In America's newly declared war on terrorism, the most critical weapon in its military arsenal is not a lethal force of commandos or precision-guided missiles. It is information. The Pentagon's intelligence forces are preparing to fight a war unlike any other. Long accustomed to counting weapons, monitoring troop movements and identifying the enemy's chain of command, the Pentagon's massive intelligence apparatus must now hunt down a shadowy web of terrorists in Afghanistan who keep moving to new hiding places in caves and tunnels.
A fascinating and accessible analysis of the new kind of war that the September 11th terrorist attack portends. The author argues that future adversaries will organize themselves into 'distributed networks' that will require a different method of attack and defense. "It takes a tank to fight a tank. It takes a network to fight a network."
The military is close to fielding miniature unmanned aerial vehicles that could eventually render the combat scout as obsolete as the horse cavalry. Pentagon engineers are working on a range of micro aircraft and backpack-sized vehicles for short-range surveillance now conducted by U.S. ground troops.
Computer technicians working for the Defense Information Systems Agency are being trained to guard against computer attacks by other countries and to launch computer virus invasions that will bring chaos to a foe's communications networks, financial systems and power grids.
The growing use of space satellites for military, communication, and imaging purposes is forcing a reexamination of our military space policy. "Many people feel the military has no business in space. Of course, the military is there, in spades," former U.S. Space Command chief Charles Horner said at a recent Heritage Foundation forum. "Our military forces are so dependent on space that it's created a vulnerability for us. ... We may be faced with a Pearl Harbor in space."
U.S. satellites are vulnerable to attacks in space and the government must step up efforts to protect them and the critical services they provide, from military surveillance and weather forecasting to television broadcasts and satellite phone connections, a congressional commission warned Thursday. The findings of the space commission are sure to receive close attention because the panel had been headed by President-elect Bush's nominee for secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld, who faces a Senate confirmation hearing Thursday, has called "defense of our space assets" a top priority in the Bush administration.
The Pentagon has announced a $60 million project to study how insects and reptiles fly, crawl, climb, and smell. The research will help them develop micro-robots for surveillance, reconnaissance, mine-detection and other tasks.