hopefully, it will not involve us but that is a real possiblity and one we should be prepared for.