Future Weapons of War in the Works

An anonymous reader writes "Who needs explosive missiles when you can just launch a 3 foot long chunk of metal at near Mach 7 speeds and get the same result? Popular Science looks at weapons the military is developing for future wars including electromagnetic railguns, space darts, superfast torpedos, laser cannons, and a gun that fires a million rounds per minute."

Comments

US Army

[bcmm]

So there will be new, more powerful, more accurate weapons. Now we just need a way to stop humans aiming the accurate weapons at the wrong things...

Re:US Army

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we just need a way to stop humans aiming the accurate weapons at the wrong things...

I guess the easiest way to prevent that would be just not to fire the fucking things.

Re:US Army

[next1]

as we have seen in iraq, we also need a way to stop them aiming the accurate weapons at the *right* things.

the restaurant attack on saddam for example? too bad about anyone else in the restaurant, or the near vicinity.

Re:US Army

[Hittite Creosote]

Now we just need a way to stop humans aiming the accurate weapons at the wrong things...

Such as not shooting your allies, for example.

From the article in today's BBC News:
The US military at first insisted that there was a fault with the RAF Tornado's 'friend-foe' recognition system but later admitted they were having problems with the Patriot missile system's software.

Re:US Army

[tealover]

Friendly fire always happens in every war. Regardless of what you think from playing SOCOM, war is chaotic and mistakes do happen.

Re:US Army

[basingwerk]

Can you be sure that this is not due to substandard training? In Britain, people are tired of hearing this excuse when the US blast British tanks and planes instead of the enemy.

Re:US Army

[delong]

the restaurant attack on saddam for example? too bad about anyone else in the restaurant, or the near vicinity

Because of course Saddam was just hanging out and mingling with the little people, and the restaurant wasn't cleared and secured by his security detail first.

Re:US Army

[tha_mink]

In Britain, people are tired of hearing this excuse when the US blast British tanks and planes instead of the enemy.

What excuse are they not tired of when they have their ownfriendly fire incedents?

Re:US Army

[AndyElf]

Wouldn't for that then the easiest be not to have any of these fuckers?

That whole article made me, actually, feel quite disgusted -- such a bravado of "Look -- these are the cool toys for all our trigger-happy generals." How aout a Doom's Day Device, then?

It's intersting that one of the ideas that seemed to be threaded throught he first part of the article was "there's just one problem -- we're not sure who the enemy is." Unfortunately, the tendency at times to then invent one.

Re:US Army

[lysium]

Yes, but now the world is safe from a tyrant that fantasized about launching missiles at innocent peop......oh.

Re:US Army

[b-baggins]

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling, which thinks that nothing is worth war, is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertion of better men than himself.

- John Stuart Mill

Re:US Army

[WNight]

Gosh, I wonder why that is. Do battle with an under-equipped enemy whose weapons barely scratch your tanks and they're less likely to kill you.

You of course fire just as many shots as before, so your friendly-fire numbers aren't going to change much.

Less kills by enemies, the same by friendlies, and you have an increasing percentage of friendly fire kills.

Do you have any indication that there are more FF kills, per soldier, than in previous wars? (Leaving out static battles like trench-to-trench sniping.)

Re:US Army

[killjoe]

There are two extremes. One extreme says no war is worth it. Jesus takes this extreme and John Stuart Mills rails against this in your quote.

Another extreme to reach for war as your first and primary tool when you want to control the natural resources of another country. George Bush takes this extreme.

So in a nutshell.

Jesus on one extreme, George Bush on the other.

Most people are in the middle.

Re:US Army

[swingkid]

There's a large difference between protesting a war unilaterally begun under obviously false pretenses, and not being willing to fight for anything at all.
And while we're quoting:
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel"
- Samuel Johnson

Re:US Army

[Rostin]

Jesus takes this extreme

Jesus takes the extreme of telling individuals not to retaliate when insulted. He says nothing about war. In his encounters with professional soldiers, he doesn't make their job an issue. He quotes the Old Testament and speaks highly of the scriptures (verses the traditions cobbled on by the Pharisees) in which a not inconsiderable amount of war and killing is mandated by Yahweh.

It's possible to interpret the sayings of Jesus recorded as the Sermon on the Mount as a promotion of absolute pacifism, but this view doesn't really stand up very well under scrutiny and is probably too simplistic.

Ghandi would probably make a much better example of this "extreme."

Re:US Army

[demachina]

If you want to see the context of this often used, and used out of context quote, its from "The Contest in America":

http://www.gutenberg.net/etext04/conam10h.htm

It is a justification of the North's position in the civil war, speaks out against slavery and assaults England for backing the South in the war.

For some odd reason you see this quote all over and its usually misquoted by people seeking to justify war. In particular they leave out this antiwar part:

"When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people."

I'm assuming you are using the quote to justify the war in Iraq on the grounds the U.S. is freeing the Iraqis from the tyranny of Saddam as Mill was praising the North for freeing the slaves from tyranny.

Unfortunately the war in Iraq could as easily fall under the category of "when a people are used...for the selfish purposes of a master".

The U.S. pretty clearly had some mixed motives in invading Iraq to the point no one can actually tell you why the Bush administration really did it. Freeing the Iraqi's from tyranny was way down on the list when it started if you recall, it was preceded by WMD's, none of which were found and by some kind of revenge for 9/11 though Iraq had NOTHING to do with 9/11 despite the propaganda to the contrary. The unspoken selfish rationale's could as easily be control of the oil rich regions of the Middle East and Central Asia, installing military bases in the region, potentially as a precursor for taking down Iran and Syria, or reshaping the Middle East in an American mold and in particular opening it up to exploitation by American corporations.

If you look at the state of things today the U.S. seems to be inflicting a lot of tyranny of its own on Iraq these days so its pretty hard to make the case that the U.S. is bringing freedom and democracy to Iraqis though we can all hope that, by some miracle, that does happen someday.

I guess I'm saying its impossible to say if the war in Iraq is really about fighting tyranny. Mill's quote could just as easily be used to condemn the U.S. and its leaders are obsessing over "personal safety" or people are being used for the "selfish purposes of a master".

You could also just as easily use Mill's quote to advocate Americans rising against their own increasingly tyrannical government, or to justify the Iraqi insurgent's efforts to throw out a foreign occupier who is imprisoning them unjustly. The CPA itself admits 90% of the prisoners its holding aren't guilty of anything and its very likely some of those being tortured are innocent.

Re:US Army

[demachina]

"1. No U.N. does not equal unilateral."

I would agree that it was not exactly unilateral since the U.S. did have allies, but so did Germany in World War II. There is a near certainty, and in fact Bush has said it, he would have invaded Iraq if he the U.S. went alone so for all practical purposes it was unilateral he just managed to scrape together a ragged coalition to make it kind of look like it wasn't. When Bush decided he was going to do it and do it alone if necessary he made it unilateral. Many of the members of the coalition were also either bribed or coerced in to participation. The chances are pretty good all the leaders who willingly participated will get voted out of office at the first opportunity, Spain already having done so and Australia may well towards the end of the year.

A better description of Iraq is "aggressive warfare". That is when you preemptively attack someone who is not posing an immediate threat to your nation. It is against international law. The backing of the U.N. is desirable precisely because it gives a war international legitimacy. Iraq engaged in aggressive warfare when it attacked Kuwait, thats why the U.N. and the world backed the first gulf war. The U.S. and U.N. should have taken down Saddam then when they had justification. To come back more than a decade later and do it with no real provacation, and at enormous expense($200 billion and counting, nearly 800 dead and counting, and thousands wounded) was just unwise.

"Anyone who still doesn't think AL Qaeda and Iraq have links after the beheading of a kidnapped American and the Jordanian bomb plot is self-delusional."

Al Quaeda's presence in Iraq NOW is a product of the U.S. invasion. Its simply irrational to point to the fact they are there now and say "See I told you so" when they weren't there before the war. The only part of Iraq Al Quaeda was known to be in before the war wasn't under Saddam's control. Saddam was a socialist, and Muslim only when convenient. Fundamentalists like those in Al Quaeda despised him as a result.

"2. WMD was not the only reason given for the attack on Iraq (read the actual transcript of the State of the Union address instead of your DNC talking points)."

It was the ONLY reason the Bush administration had that they could use to sucker Congress and the American people in to backing the war. Cheney in particular constantly invoked the prospect of a nuclear cloud of an American city if we didn't invade Iraq immediately. It was shameful in its deceit. Even recently Cheney was still trying to claim some vans seized could be used to produce biological weapons when no expert will back him.

Number 2 on the list was this bizarre assertion that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 when there is NO evidence of that whatsoever. 9/11 was perpetrated by Saudi's. If you were going to invade some nation besides Afghanistan over it the next country most responsible was Saudi Arabia. Thats why the Bush Administration had to censor huge tracts about Saudi Arabia in the congressional report on 9/11.

Number 3 was to bring "Freedom and Democracy". I'll give you that one when there is real "Freedom and Democracy" in Iraq. Not an American puppet state or a repressive Shia dominated Islamic republic which would be the near certain outcome the day there is a fair election in Iraq.

"3. Iraq is a battle in the war. The war is on terror."

Iraq is a huge distraction from the war on terrorism. The fact the Bush administration did a half assed job in Afghanistan where the real war should have been fought was because they were in a rush to attack Iraq for no good readson. In fact invading Iraq wass pouring gasoline on the war on terror. The massive humiliation the U.S. is heaping on the Arab and Muslim world is driving moderate Arabs in to the hands of Al Quaeda and is a recruiting poster for a new army of suicide bombers. When Bush recently expressed unabashed support for Sharon and Israel and took it upon himself to make unilate

Re:US Army

[demachina]

"Please explain that to Zarqawi, who is Al Queda and in Iraq...wait...that seems like a link to me."

Please explain to my how Zarqawi's presence in Iraq today, when Saddam is no longer in power, proves a link between Al Quaeda and Saddam before the war. The logic of your argument, like all your arguments, b-baggins is deeply flawed.

The Al Quaeda link was claimed by the Bush administration before the U.S. invasion and was based on deeply flawed intelligence, like most of their case for war, in particular there was one, I repeat one, supposed meeting in Eastern Europe between Al Quaeda and Iraqi intelligence which has since been debunked or at least there is no evidence it ever happened, just like there is no creditable evidence Saddam was trying to by yellowcake in Niger other than really badly forged documents.

All indications are Zarqawi moved in to Iraq after the U.S. invasion when the country was in chaos. Islamic fundamentalists have been streaming in to Iraq to fight the U.S. invasion just like they streamed in to Afghanistan and Chechnya when the Russians invaded them. This roving Muslim army has existed since the CIA and Pakistan intelligence created it to us as a proxy against the U.S.S.R in Afghanistan. Al Quaeda was born in these same CIA sponsored camps in Pakistan with CIA funding. Now this ever expanding roving Muslim army goes whereever Muslims are being attacked. Today they are in Iraq fighting the U.S.

Re:US Army

[swingkid]

First of all, war on Iraq != war on terror. We had much work left to do in Afghanistan and instead chose to pursue the Bush-Cheney-Wolfowitz vendetta against Saddam, which had little if any connection to Al Qaeda. Your fourth point may be accurate now, but was certainly not the case before we invaded. Not sure how you include the Jordanian plot in your Al Qaeda/Iraq analysis, perhaps you can enlighten me. And don't tell me that there were other reasons than WMD for invading Iraq; Congress and the American people never would have supported it otherwise, which is why the Bush administration was so keen on making it seem that there were, in fact, WMD.

Re:US Army

[bcboy]

Anyone who still doesn't think AL Qaeda and Iraq have links after the beheading of a kidnapped American and the Jordanian bomb plot is self-delusional.

Anyone who is still trying to conflate Al Qaeda and Iraq is a god-damned liar.

Islamic militants are in Iraq because Americans are there. It's easier to target Americans in the Middle East than it is to target them in America. Iraq has nothing to do with it. If we'd dropped Americans anywhere in the Middle East, terrorists would have come to kill them.

Islamic terrorism was not, in fact, Saddam's great sin. You can't use the consequences of your actions to retroactively justify your war. The decision to go to war must stand on the pre-war conditions: the WMDs, and the brutal dictator. The plan that was hatched, a fast path to a unilateral war with a light-weight force and little post-war planning, must stand on the only argument that made sense: that Iraq had WMDs, capable of hitting American targets, that had to be taken out immediately.

But that argument was not supported by evidence then or now. We went to war for lies.

Re:US Army

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Saddam wasn't a terrorist.

Saddam made payments, out of the Iraqi national treasury, to the families of Palestinian murderers. Not small payments, either: $25,000 each, which to a Palestinian family is an absolute fortune.

Let me say it more plainly: Saddam paid terrorists for killing Israelis. By our definition, Saddam was a terrorist.

What is that definition, you ask? A terrorist is a person who attacks noncombatants with deadly force in an effort to impose social or political change through fear, or a person who attempts to do such a thing, or a person who provides material support or safe harbor to anyone who does or attempts to do such a thing.

There's still no evidence that Saddam is even linked to Al-Qaeda.

Honestly? Nobody cares. Saddam was a bad man. His continued existence as a head of state was a threat to the national security of the United States, of all Western democracies, and most especially to Israel. It's good that he's no longer in power.

Why did we invade Iraq? Because we had just cause to do so, and because it made the world a safer place. Marginally safer, yes, but safer nonetheless. You only need look to our diplomatic victories in Libya and (to a much lesser extent) Syria and Iran to see that.

Although personally I think we're gonna need to put boots on the ground in Damascus before this is all over. The Asad family isn't getting the message as quickly as I think they need to.

Re:US Army

[dfenstrate]

Ghandi would probably make a much better example of this "extreme."

Actually, I'm gonna have to give ghandi an N/A for this affair. What Ghandi realized, and pretty much every modern pacifist who invokes his name doesn't, is that pacifism only works against a moral enemy.

To quote, for example: "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look
upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
Yeah, Ghandi said that, indicating he believed violence was of us at times.

He used pacifism against the British because they were morally restrained, and wouldn't violently put down a non-violent protest. The one British General who did was relieved of command on rather short order.

You never hear of any Ghandi or MLK types from Iran, former Iraq, Syria, as they where all captured and murdered as soon as they opened their mouths, because their brutal regimes had no qualms about killing anyone given the slightest reason.

Re:US Army

[dustmite]

nearly 800 dead

I thought there were many thousands more than that dead by now. Or do only American deaths 'count' in this anyway illegal war? Surely not?

It would be MUCH better...

[Phidoux]

... if the time and money spent of developing new weapons could be spent on education rather. But then again, a better educated future generation would probably be able to think up even more devastating weapons.

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[10Ghz]

Educated masses are alot harder to control than uneducated masses are. If your audience is just a bunch of morons you can just say "we must kill these people because they are jealous of us and they hate freedom!"

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[Anonymous Coward]

So we're solving that problem by giving up our freedom. Great solution.

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[Phidoux]

I live in South Africa where, not to many years ago, sentiments such as yours were considered to be official government policy. Thus I'm pretty sure that investing money in education, rather that in weapons technology, is a much better investment.

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[Anonymous Coward]

we are so jealous of those freedom loving torture rapist Americans, must be great to have those values

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[sql*kitten]

It would be far better to spend all this money on giving people less reason to fight each other.

You are assuming that people have a rational reason to fight. In the West, that is often (but not always true). For example, Europeans historically have warred over access to natural resources - but have also warred over religion (most notably Catholic vs Protestant) since the Renaissance. However the animosity between England and Spain was about both.

In Rwanda, the civil war was conducted along racial lines - two tribes determined to wipe one another out, pure genocide. In Iraq, the Sunnis and Shi'ites are fighting over religion and both sides are fighting the Kurds simply because they are of another race. In Zimbabwe, the government of Robert Mugabe sabotages the farming industry in order to starve their opponents into submission.

What about building a machine that, instead of pumping out millions of rounds of lead per second, are able to make mud bricks and houses at a rate of 10 a day?

Such a machine would not resolve a single conflict in Africa. The Hutus and Tutsis (IIRC) aren't fighting over who has the most bricks, but over which "tribe" you're from. The BBC news reported on a Rwandan who killed his own grandchildren because they were mixed race.

Socialists like giving aid to third world countries because a) it justifies higher taxation at home and b) they don't need to trouble themselves about the root causes.

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[torpor]

horse shit. the rwandan's are fighting each other over resources. rwanda has tons of natural gas and oil reserves, and the people who are fomenting this violence (i.e. those behind the curtain... i.e. congolmerates such as British Petroleum) know that having strife such as this going on is better than having a unified set of tribes with a political system that is uncontrollable by foreign interests.

don't always believe what BBC has to say about things ... they are as guilty as any other major corporation of corrupting reality to serve their own purposes.

if you give -any- large group of people sufficient means to self-sustain their communities, and make those means available to all and sundry, you will reduce tensions in the area.

every single conflict going on between any two groups of people is created. it doesn't 'just happen'. give people technology to avoid this creation, and they will ... nobody 'wants' death.

the fact that all these freakin' weapons makers (any man who makes a weapon is an Enemy of Man) could instead be making fresh-water pumps and road-making machines, but aren't, simply means that their intentions are not to prevent war, but to prolong it ...

give a man a gun, and all he can do is kill with it. give a man a pump, and he can keep his village alive...

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[Andy Davies]

If we stopped subsidising our (US, EU & Japan)farmers so that they stopped dumping sugar, cotton etc. onto the world markets at below cost.

Then people in Mozambique etc. would be able to get a a sensible price for the goods they produce and make a living.

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[sql*kitten]

don't always believe what BBC has to say about things ... they are as guilty as any other major corporation of corrupting reality to serve their own purposes.

While the BBC's bias is well documented, it is AGAINST multinational corporations. To suggest that the BBC is in league with them is, frankly, ludicrous.

every single conflict going on between any two groups of people is created. it doesn't 'just happen'. give people technology to avoid this creation, and they will nobody 'wants' death.

You are wrong - look at all the wannabe martyrs in the world. And, you also conveniently overlook the concept that some wars aren't rational.

Do you know what Sunnis and Shi'ites are fighting over? Whether Mohammed's heirs should have been his sons or his disciples. They've been killing each other over this for 1300 years. You think a mud brick machine is going to help here???

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[delong]

It's nice to see a country with the balls to try to make things better.

More likely, South Africa faced no security threat that required the deterrance of nuclear weapons to justify their expense.

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[Pxtl]

Heheh, actually, we seemed to have finally solved the whole "sunni vs. shiite" problem. Now they're just both killing Americans.

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[ratamacue]

Actually, I have seen otherwise intelligent people readily adopt that stance (that terrorists hate the US because of our freedom, or wealth, or religious beliefs, or basically any non-aggressive act they can drum up). When offered the possibility that terrorists hate the US because the US government regularly kills innocent civilians in the wake of its never-ending war campaigns, these same people launch into a verbal assult and full-out denial of any logic which tries to "reason with the terrorists". (As if admitting that the US government is wrong would somehow give justification for the terrorists' dispicable attacks on innocent people.)

Group think. That's what we're dealing with here (on both sides, the gung-ho warmongers AND the terrorists). It's simply easier for people to conform to the group, than it is to deny the group and think for themselves. If pushed, some of these people will actually claim that it is just and moral to MURDER an innocent human being if it supposedly saves another. This is the power of group think.

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[torpor]

Read the thread, Mr. Smartie.

I'm talking about machines that pump out houses and water and bricks ... not machines that pump out lead and death and misery.

Its possible to use the utterly horrifying technology of the weapon-makers for peaceful means.

All it takes is someone saying "lets do it, lets make machines that only have peaceful purposes" in spite of all the people who say "it can't be done, it won't work, we MUST fight war".

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even more likely, the then South African government (circa 1990) did not want to beqeath that capability to 'the communists' - the ANC, et al.

Regardless, South Africa is a better place for it. These 'communists' know what they are doing.

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[operagost]

They can rest assured that the US or UK will run to their aid whenever they need it, do all the dirty work, and suffer all the criticism from the One World Government.

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[torpor]

Obviously you've never watched a lot of the BBC News output, otherwise you'd know that's one of the most pig-ignorant statements made on Slashdot for a while

I don't think "ignorant" means what you think it means. Ignorant is thinking that the BBC is 'above' any sort of corporate corruption ... whereas nothing could be further from the truth.

The BBC have their masters, believe me ...

I'll think you'll find with this, is that once a large group of people can self-sustain their communities, tensions often INCREASE as they start to look enviously at someone else's self-sustaining community.

My point is that if you give people the tools they need to work for themselves and improve their own conditions, then they are less likely to become jealous over the 'haves' over in the other village, and are more likely to expend the energy normally utilized in warfare for more productive, creative means.

How else can you explain the Western world, and its peaceful cities? Oh, before you go off on the "Western World Oil Hunger Wars" tangent, lets just acknowledge that there are far more western communities who are _NOT_ waging war than there are currently engaged in fierce battle" ... and the difference is that these communities and cities and regions are able to fend for themselves, using technology designed and developed specifically for the job of promoting civilization, not defeating it.

Power grids, water control, irrigation, agriculture - all of these realms would just as easily benefit from the same application of technology and investment of funds and resources as any "8-million rounds per minute" gun system ...

Give a man a shovel, and he can till the field. Give him a gun, and all he can do is kill.

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[swillden]

Actually, I have seen otherwise intelligent people readily adopt that stance (that terrorists hate the US because of our freedom, or wealth, or religious beliefs, or basically any non-aggressive act they can drum up).

Well, there actually is a component of religion in the mix. Islamic leaders are very concerned about the corrupting influence that our immoral society is having on their own people. Our sort of cultural imperialism is arguably *more* threatening to them than a few bombs, if you keep in mind that to them (as well as to many serious adherents of other faiths, like Christianity), death is not nearly as bad as damnation.

As a Christian, I look around our society and have to sympathize with them on that point, at least in part. Particularly when I consider that their view of our society is primarily the one portrayed by Hollywood.

And 9/11, of course, was not at all about innocent civilian deaths, it was mostly about trying to get the infidels out of the Holy Land (Saudi Arabia). Bin Laden's major beef is the fact that the Saudi Royal family invited drinking, porn-viewing US soldiers and their flesh-revealing women into Mohammed's sacred land.

In fact, very little of the Middle-Eastern terrorism has been in response to American attacks on innocent civilians. The hatred is largely created by cultural imperialism, support of Israel and various apparently anti-Arab actions taken by the US government over the last 30 years in the process of fighting the cold war and suppressing Iran and Iraq.

Of course, the civilian casualties of these actions just serve to reinforce the perception that America hates Arabs. That plus the religion-based fears plus the political disagreements leads to all of the Great Satan rhetoric and the moral "justification" of terror attacks.

Be careful not to fall into your own groupthink and excessive simplification. The causes of the situation are many, varied and complex, and there is plenty of irrationality, self-serving and blind disregard for human life on both sides of the question.

Overall, I think we need to be more sensitive to the Arab world, and less heavy-handed in our approach to international relations around the globe, but I think that there's ultimately nothing we could do that would erase the fear and hatred. Middle-eastern societies are in the grip of their own great internal turmoil, as they attempt to decide whether they're going to be Islamic or secular, whether they're going to join the rest of the world in the materialism we call progress or whether they're going to stay "pure". America is the ideal symbol for one side of this conflict, and much of the hatred directed our way arises from that struggle, over which we have no direct control.

Over time, the Middle East will eventually join the rest of the world, become secularized, progressive, open and democratic. Why is this inevitable? Because that's what the vast majority of people individually want. In the case of devout and semi-devout Muslims, they also want to honor their religion and obey their religious leaders -- who do not want secularization and progress, and see that openness and democracy lead to empowerment of the common man who will act against his own best interest (in their view). But, over time, the desire for individual freedom and economic progress will push these societies away from religious control.

Just don't expect the change to be painless, or to stay within the Islamic nations' own borders.

Finally, it's also important to realize that everything I've said here is a sweeping generalization. The Arab nations are not a unified whole. Iraq is already very secularized (was prior to Saddam, and during Saddam's reign, although he used religion), Iran is very Islamist, Saudi Arabia is Islamist, but still trying to be progressive, Egypt is a melting pot with lots of factions and counter-factions, and a government that is secular. I don't know enough about Syria and Jordan to comment, but I'm sure they have their own, unique situations.

Really, it's much more complex than just "they want to kill us because we keep killing them".

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Completely missing the point that...

You didn't make a point! You were snide, and sarcastic, and that's all. You said nothing of substance, okay? Let me repeat that, in case you're failing to understand: you did not contribute an idea or an opinion.

I ask again, "where is the love?". It seems Consumericans are incapable of it.

Bored now. Moving on to folks who have something to say.

A sobering thought...

[acehole]

Of all the things that are happening in the world at the moment, you can take solice that we'll never run out of inventive ways to kill each other.

Re:A sobering thought...

[simong_oz]

...you can take solice that we'll never run out of inventive ways to kill each other

or reasons, sadly.

Why?

[Killjoy_NL]

I can understand the need for a good military, but to spend this much money for it.

Personally I think it would be better spent if invested in medical research and to better the relationships with other countries (admit it, a whole big part of the world isn't a big fan of the US, putting it mildly).

Not trying to flamebait people :(

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't even need alot of money. How 'bout starting to make wise political decisions. Watching the U.S. from outside makes it hard to sleep at night....

Wasted potential

[NickeB]

It's depressing knowing that the potential of this technology is used for destruction. Hunting "terrorists" with a remote controlled laser-firing satelite ala some James Bond movie seems an awful lot like duck-hunting with a minigun.
The US has the most technologically advanced army/navy/whatever in the world as far as I know already...

Good stuff.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good stuff.

Technology marches onward, for all aspects of life. Weapons, medicine, computers, communication etc. etc. it's all tied together. You can't have one without the other.

It's the yin and the yang of the modern world.

Ever since man discovered fire this has been going on.

We could cook food to protect ourselves from rancid and contaminated meat. We could warm ourselves and dry ourselves in the cold winter months. We added hours to our potentionally productivity and progress due to night time light and it was used to clear feilds for our crops and herd animals for food.

Along with that we also figured out how to use fire to harden the tips of our sticks and turn them into spears that more effectively killed our enemies, weither animal or human.

Then later we learned to use it to cure leather to make better clothing to protect us from the elements, and we used it to cure leather for bowstrings and axes that were used for more effective hunting and gathering.

The leather also provided simple armor and sheilds and bows and axes were used to devistate our enemies.

Then we learned how to smelt down shiny rocks to make metal... etc etc.

Now we understand mathmatics, magnets, plastics, explosives, propelents, electricity, gravity, and other modern technology and we refine our understanding of old technology, too.

The cycle goes on and on.

Can't have one without the other. If there is a imbalance it can only be filled with more suffering. One way or another.

Why would it change now? We are the same people that existed many of a hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Re:Who needs explosives indeed?

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to Najaf and Fallujah these past few weeks, where the US has been deploying cluster bombs and Tankbusters in tightly packed urban areas. The British armed forces are the best in the world. They patrol Basra in berets to give the idea of a police force rather than parading around in tanks marked "Rough justice" and other charming witticisms. They begged the US to demolish Abu Ghraib *before the war even started*. Every single thing the US is doing now to try and fix everything (Ba'ath minions brought back, etc etc) was suggested by the Brits a year ago. END RANT

Cletus? Fetch Mah Shootin' Iron.

[zenmojodaddy]

This just shows the fundamental problem with the American military mindset: that brute force is the way to solve everything. If the military is overstretched, give 'em bigger guns. That way you need fewer grunts to kill the gooks, ragheads, commies or whatever politically-expedient target the rednecks in the White House have found this week.

Here's a thought. Don't invade every country that looks at you funny. Then maybe the rest of the world won't hate you so much, and you won't have to spend all your cash on finding ways to kill us all real quick.

Thor

[Entropy Unleashed]

Jerry Pournelle developed the concept of a space-launched kinetic energy weapon in 1964. It's been used a decent amount in his science fiction since then, but we do have to wonder why it's taken the military so long to consider implementing it. The high cost to orbit such weapons could be part of it, but we could definitely bring costs down a lot if we ended NASA's excessive bureaucracy and came up with a launch system that didn't cost half a billion per launch.

Cool Weapons?

[Anonymous Coward]

I cant believe an adult actually thinks that a weapon that can fire a million rounds a minute is cool?

Do you not realise that the ulimate reason for this design is to kill more people more efficiently?

You army types make me sick

Terrorism

[pubjames]

Don't we have enough bombs already?

The biggest threat to the USA in the future is terrorism. Terrorism is defeated with bombs, although the chimps currently in the White House seem to think it is.

Terrorism is just a symptom of a disease - hatred within society. For every terrorist, there will be a hundred people in the same society that feel very strongly about the same issues, but not enough to become a terrorist. That is, until you drop a bomb on their children. To defeat terrorism in the long term, you've got to tackle the strong feelings within the society that produced it.

When Tony Blair first started office, he realised this was the way to solve the Northern Ireland problem, and did some very intelligent things (along with his counterparts in the Republic of Ireland) to tackle the social problems that were the root cause of terrorism in N.Ireland. Why on earth he is now supporting Bush's neanderthal approach to Al-Quaida I will never understand.

Applicable uses of military technology

[temprand]

I see that lots of you are tearing down on the development of weapons in the context of terrorism and such. But lots of these technologies are being applied to law enforcement as well. Smart rounds being the best example. Some of these new ammunitions are based on 'smart-metal' designs that can penetrate metal or body armor, but stop and fragment when it hits tissue. Sounds bad, but would have been a great solution to the armored bank robbers in LA several years ago. Those cops did nothing but blanket a neighborhood with random shots because they were useless against soft body armor. So look at the positives of the whole argument.

Forget future weapons

[phoxix]

Deal with the ones we currently have ...

We all know Russia has plenty of weapons that are unaccounted for, (or some that have bad care taking/accounting). So instead of funding all this new bullshit, and this useless war on Iraq, how about we keep funding for arms control like Nunn-Lugar or Start III ?

Sunny Dubey

Some thoughts

[carvalhao]

Although I am a pacifist, I do believe that currently it is still a necessity to develop weapon technology, for if the Americans and Europeans don't, some other country, perhaps with less respect for human life or International Law (although the USA haven't been that respectfull with the last one), will! So it's a martial arts kind of philosophy: get the knowledge in hope you'll never need to use it.

What must be stressed, though, is that military supremacy should not be an excuse for poor or non-existing foreign policy. The best way to get and maintain peace is not through the use of weapons, as we've been repeatedly taught by History, but by respecting people, their culture and balancing economical divides. And this is true not only as far as international war is concerned but also in the little national wars that are waged in every country in the form of crime.

As a final remark: didn't "Kursk", the Russian sub, sink due to a failed test of that same torpedo technology? And now they're selling it? Great move... develop a dangerous-to-use torpedo AND get the other guys to use it! :)

Re: Some thoughts

[Black Parrot]

> What must be stressed, though, is that military supremacy should not be an excuse for poor or non-existing foreign policy.

Unless of course you're deliberately trying to start WWIII.

Re:Now I See

[Arcady13]

It's not the government's job to take care of us.

Then we should stop paying them 25-50% of the money we earn, at least until they get a leader who can speak actual English.

Re:Metal Storm

[ttsalo]

Considering that the rate of fire on existing weapons max out at around 6,000 rounds per minute, it's a large step forward.

Why do you need so many rounds per minute? The target can manouever out of the path of the incoming projectiles just the same. Consider an anti-ship missile pulling 10-20 g. It's already out of the way before the projectiles have travelled 100 meters. And something like Sunburn will be closing in at the speed of 1 km/s.

I'm sure it's a very cool thingy - an ordinary ZSU-23-2 is damn fun to fire - but what's the real scenario where it is essential?

--

Superweapons vs beheading someone

[Quizo69]

I find it highly disturbing that the US recoils in revulsion at the brutal beheading of one of its own, but bats nary an eyelid when superweapons designed to kill MILLIONS are announced. Just because you can visit death on people from afar, doesn't mean you are somehow morally superior. That is already painfully evident in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If we don't learn very quickly to put aside differences and work towards real peace, I fear we won't be celebrating the coming of the 22nd century, because we won't be around any more.

Re:Superweapons vs beheading someone

[NickeB]

"One mans death is a tradgedy, a million deaths is a statistic"

Re:Superweapons vs beheading someone

[Quizo69]

"No, but it shows the mindset of the so called "people" we are facing. If they din't want to be treated as animals, they might quit acting like them."

And they could say the same of Americans. They aren't "so-called people", they ARE people. When Iraqis see a US sniper put a bullet through their relatives' heads, do you think they consider that sniper a hero? Or do you think they would call them the animals, callously butchering their loved ones like dogs?

My point is this - always, ALWAYS beware of demonising your enemy. The truth is that there are people on BOTH sides who enjoy killing, and neither represents the motives of the vast majority. When you've travelled extensively you come to realise that all peoples of the world have similar goals - raise a good family, live in peace, be allowed to do their own thing without being persecuted. Americans want this just as much as Iraqis.

But also consider how you would feel if your country was invaded, and the invaders said one thing and practiced another. You would fight back, wouldn't you? I know I would. Well, so do the Iraqis. They cannot beat the US at its own game, so they do it on their own terms. That doesn't make the vast majority "sub-human monsters" or any other derogatory term.

Yes, the beheading brought home the cold blooded murder aspect of it. I don't condone it in the slightest and having seen the full video, was disgusted by it. However, I also watched the disgusting video of an Apache crew gunning down unarmed men and shooting the wounded one as he crawled away. Is that any more moral?

Re:Superweapons vs beheading someone

[otis wildflower]

If we don't learn very quickly to put aside differences and work towards real peace, I fear we won't be celebrating the coming of the 22nd century, because we won't be around any more.

You write as if our foes are logical, rational human beings. They're not. They're sick fucking psychos who need to be destroyed if our way of life is to survive. It's us or them, as they've demonstrated. I vote us.

Real peace is when all people who don't believe in freedom, tolerance and democracy are dead. Not before.

The suicide bombers from 9/11

[koi88]

The suicide bombers from 9/11 were mostly university students, therefore much more educated than the average poulation of their countries.
The problem is, you have to be a moron not to see that what the Israeli government does to their Palestinian "brothers" by all standards unfair, illegal und cruel.
Then, if you're young and clever and have a sense of justice, you feel the urge to do something against that.
If some demogugue comes along then, you're an easy victim for their propaganda.
There comes your next suicide bomber.

Re:The suicide bombers from 9/11

[operagost]

Unfortunately, reducing Afghanistan from a Third World country to worse

Unless you are an anarchist, this statement makes no sense. Afghanistan didn't even have a government before - just Taliban controlling 2/3 of the country and the Northern Alliance about 1/3. Oh, and a bunch of puny warlords mixing it up all over. Yup, it's much worse now.

Your analogy suggests that bin Laden would have just gone away if we left him alone. Are you mad? That's essentially what we were doing! President Clinton could have taken bin Laden dead or alive multiple times and failed to do so. This freed him to plan the murder of a dozen sailors in Yemen in 2000 and the murder of 3000 people in the USA on September 11, 2001.

Re:The suicide bombers from 9/11

[koi88]

what exactly is unfair? demolishing houses where snipers hide and shoot parents and their young kids on their way home?

It's this spiral of violence and revenge that doesn't let the region come to peace.
Both sides think their terrible crimes are excused by their enemy's crimes in the past.

Terrorists are different people.
You mean people like Yosef Avni, Yisrael Levi, David Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin? 90 people killed, not bad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel
Terrorism is often the last weapon of the powerless. I don't want to excuse it, I just want to explain it.

Re:The suicide bombers from 9/11

[BgJonson79]

In my idealist world, I pretty much agree with you. In my real world, I think some of my idealism simply won't work.

That said, wouldn't you be able to tell the difference between the abuse of a hundred prisoners* and the killing of a hundred thousand people?

* I will be BULLSHIT if the perpetrators don't end up spending many, many years in Levenworth. Yeah, abuse and torture are horrible, but isn't killing even worse?

Don't they ever learn?

[ThinWhiteDuke]

Just watch Iraq. The US have an overwhelming military advantage there. Nothing in the whole country can even dent an Abrams tank. The US soldiers have the best protection, the best fire power, the best communications, recon etc... Yet they are slowly losing control of the situation.

Those futuristic weapons are designed to fight 20th century's wars, not today's or tomorrow's wars. What's the use of a gun that fires a million rounds per minute when you're trying to control a riot? How can space darts help you identify the terrorist hiding in the crowd?

Overwhelming weapon superiority does not work in Iraq; I don't think further increasing this superiority will work better.

Re:Don't they ever learn?

[B.Smitty]

Actually, while we may have an overwhelming firepower advantage in Iraq, we hardly have overwhelming numbers.

A general rule-of-thumb for occupations is 1 soldier per 40 inhabitants. Having less means you don't have enough troops to adequately control activities on the ground.

We have something like 1 soldier for every 160 Iraqis there today.

A Proven Formula for How Many Troops We Need

So it should be obvious why we're having these problems today.

Re:Don't they ever learn?

[dave420]

The US soldiers don't have the best training, though. Not by a long shot, and that's what wins a war.

Train the US military to protect a population, instead of blowing it up. Then it can take on these sorts of actions knowing they can actually do good. Instead, they wade into a country, and end up reaming the whole country. Great. Thanks.

Re:Don't they ever learn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Percieved US weaknesses in Iraq are nearly almost entirely due to weaknesses in the modern western culture, media and politics - they have little to do with actual events on the ground.

The media were prepared to declare Afghanistan a setback after roughly one month, despite non-existant US casualties. Similarily, the Iraq campaign was declared a disaster after one week of fighting. (This has, naturally, been forgotten by now)

The localized and light (by any historical standard) fighting of the last month has in a similar fashion led our beloved media to declare utter defeat - not by any historical standard for warfare, but rather according to the rather esoteric standard of perfectness developed by the media itself. These tendencies towards auto-defeat have rather naturally been noted by the more perceptive among the enemies of the US (Such as OBL), although they tend to miscategorize the phenomena as cowardice.

A lot more could be said on the subject - still, if the US loses in Iraq, the defeat will be largely a self-inflicted wound.

Regards, Döbeln

-Stabil som fan!

Re:Don't they ever learn?

[dfenstrate]

Yet they are slowly losing control of the situation.

The media, except for fox news (and they're still in the camp that no news is good news) is largely from the american left, and seem to now consider it their sworn duty to do whatever they can to defeat GWB in the upcoming election, instead of actually reporting the news over there.

This means that anything that makes the US look like a failure and incites anger against the US gets widespread airtime, and anything that makes the US look good or reminds folks just how barbaric our enemies are gets little play, or regulated to the back page.

The Belmont Club offers a more balanced view, with soldier's opinions.

The media has a political agenda, and it colors everything they report, sometimes to an incredible degree. The same is true of Fox News, of course, but at least they wear that bias on their sleave for all to see, instead of pretending it isn't there.

Re:Who needs explosives indeed?

[vandan]

Depleted Uraniam is a Weapon of Mass Destruction

Re:Here's an idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

you /. idiots:

most modern day landmines have a built in timer that will render the detonation charge ineffective after a set time.

Landmines aren't built to kill, they're used as a tactical weapon to deny terrain to an attacker and force him along preferable lines of attack. Outlawing landmines is like deciding to only attack people from one direction for every war.

Two Points

[N8F8]

1) As long as terrorism is seen as being effective, it will be used. Terrorism breeds fear: fear makes change.

2) The current mess was allowed to fester for well over a decade before proactive action was taken. An entire generation was brainwashed to hate America as the enemy. Until they are old enough to recognize the truth and have the societal roots to care about living more than dying, the murder will continue. Population demographics in Africa and southwest Asia aren't on our side.

why is this insightful?

[holy_smoke]

really. Its more of a flamebait in its current form.

- America absolutely does NOT use brute force to solve everything.
- The purpose of better weapons is to shorten conflicts and save casualties.
- We don't invade every country that looks at us funny. North Korea is a good modern day example.
- Many countries do hate Americans, but some of that hate is rooted more in jealously than disgust. By they way, every country is hated by somebody. We have a lot of friends too.

I can't believe someone moded this insightful because its absolutely not.

Re:Here's an idea...

[eclectro]

How about timers in land mines so that they blow up/self destruct after two or three year.......Does anyone know if the US does anything like this?

Sadly, even if the US did create a landmine that would turn inert over time, there are a number of other nations in the military sales business that would not bother to do so.

Certainly cost is a factor. Why buy a mine that goes dead after a period of time when you can buy two mines that don't for the same money?

The idea of self destructing landmines is completely counterintuitive not only to the nature of war, but to the purpose of land mines as well.

Landmines today are engineered to not kill a soldier (I do not know about US made landmines or if this is regulated by treaty as hollow point bullets are), but rather to cause horrific harm to him. In fact, there is one landmine that when it is triggered it launches itself in the air about waist high and then explodes.

This deeply injures a soldier in a sensitive area. The purpose of doing this is to not only take him out of action, but to tie up resources to take care of him. But most importantly, it demoralizes those around him and those that come in contact with him. If it kills the soldier, the landmine is considered a "failure".

Which brings up a larger issue of "war". There are no rules in war, period. War is the distillation of evil from the human spirit, with the purpose to cause (usually hurtful) harm to another human being. It might be a "just war" with a purpose (stop Hitler), or it might be "just a war" with the sole purpose of killing (Rwanda).

Either case, the enterprise of evil is present.

Which is why you find toys that are actually explosives so that kids will find them.

In this context, will a new type of landmine be invented that turns inert?

Yes, it will. But they will be so few in number compared to other countries that don't care, who will produce countless millions that don't turn inert. So, it could be argued that any such effort is doomed to be meaningless.

As an aside, I don't excuse what is happening in Iraq with the prisoners of war. But people forget a couple of things. First, it is a war . By definition this kind of thing is going to happen. People would like to think that American soldiers are above this behavior. But the fact is many of those prisoners have American blood on their hands, and many families here in the US will not see their loved ones again because of it.

So, from my perspective, I can see where if you had a buddy killed by a rebel and you manage to catch him, you might want to exact a bit of vigilante justice to show your displeasure.

In fact, when Americans captured such prisoners at the turn of the last century in wars, they were routinely lined up against a wall somewhere and shot. Another thought was never given to it.

I don't fault the Bush administration for going to war with Iraq. I fault the Bush administration trying to fight a "polite" war, to in some way rid the Iraqi people of the evil of Saddam and bring democracy to the Arab world. As some have said, you can win the war, but not necessarily win the piece.

The purpose of war is to inflict pain on, conquer, or kill your enemy. So, the goal of this war, "to help" the Iraqi people, is incongruous with the definition of war itself. Hence, this incongruity has produced instances of abuse in the Iraqi prisoner of war population. It was not the first, nor will it be the last time it happens. I dare say even by other American soldiers at some future date.

I am not saying that it should be accepted or excused. What I am saying is that war is an evil enterprise, no matter how smart your bombs are, or if the landmines are self destructing. And when people are fighting a war, I think it would be safe to assume that whether a landmine will turn inert at some future date or not is the very last thing on their mind. They just want it to explode when somebody steps on it.

Hearts and minds

[Savage-Rabbit]

To win the Iraqi's hearts and minds would have been alot easyer, if the US had taken the time to do things like fix gas mains, ensure access to water and electricity 100% of the time and if they had bothered to repair the telephone system. Had things like this been done right away even the impact of this abuse chrisis would not be half as bad as it is. One somehow gets the feeling that the Bush administration argued:

1. Invade Iraq.
2. Arrest Saddam.
3. Everybody cheers.
4. Sheperd the Iraquis to the oil pumps.
5. Oil profit.
6. Oil profit pays for buildup.

Unfortunately it has taken alot longer to get the Oil flowing than they thought and the rebuilding of Iraq has been half hearted which has resulted in alot of angry Iraquis. And in a way it is hard to blame them, I would certainy be pissed off if electicity and gas were rationed, I had to wait in line for 4 hours in the burning sun to fill a jerrycan with water and could expect to be harrassed by US troops on police duty that have had ZERO police training (not their fault but their leaders). You expect that during the initial period after an invasion but not after over a year of occupation. It is amazing that the USA which did a very good job at stabilizing Germany after WWII did such a lousy job at taking those lessons into account when trying to stabilize Iraq.

Re:Popular science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they are just reflecting the fact that US research spending is now 90 % military and 10 % civilian?

Re:1x10^6 rounds per minute - inaccurate stats.

[ivrcti]

First - essentially no reload time since all the bullets are stacked directly in the barrel before firing begins. Reducing your estimate by a factor of 10.

Second - as others have pointed out the electrical charge merely ignites the propelant rather than providing the impetus. Reducing your estimate by another factor of 100.

Third the weapon only fires for milliseconds when at full rate, reducing your estimate by another factor of 50.

Fourth - the million rate is developed by a weapon that has about 50 barrels, so the velocity of each bullet can drop accordingly, reducing your estimate by another factor of 50.

Your last sentence was the most correct, it's the assumptions that invalidate our calculations at least by a factor of 2,500,000.

Re:War Crimes

[GypC]

We're good at lots of things (Americans that is). Inventing things like integrated circuits, space shuttles, telephones, and light bulbs. We lead the world in medical and pharmaceutical technology. As far as new things and cutting edge research we're number one. Many (but not even half) of the researchers and engineers come from other countries. That's because we appreciate hard work and our government lets us keep most of our money instead of playing Robin Hood.

We're also good at smashing our enemies into the ground, I admit. You seem to think this is a bad thing. What, exactly, did Saddam Hussein and the Taliban ever do that was worth defending them despite the brutality of their regimes?

Smart leaders not smart weapons

[Hoi Polloi]

The problem with the US military isn't a technical one, it is a cultural one. It seems strange to fret over our ability to crush weaker enemies when our military force has a budget that is greater than the other nation's entire GNP.

The question isn't how force is used so much as why it is being used in the first place. We simply have our fingers in too many places around the world.

Come on people!! Get real..

[the_rajah]

It's "Popular Science" none of that stuff that they predict ever works out.

"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain

Re:As I've always said

[Anonymous Coward]

Soldiers always get killed. The difference is that now fewer soldiers get killed. Check your history books for how many were killed in wars we've fought.

The United States lost more men in a four month period during WWI than were lost in the whole Viet Nam war. We lost more men in ONE day's battle in WWII than in the whole Iraq war.

War will never be "safe", but we can lower the risks to our own troops while increasing the risk for the enemy. Think about it - would you like to take on the Marines, at night, armed only with an RPG and an AK-47? Not me; I'm not that stupid.

A Waste of Human Effort

[npsimons]

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not
fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not
spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the
genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way
of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is
humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
-- Dwight David Eisenhower, April 16, 1953