Chemical Weapons? What Chemical Weapons?

I was clearing out my in-box when I noticed this note: “EDITORS ALERT: The American Forces Press Service recalls the article titled “DoD Officials Urge Use of Non-lethal Weapons in Terror War” by Jim Garamone, published Sept. 27, 2006. The article contains inaccurate information and should not be used.”

Usually, news services correct innacurate information. The Armed Forces Press Service didn’t do this, however, they just withdrew the entire article from their site. The great thing about the Internet, however, is that the article lives on through other websites. I’ve attached the full article below.

Among other interesting tidbits, the article quotes a senior Pentagon official noting that the Chemical Weapons Convention constrains military personnel from offensive use of riot-control agents (like tear gas). This follows up on earlier debate, described in this article from 2003 in the New York Times, on President Bush authorizing tear gas for “defensive operations” (something presumably not in violation with the convention).

The sticky issue is when you use riot control agents for “offensive operations” – and judging from this Armed Forces Press Service article, that’s the road they’re going down.

DoD Officials Urge Use of Non-lethal Weapons in Terror War
By Jim Garamone American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27, 2006 – DoD officials today urged a change in policy that would allow U.S. servicemembers to use tear gas and other non-lethal weapons in the global war on terror. Joseph A. Benkert, principal deputy assistant defense secretary for international security policy, and Air Force Brig. Gen. Otis G. Mannon, deputy director for special operations on the Joint Staff, spoke to the Senate Armed Service Committee’s subcommittee on readiness and management.

At issue is an Executive Order issued in 1975 that forbids American servicemembers’ “first use of riot control agents in war, except in defensive military modes to save lives.” The policy further states that all use of riot control agents in war “is prohibited unless such use has presidential approval in advance.”

An amendment in the fiscal 2006 National Defense Authorization Act — the Ensign Amendment after subcommittee chairman Nevada Sen. John Ensign — takes non-lethal weapons for riot control out of this prohibition.

Benkert said officials want “to assure that our men and women in uniform have the full range of options available to them to carry out their missions.”

Benkert stressed that the riot control agents he was talking about are not listed in a Chemical Weapons Convention schedule. He is referring to such non-lethal weapons as tear gas and pepper spray. He also said his testimony did not address other non-chemical, non-lethal weapons such as foams, water canons, beanbags or rubber bullets.

“It may be difficult for many Americans to understand why their armed forces can use riot control agents only in defined circumstances when they see their local law enforcement agents using them effectively every day,” Benkert said. “The United States military must operate within the parameters of the Chemical Weapons Convention and Executive Order 11850, which constrain the ability of our armed forces to use riot control agents in offensive operations in wartime and obviously do not apply to our colleagues in law enforcement.”

Benkert and Mannon stressed that even when allowed to carry these weapons, DoD personnel go through exhaustive and comprehensive training on their use. He said they also receive training in the law of war and applicable Geneva Conventions implications. “The Department of Defense has issued regulations, doctrine and training materials providing guidance as to when riot control agents may be used,” he said.

Before U.S. military personnel may use riot control agents, they must have proper authorization. The president must approve any use in war in a defensive military mode to save lives.

“Under various circumstances, in light of the changing environment in which armed conflicts are taking place, in such a dynamic environment the peacekeeping, law enforcement and traditional battlefield roles of deployed units may be present at different times within the same theater of operations,” Benkert said. “The use of riot control agents will be evaluated based on the particular unit or mission involved and the particular facts and circumstances of the mission at the requested time.”

-- Sharon Weinberger (cross-posted at Imaginary Weapons)

UPDATE 4:35 PM: Noah here. In his tesitmony, Benkert noted that "It may be difficult for many Americans to understand why their Armed Forces can use riot control agents in only defined circumstances when they see their local law enforcement agencies using them effectively every day." I'm one of those Americans. So I asked Edward Hammond, who heads up nonlethal-weapon-watching Sunshine Project for his thoughts. Check out his answers after the jump.

1) "Non-lethal" chemicals historically used by militaries to as
multipliers of lethal force, not to save lives. Examples: WW1,
Vietnam.

2) It's a "gas attack". Perception, justified or not, on the part of
the recipient that s/he has been attacked with chemical weapons. PR
liability and possibility of retaliation "in kind" thus resulting in
RCA [riot control agent] use prompting (or serving as the excuse for) use of CW [chemical weapons].

3) Escalation of violence. RCAs are pretty indiscriminate and, when
not used to help kill, are frequently used to impede people from
expressing their opinion, airing their grievances. I'm certainly not
a field commander in Iraq, but I cannot help but think that any sane
US officer dealing with civilian unrest in Baghdad or elsewhere would
not want to have CNN and Al Jazeera airing footage of US soldiers (or
Iraqi soldiers effectively under US command) lobbing gas at crowds of
Iraqis...

4) Much the same military hardware might have a far different
chemical payload. I submit that it's a good idea to keep militaries
as far away from (bio)chemical delivery devices as possible. If we
start back down this road...

5) The CIA listed an Iraqi facility experimenting with CS [2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile, a riot control agent] bombs (see
item #1) on its list of Iraqi WMD sites prior to the invasion.
Hmmm... How is it that an Iraqi military CS bomb is WMD; but the US
says its military CS is exempt from the CWC? Is it that CS is legal
in US miltary hands but not others? I don't think so .... Help me
out here, Secretary Rumsfeld, why do we have two standards?

'Invisible' Boomerang 'Bot

It's nice to have a set of robotic eyes in the sky. But surveillance drones tend to be loud, and rather obvious, as they keep watch above a Middle Eastern city. Many guerilla types know by now to avoid the things.

That's why a small company out of Minneapolis, VeraTech Areo, has built a hand-held spy drone that it says is practically invisible. Battery powered and shaped like a boomerang, the "Phantom Sentinel" unmanned aeiral vehicle (UAV) "is in constant motion and the center of [its] mass is located outside of the fuselage," Catherine MacRae Hockmuth tells us in the current issue of Defense Technology International. "As the aircraft spins, it disappears from vision," an AeroTech fact sheet adds.

Even better, the company promises, is that the folding, backpack-ready drone "has a uniquely minimal cross section allowing it to 'slice' through even the most adverse weather conditions that would keep conventional UAV systems on the ground. The rotational inertia generated in flight allows the UAV to self level and maintain a very high degree of stability, even while hovering."

There don't seem to be any military orders for the Phantom, yet. But the company does have a patents for its hard-to-spot flights -- and a wacky, techno-themed video, too.

Rapid Fire 09/29/06

* 12,000 G.I.s under NATO command

* Satcomm lowdown

* Bush buddy: WH war disarray

* Saudis plan Iraq fence

* Everyone wants high-tech soldier get-ups

* $10M more for giant spy blimp

* Space Command's "Cosmic" R&D

* 5 year plan for drones in national airspace

* "Rocketmen unite!"

* "Be careful what you ask for"

(Big ups: RC)

CIA's Wacky, Online 'Personality Quiz'

These are tough times for the Central Intelligence Agency. It's not just the blown calls on Iraq. Or the bruising turf battles with the White House. There's the series of internal purges. And, of course, the constant threat of another terrorist attack. No wonder the Agency is having trouble hiring good people.

But still, can things have grown so dire at Langley that the CIA has to resort to gimmicks like this wink-wink-trying-to-be-ironic-and-cool-but-instead-looking-even-more-dorky recruiting website

The "CIA personality quiz" is supposed to show how the Agency needs all types to function. So the exam offers up a series of questions, about your favorite leisure activities, the "kind of transportation you prefer," and what super power you'd like to have. And then the site tells you what kind of valuable asset to the CIA you'd be.

If the super power you want is flight, for example, and your dream is to climb Mt. Everest, according to the Agency, you're a "Daring Thrill Seeker." If you prefer shopping on Rodeo Drive and sunbathing on a yacht, that means you're a "Innovative Pioneer." If you'd like to have ESP and a designer wardrobe, that qualifies you as an "Impressive Mastermind." Naturally.

Somehow, this is all meant to dispel myths about what it's like to work for the Agency. Take Myth #1, for instance: "You’ll Never See Your Family and Friends Again." Au contraire, the site says. "The work we do may be secret, but that doesn’t mean your life will be. Because the variety of CIA careers is similar to that of any major corporation. So… your friends and family will still be part of your life."

Nor will your work be all that dangerous. "Car chases through the alleyways of a foreign city are common on TV, but they’re not what a CIA career is about. And, they don’t compare with the reality of being part of worldwide intelligence operations supporting a global mission."

And that grueling background check? Don't sweat it. "Because of our national security role, CIA applicants must meet specific qualifications — but, don’t worry. Getting caught smoking in high school isn’t enough to disqualify you. Your intellect, skills, experience and desire to serve the nation are most important to us."

Unless you're setting up Agency websites, I guess.

Rapid Fire 09/28/06

* Sadr militia splintering

* Raptor 1, Congress 0

* U.S. vs. Sudan?

* Spybitch whines

* Wynne's wife gets zapped

* Gun-mounted face recognition?

* New anti-tank missile blasts away

* Spaceship dream revived

* Rutan/Branson ship revealed!

* Drones' indoor swarm

* Raven goes British

* Scorcher! Marines running marathon -- in Iraq

* "Synthetic vision" for copter pilots (background here)

* Just give up now

(Big ups: EH, JQP)

Homeland Security Blues

When I scan the papers for how the feds, state and locals are dealing with terrorist CBRN [Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear] incidents, I cringe. We seem to swing from pandering to our worst fears to get a few more bucks to blind rote repetition in hazard response that doesn't match logic to the threat. Here's a few examples that I hope are not typical, but I wonder...

In Denver, there was a "white powder" scare on Sunday - actually, it wasn't even a powder scare, it was a number of capsules holding a yellow powder which were delivered to a bank. It tested positive for a biological organism (protein) but not anthrax. There was no threat in the envelope, no return address, no visible signs of ill effects on the employees handling the mail. So of course the locals did the routine thing - quarantine the seven bank employees and the police officer who answered the 911 call, call the feds, let the WMD Civil Support Team confirm it's not anthrax, and strip and wash the employees in the bank's parking lot. Yep - routine.

But as a precaution, the employees were scrubbed in a puffy orange tent and sent home in a hazardous- materials suit because the substance was still unknown Sunday evening. One of the female employees cried on her way out of the decontamination tent, where she was required to strip naked and get scrubbed down by a hazardous-materials team.

The police officer also was decontaminated because he came in contact with the employees when he answered the 911 call.

Okay, is it asking too much for someone - between FEMA, the FBI, the Army (assuming the 20th SUPCOM), the WMD CST, and the Denver firefighters and hazmat team - to think, hmmm, doesn't test out as a BW agent or any typical white/yellow powder, no weird messages in the envelope, maybe we don't have to recreate the decon scene from "Silkwood" for what is probably a false alarm and obviously not a chemical or radiological hazard that might cause an acute lethal reaction. Idiots.

Let's flash over to Kansas City, where Kansas State University is planning to open up a Bio-Security Research Institute, which will study food safety. About $54 million is being invested in the facility. The university has a program called "Making America Safer" which includes several projects funded by DHS. They're looking forward to helping...

Now, under the center’s purview, hundreds of researchers and students are engaged in projects aimed at keeping America safe. The center works with the departments of Agriculture, Defense and Justice and other federal, state and local agencies “to facilitate an effective strategy for rapid response to emerging agricultural threats,” Vanier said.

The center is even developing plans for training police and firefighters who would be early responders in the event of a bioterrorist attack.

No, it's not the scientists' job to limit or halt bioterrorism attacks, contrary to the article's cheery tone. Intelligence professionals find out where the terrorists are and counterterrorism units grab the bad guys. All the scientists do is preach how deadly the bugs are and why they need more money to research the hazards. Although I should take it easy on K-State's associate vice provost for research and compliance, Jerry Jaax - he paid his dues as an Army MRIID doc working at the Reston Ebola breakout in 1989 - he's still a typical medic: "a bioterrorism attack could cripple the agricultural-based economy of the [Kansas] region. Jaax said a 'significant risk' of such an attack does exist." Yadda yadda. Where's the intel assessment?

Last, let's jump up to the Fed level. ABC News gets Richard Clarke (its paid consultant) and the FBI's WMD Division to hype up the spinach E. coli incident into a potential agro-terrorism incident.

Government investigators say there's no evidence linking the current E. coli outbreak — in which tainted spinach has caused at least 171 known cases in 25 states, according to the FDA — to terrorism. But those same investigators are keenly aware that America's food supply is vulnerable to attack. An international meeting on how to fight agro-terrorism starts Monday in Kansas City.

Government agencies have held mock exercises to see what would happen if the food supply was compromised. The results were catastrophic.

"What happened was utter chaos," said Sen. Patrick Roberts, R-Kan. "We lost almost the entire livestock herd of the United States, all export stock. We had panic at the grocery stores."

What a shock. A national exercise which went for the "worst case scenario" route to test the leadership responses, despite all lack of any evidence of a current terrorist threat and the complete lack of any past history of agro-terrorism. But it justifies the USDA's research bills.

Is it too much to ask for some sanity? Some logic and common sense? Natural disasters, accidents and indigenous diseases are still the major killers out there, people. I'm not against some funds for countering CBRN terrorism - it pays my bills - but certainly we could be spending it smarter, and more importantly, talking about the topic more intelligently.

UPDATE: Offices in Denver got four "anthrax" envelopes Monday - some copycat with a sick sense of humor. We need FEMA or the state EOCs to develop procedures that will minimize panic and not automatically go to four-alarm mode, assuming that every white powder is anthrax unless otherwise proven. These hoaxes and false alarms are going to continue - better figure out a sane way to face that fact.

-- Jason Sigger, crossposted at Armchair Generalist

Paint-On Antennas Take Off

The military would like to use blimps as eyes -- and cell towers -- in the sky. But, for the plan to really work, the antennas attached to those airships have to be light, flexible, and fit perfectly on the blimp's hull. And so far, building those antennas has been hard to do.

A crew of Air Force-funded companies has a new approach: paint-on antennas that can be slopped right on the side of an airship. The goop is "a combination of polymer-based dielectrics and highly conductive paint," Aviation Week says. And during a recent flight test, a spherical blimp with "paint-on electromagnetic antennas communicated voice and data to an Iridium Global satellite."

The key, apparently, is a product called Unishield, a coating which "creates an electrical field that can be specifically tuned to absorb or reflect radar frequencies." Which means that the stuff can not only be used to make paint-on antennas -- but can create magnetic fields to make planes more stealthy, too.

Rapid Fire 09/27/06

* No NSA spy bill, for now

* Marines trying out new body armor

* Road tests for hydrogen cars

* AWOL schmuck gives up

* "What the FBI needs now"

* Shocker! Iraq fueling terror

* Aging software: sleuth's friend?

* New bird for GPS

* Judge: come clean on border cyber attack

* Firefighting plane soars, finally

* Your very own fembot

* Schwag, beautiful schwag

The 'Bravest Guy in al-Anbar Province'

I don't usually post these sorts of things. But there's an e-mail making the rounds, from a marine in Fallujah, that's too good not to share. From bank-robbing insurgents to Oprah-watching locals to the "Bravest Guy in al-Anbar Province," this marine has vidvidly, succinctly captured life during wartime -- and made it all funny, to boot. Go read, now.

(Big ups: GH)

Subject: A Marine's Eye-View of Fallujah (Unclassified)

A Marine's Eye-View of Fallujah

All: I haven't written very much from Iraq. There's really not much to write about. More exactly, there's not much I can write about because practically everything I do, read or hear is classified military information or is depressing to the point that I'd rather just forget about it, never mind write about it. The gaps in between all of that are filled with the pure tedium of daily life in an armed camp. So it's a bit of a struggle to think of anything to put into a letter that's worth reading. Worse, this place just consumes you. I work 18-20-hour days, every day. The quest to draw a clear picture of what the insurgents are up to never ends. Problems and frictions crop up faster than solutions. Every challenge demands a response. It's like this every day. Before I know it, I can't see straight, because it's 0400 and I've been at work for twenty hours straight, somehow missing dinner again in the process. And once again I haven't written to anyone. It starts all over again four hours later. It's not really like Ground Hog Day, it's more like a level from Dante's Inferno.

Rather than attempting to sum up the last seven months, I figured I'd just hit the record setting highlights of 2006 in Iraq. These are among the events and experiences I'll remember best.

Worst Case of Déjà Vu - I thought I was familiar with the feeling of déjà vu until I arrived back here in Fallujah in February. The moment I stepped off of the helicopter, just as dawn broke, and saw the camp just as I had left it ten months before - that was déjà vu. Kind of unnerving. It was as if I had never left. Same work area, same busted desk, same chair, same computer, same room, same creaky rack, same . . . everything. Same everything for the next year. It was like entering a parallel universe. Home wasn't 10,000 miles away, it was a different lifetime.

Most Surreal Moment - Watching Marines arrive at my detention facility and unload a truck load of flex-cuffed midgets. 26 to be exact. I had put the word out earlier in the day to the Marines in Fallujah that we were looking for Bad Guy X, who was described as a midget. Little did I know that Fallujah was home to a small community of midgets, who banded together for support since they were considered as social outcasts. The Marines were anxious to get back to the midget colony to bring in the rest of the midget suspects, but I called off the search, figuring Bad Guy X was long gone on his short legs after seeing his companions rounded up by the giant infidels.

Most Profound Man in Iraq - an unidentified farmer in a fairly remote area who, after being asked by Reconnaissance Marines (searching for Syrians) if he had seen any foreign fighters in the area replied "Yes, you."

Worst City in al-Anbar Province - Ramadi, hands down. The provincial capital of 400,000 people. Killed over 1,000 insurgents in there since we arrived in February. Every day is a nasty gun battle. They blast us with giant bombs in the road, snipers, mortars and small arms. We blast them with tanks, attack helicopters, artillery, our snipers (much better than theirs), and every weapon that an infantryman can carry. Every day. Incredibly, I rarely see Ramadi in the news. We have as many attacks out here in the west as Baghdad. Yet, Baghdad has 7 million people, we have just 1.2 million. Per capita, al-Anbar province is the most violent place in Iraq by several orders of magnitude. I suppose it was no accident that the Marines were assigned this area in 2003.

Bravest Guy in al-Anbar Province - Any Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician (EOD Tech). How'd you like a job that required you to defuse bombs in a hole in the middle of the road that very likely are booby-trapped or connected by wire to a bad guy who's just waiting for you to get close to the bomb before he clicks the detonator? Every day. Sanitation workers in New York City get paid more than these guys. Talk about courage and commitment.

Second Bravest Guy in al-Anbar Province - It's a 20,000 way tie among all the Marines and Soldiers who venture out on the highways and through the towns of al-Anbar every day, not knowing if it will be their last - and for a couple of them, it will be.

Best Piece of U.S. Gear - new, bullet-proof flak jackets. O.K., they weigh 40 lbs and aren't exactly comfortable in 120 degree heat, but they've saved countless lives out here.

Best Piece of Bad Guy Gear - Armor Piercing ammunition that goes right through the new flak jackets and the Marines inside them.

Worst E-Mail Message - "The Walking Blood Bank is Activated. We need blood type A+ stat." I always head down to the surgical unit as soon as I get these messages, but I never give blood - there's always about 80 Marines in line, night or day.

Biggest Surprise - Iraqi Police. All local guys. I never figured that we'd get a police force established in the cities in al-Anbar. I estimated that insurgents would kill the first few, scaring off the rest. Well, insurgents did kill the first few, but the cops kept on coming. The insurgents continue to target the police, killing them in their homes and on the streets, but the cops won't give up. Absolutely incredible tenacity. The insurgents know that the police are far better at finding them than we are. - and they are finding them. Now, if we could just get them out of the habit of beating prisoners to a pulp . . .

Greatest Vindication - Stocking up on outrageous quantities of Diet Coke from the chow hall in spite of the derision from my men on such hoarding, then having a 122mm rocket blast apart the giant shipping container that held all of the soda for the chow hall. Yep, you can't buy experience.

Biggest Mystery - How some people can gain weight out here. I'm down to 165 lbs. Who has time to eat?

Second Biggest Mystery - if there's no atheists in foxholes, then why aren't there more people at Mass every Sunday?

Favorite Iraqi TV Show - Oprah. I have no idea. They all have satellite TV.

Coolest Insurgent Act - Stealing almost $7 million from the main bank in Ramadi in broad daylight, then, upon exiting, waving to the Marines in the combat outpost right next to the bank, who had no clue of what was going on. The Marines waved back. Too cool.

Most Memorable Scene - In the middle of the night, on a dusty airfield, watching the better part of a battalion of Marines packed up and ready to go home after six months in al-Anbar, the relief etched in their young faces even in the moonlight. Then watching these same Marines exchange glances with a similar number of grunts loaded down with gear file past - their replacements. Nothing was said. Nothing needed to be said.

Highest Unit Re-enlistment Rate - Any outfit that has been in Iraq recently. All the danger, all the hardship, all the time away from home, all the horror, all the frustrations with the fight here - all are outweighed by the desire for young men to be part of a 'Band of Brothers' who will die for one another. They found what they were looking for when they enlisted out of high school. Man for man, they now have more combat experience than any Marines in the history of our Corps.

Most Surprising Thing I Don't Miss - Beer. Perhaps being half-stunned by lack of sleep makes up for it.

Worst Smell - Porta-johns in 120 degree heat - and that's 120 degrees outside of the porta-john.

Highest Temperature - I don't know exactly, but it was in the porta-johns. Needed to re-hydrate after each trip to the loo.

Biggest Hassle - High-ranking visitors. More disruptive to work than a rocket attack. VIPs demand briefs and "battlefield" tours (we take them to quiet sections of Fallujah, which is plenty scary for them). Our briefs and commentary seem to have no affect on their preconceived notions of what's going on in Iraq. Their trips allow them to say that they've been to Fallujah, which gives them an unfortunate degree of credibility in perpetuating their fantasies about the insurgency here.

Biggest Outrage - Practically anything said by talking heads on TV about the war in Iraq, not that I get to watch much TV. Their thoughts are consistently both grossly simplistic and politically slanted. Biggest offender - Bill O'Reilly - what a buffoon.

Best Intel Work - Finding Jill Carroll's kidnappers - all of them. I was mighty proud of my guys that day. I figured we'd all get the Christian Science Monitor for free after this, but none have showed up yet. Talk about ingratitude.

Saddest Moment - Having the battalion commander from 1st Battalion, 1st Marines hand me the dog tags of one of my Marines who had just been killed while on a mission with his unit. Hit by a 60mm mortar. Cpl Bachar was a great Marine. I felt crushed for a long time afterward. His picture now hangs at the entrance to the Intelligence Section. We'll carry it home with us when we leave in February.

Biggest Ass-Chewing - 10 July immediately following a visit by the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Dr. Zobai. The Deputy Prime Minister brought along an American security contractor (read mercenary), who told my Commanding General that he was there to act as a mediator between us and the Bad Guys. I immediately told him what I thought of him and his asinine ideas in terms that made clear my disgust and which, unfortunately, are unrepeatable here. I thought my boss was going to have a heart attack. Fortunately, the translator couldn't figure out the best Arabic words to convey my meaning for the Deputy Prime Minister. Later, the boss had no difficulty in convening his meaning to me in English regarding my Irish temper, even though he agreed with me. At least the guy from the State Department thought it was hilarious. We never saw the mercenary again.

Best Chuck Norris Moment - 13 May. Bad Guys arrived at the government center in the small town of Kubaysah to kidnap the town mayor, since they have a problem with any form of government that does not include regular beheadings and women wearing burqahs. There were seven of them. As they brought the mayor out to put him in a pick-up truck to take him off to be beheaded (on video, as usual), one of the bad Guys put down his machinegun so that he could tie the mayor's hands. The mayor took the opportunity to pick up the machinegun and drill five of the Bad Guys. The other two ran away. One of the dead Bad Guys was on our top twenty wanted list. Like they say, you can't fight City Hall.

Worst Sound - That crack-boom off in the distance that means an IED or mine just went off. You just wonder who got it, hoping that it was a near miss rather than a direct hit. Hear it every day.

Second Worst Sound - Our artillery firing without warning. The howitzers are pretty close to where I work. Believe me, outgoing sounds a lot like incoming when our guns are firing right over our heads. They'd about knock the fillings out of your teeth.

Only Thing Better in Iraq Than in the U.S. - Sunsets. Spectacular. It's from all the dust in the air.

Proudest Moment - It's a tie every day, watching my Marines produce phenomenal intelligence products that go pretty far in teasing apart Bad Guy operations in al-Anbar. Every night Marines and Soldiers are kicking in doors and grabbing Bad Guys based on intelligence developed by my guys. We rarely lose a Marine during these raids, they are so well-informed of the objective. A bunch of kids right out of high school shouldn't be able to work so well, but they do.

Happiest Moment - Well, it wasn't in Iraq. There are no truly happy moments here. It was back in California when I was able to hold my family again while home on leave during July.

Most Common Thought - Home. Always thinking of home, of Kathleen and the kids. Wondering how everyone else is getting along. Regretting that I don't write more. Yep, always thinking of home.

I hope you all are doing well. If you want to do something for me, kiss a cop, flush a toilet, and drink a beer. I'll try to write again before too long - I promise.

Semper Fi,

Army's Funds Drying Up

For nearly forty years, Fred Kaplan notes, "the Army, Air Force, and Navy... have abided by an informal agreement that gives each of them a roughly equal share of the total military budget... In this way, the chiefs have avoided the interservice rivalries that tore the military establishments apart throughout the 1940s and '50s."

But that was before the war in Iraq pushed a slimmed-down Army to the brink, with gear wearing out fast, and units who can't properly prep for combat. "The Army is clearly in need of a higher share of the budget now. It is the service that's dominating the fighting, losing most of its troops, and getting most of its equipment chewed up," Kaplan adds.

There are ways to treat the Army's ailments without opening the purse strings. [It could stop stuffing R&D projects into its Iraq war budget. -- ed] For instance, [Army chief of staff Gen. Peter] Schoomaker could cancel or postpone the Army's Future Combat Systems, a $200 billion confabulation that may be way overdesigned for any realistic scenario of future combat. But the FCS is the Army's only big-ticket weapon system, and the procurement commanders wouldn't surrender it unless the Air Force and Navy chiefs junked their big fighter planes and submarines, which isn't about to happen, either.

Early on in his regime, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld might have had the clout to force such a bargain, but no longer. He has already abdicated his authority, allowing Schoomaker to appeal directly for more money to the White House's Office of Management and Budget. (According to Army Times, this is another unprecedented move: No service secretary has ever dealt directly with the OMB — all such appeals are supposed to be made through the secretary of defense.)

This bureaucratic turbulence only reflects a broader dilemma that higher political authorities will soon have to address, whether they'd like to or not. Schoomaker's central complaint is that he doesn't have the money to maintain the Army's global missions. The president and the Congress can pony up the money (a lot more money) or scale back the missions. To do otherwise — to stay the course with inadequate resources — is to invite defeats and disasters.

UPDATE 11:44 AM: One more quick point on this. Traditionally, the Army has been thought of as the low-tech, low-cost service. That's no longer so. Back in the day, you could send an infantryman into battle with just a rifle and a helmet. Now, he takes all kind of gear -- body armor, night vision goggles, you name it. Equipment costs, per man, have gone from something like $2,000 a soldier during Vietnam to around $25,000 today. It's another reason why doling out the Army's traditional slice of the budget pie ain't gonna work this time around.

Rapid Fire 09/26/06

* Everyone is an "enemy combatant"

* Secrecy News: show the love

* DIY rocket crashes

* Nuke inspector spills

* USAF chief: slash training, buy more planes

* More cuts for milspace?

* What could go wrong? Zero-G operation

* Invisibile drone?

* Eagle eyes for flying 'bots

* All real men read Dethroner

(Big ups: Haninah, RC, JQP)

"Plug-and-Play" Ship Hits the Water

Navy Captain Don Babcock was in a hurry, when I met him earlier this year, in his office, tucked in a red-brick battleship shell factory along the Potomac River. Most people is his position, running big military development programs, tend to think in deadlines of approximates: a funding decision will come some time in the next few weeks, a test will happen some time in the spring, a system will be fielded in fiscal year 2009 - or was that 2010? Babcock, on the other hand, had a big, digital clock on his wall, detailing the exact number of days, minutes, hours, and seconds until his first Littoral Combat Ship, or LCS, would be commissioned.

The restless attitude seems to be paying off. The first LCS -- the "Freedom" -- was christened on Sunday. And that's a pretty major milestone for the Navy. Because the LCS is much, much different than anything in the American fleet today. Unlike the Navy's new DD(X) destroyer, the Freedom didn't cost billions to put together. And it's not planned for 1000 different kinds of missions, as a I noted in a Popular Mechanics article earlier this year:

Instead, each LCS will concentrate on a specific coastal mission: antisub warfare, mine clearance or ship-to-ship fights. Every LCS comes with a core crew of 40 and a weapons suite that includes a 57mm gun and missile interceptors. The boat is then customized with "mission modules" -- 40-ft. cargo containers, crammed with sonar arrays for sub-hunting, unmanned helicopters for surface warfare or robotic swimmers for minesweeping. The modules can be swapped out in less than a day. Then a second crew of about 35 comes on board to run the new machines. If the DD(X) is a 14,000-ton Swiss Army knife, then the LCS is a 3000-ton power drill-with interchangeable bits. "We're making a huge course change in the way we do business," Babcock says...

With a top speed of 45 knots or more, the LCSs will be fast enough to chase down terrorists in small boats. They're stealthy enough for effective reconnaissance. And, at about $400 million each, fully loaded -- about a tenth of the new destroyer's price -- the LCS is affordable enough for the Navy to send dozens of them skipping around the seas. It's a distributed, fast-moving response to a distributed, fast-moving foe.

Now, there a still a bunch of question marks surrounding the program. The basic shape, for instance. The Freedom looks like a speedboat on steriods. The second LCS, the Independence, will be a 419-foot trimaran. But the idea of building a cheap, adaptable, plug-and-play fleet that's future-proofed for uncertain times looks like a winner. And, unlike so many other Pentagon projects these days, the Littoral Combat Ship looks like it just might happen on time.

UPDATE 2:54 PM: Interesting: the Saudis want to buy the trimaran LCS... but with a stronger radar, and a whole lot more guns.

UPDATE 09/26/06 9:51 PM: Check out this sa-weeet video of the LCS being launched.

(Big ups: JH, TW)

Rapid Fire 09/25/06

* Army, Rummy war heats up

* Ex-general: he's "incompetent"

* No gear for 3rd ID

* Anthrax attack not so slick

* Robots' soft skin

* Orbiting nuke-watchers

* Tamper-proof RAM

* Only nine embeds in Iraq?

* NASA's peek at China's space program

* Brits' sat-equipped coasties

* 78 year-old detainee leaves Gitmo

* Airport security's future

* Blogger boobiethon!

* Spinach = bioterror? Not!

* 5,000 years in 90 seconds

* Fighting nuke terror: "Why do better?"

* Obviously

(Big ups: GP, TP)

Chinese Laser vs. U.S. Sats?

"China has fired high-power lasers at U.S. spy satellites flying over its territory in... a test of Chinese ability to blind the spacecraft," Defense News is reporting. And, at least in theory, those lasers might be able temporarily take offline America's most powerful orbiting spies, like the giant electro-optical Keyhole spacecraft or radar-based satellites like the Lacrosse.

Now, the article is a little short on details. "It remains unclear how many times the ground-based laser was tested against U.S. spacecraft or whether it was successful," the story says.

And there's a touch of hyperbole in the piece. According to the article, a recent Pentagon report "acknowledge[d] China has the ability to blind U.S. satellites, thanks to a powerful ground-based laser." That's not exactly right. What the report actually says isn't quite so definitive:

Evidence exists that China is improving its situational awareness in space, which will give it the ability to track and identify most satellites. Such capability will allow for the deconfliction of Chinese satellites, and would also be required for offensive actions. At least one of the satellite attack systems appears to be a groundbased laser designed to damage or blind imaging satellites.

Nevertheless, citing unnamed "top officials," the trade journal asserts that "China not only has the [anti-satellite] capability, but has exercised it. It is not clear when China first used lasers to attack American satellites. Sources would only say that there have been several tests over the past several years."

Within the U.S. military, there's a contingent that's been worried for years about China arming up like this. The other day, I was talking to an Air Force colonel, about the Pentagon's plans for "prompt global strike" -- the ability to launch, in a matter of hours, a bolt-from-the-blue attack against an enemy thousands and thousands of miles away. Some in the armed forces talk about the strikes as a way to take out an Iranian nuclear facility, a terrorist chieftain, or a North Korean missile on the launchpad. But this colonel had a different target in mind for the instant attack: a Chinese "anti-satellite, ground-based laser wreak[ing] havoc with our constellation."

If China really is pursuing such a weapon, it wouldn't be the only country looking at lasers to interfere with enemy eyes above the sky. In a 1997 test, the U.S. fired a chemical laser at a satellite orbiting 420 kilometers above the Earth. The "laser apparently had technical difficulties," according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, "but the results of the test were startling."

A lower-power (30-watt) laser intended for alignment of the system and tracking of the satellite was the primary laser source used during the test, and it appeared that this lower-power laser was sufficiently powerful itself to blind the satellite temporarily, although it could not destroy the sensor.

These days, the Air Force's Starfire Optical Range is shooting lasers in the sky, trying to figure out how best to correct for atmospheric interference. Astronomers looking into the heavens will be the most immediate beneficiaries. But Starfire could help out anti-satellite weaponeers, too. These days, ground-based lasers aren't powerful enough -- or good enough at traveling through the air -- to permanently take out a satellite; the best the beams might be able to do is blind the thing, temporarily. That could change, if Starfire (or its Chinese equivalent) does its job right.

UPDATE 10:12 AM: Color Theresea Hitchens, the Center for Defense Information's resident spacewar guru, "not convinced – nor impressed."

The folks quoted in this story are neither space nor China experts -- and those folks are easy to find. And there is the odd timing: just as Griffin goes to China, over the earlier objections of Rummy and the P-gon. Statements like "China's burgeoning antisatellite capabilities..." -- who SAYS? Even the P-gon hasn't gone that far in its reports on Chinese Military Power.

All that said, I would NOT be surprised if the Chinese were testing a Ground-Based Laser. So are we, at Starfire Optical Range. If they lased U.S. satellites though, how do we know they were trying to blind them rather than TRACK them -- since we say Starfire is using lasers only to track sats? China doesn't have all that great tracking ability, and it needs it, not just to track our stuff but their own. There isn't any real way to tell, I don't think, what the INTENT behind such lasing would be.

NOT that it is a good thing -- lasing other people's sats without their consent, or at least specific statements of your intent to do only tracking, in peacetime ought to be off the playing field, hence the need for a code of conduct of some sort in space operations.

Finally, with regard to laser blinding -- it is not as easy as it sounds to "blind" an optical satellite with a laser. I'm no physicist, but as I understand it, imaging satellites usually work in several wavelengths, meaning first of all you'd have to have lasers in all the colors that match those wavelengths to blind the sat, not just one single wavelength laser beam. Secondly, because of the way imaging sats work, taking pictures of strips of the Earth using strips of pixels, you'd have to figure out how to blind all the pixels -- which apparently is so hard as to be well nigh impossible. And I note that as far as I know, we haven't gotten that far with Starfire, so what makes us so sure the Chinese are ahead of us there?

If you ask me, the story raises more questions than answers.

Axe in Iraq, Take Seven

So I'm off to Basra in southern Iraq to hang out with the British Army. Basra province, once a sideshow in this drama, has become a main act in recent months. Iranian influence is on the rise. The Shi'ite militias exert increasing control while Iraqi government authority wanes. Attacks on coalition forces are at an all-time high and casualties have skyrocketed. But it's not all bad news. The Brits have just turned over two provinces to Iraqi control, with more pending. I'll be filing from Iraq whenever I can. Wish me luck.

--David Axe

Dragon Skin: Proven Tough?

The seemingly-endlessly soap opera behind the new-fangled Dragon Skin body armor has taken yet another plot twist.

In our last episode, Army program managers in charge of a competing body armor system were publicly dissing the Dragon -- while they were in the middle of supposedly impartial tests to gauge the armor's effectiveness. "To anyone considering purchasing an SOV 3000 Dragon Skin - don't," one program manager said on an online forum. "I do, however, highly recommend this system for use by insurgents."

But the National Institute of Justice, which has long rated bullet-proofing systems, has come up with a different opinion, according to Soldiers for the Truth. Within a few weeks, the NIJ will formally certify for Level III protection -- good enough to stop AK-47 fire. If I'm not mistaken, that would make the Dragon Skin the first soft armor, without plate inserts, to get that high of a rating. And it would certainly call into question the Army managers' disparaging remarks about the armor -- after Dragon Skin went from ballyhooed to banned to grudgingly accepted for testing, all in a matter of months. Stay tuned...

Rapid Fire 09/22/06

* Only 10,000 troops ready to go?

* River rats get set to bite

* Army's new hydrogen car

* Pentagon vs. ebola

* Grow back lost limbs?

* Super solar cells

* Bad data slowed 7/7 response

* "Able Danger" didn't spot Atta

* Tainted Torture deal

* So long, Tomcat

* L'shana Tovah!

(Big ups: EH)

"Own the Night... and Share It"

An eagle-eyed reader points us to an interesting-looking Darpa program that could tip the night vision equation back in America's favor. If it gets beyond the goofy video stage, that is.

The goal of the Multispectral Adaptive Networked Tactical Imaging System (MANTIS) project is to combine images from three slices of the spectrum -- short wave infrared (SWIR), long wave infrared (LWIR), and visible light -- into a single view.

“The SWIR sensor operates in the 1- to 2-micron range, providing low light performance, a primary image and scene context with the ability to see through fog,” MANTIS manager Jeffrey Paul tells Signal magazine. “The LWIR camera operates in the 8- to 12-micron range, and as a thermal imager needs no light; it penetrates smoke and dust and can find partially hidden targets. All of these bandwidths can be digitally imaged. Once that occurs, we can do whatever we want with the imagery in real time, including fusing it to use that one best image to present to the soldier.”

In that way, MANTIS would be similar to other image fusing projects that the military is currently investigating. MANTIS' twist is that the combined image is then supposed to be beamed wirelessly to the helmet visor of every soldier in a squad, "so that each person sees what every other person sees."

"We also have a TiVo-like record and playback capability so that the last 10 seconds can be called up and played again. Digital information and high-speed processors handle these functions and connect them over the network to enable image sharing,” Paul maintains. “MANTIS also uses inertial navigation and global positioning system receivers so that each soldier will precisely know his location and the processor will know where he is looking at all times, his fields of vision and of fire."

OK, OK. So it all sounds a little far-fetched. And I'm sure MANTIS suffers from all the same limitations discussed here. But there do seem to be some prototypes floating around, at least. And the system is scheduled to make the transition from Darpa to the Army at the end of this year.

Nex-Gen Night Vision Still Fuzzy

Night vision gear gave U.S. forces a huge leg up in the first Gulf War. But these days, anyone can buy see-in-the-dark goggles for a few hundred bucks, online.

So military research labs [are] push[ing] to give U.S. war fighters nighttime optics that are several steps ahead of what can be bought at any hunting and fishing store, or duplicated by foreign militaries," National Defense magazine notes.

At the top of the want list is a system that fuses both 'image enhancement,' which relies on ambient light, and infrared capabilities.

Infrared does not rely on ambient light, as does image enhancement, which emits the technology’s characteristic green glow. Laying infrared over the image will help operators see camouflaged targets and give them better contrast, experts said. “If you turn on that fused system, the red will pop out at you, and you can react very quickly,” said Elizabeth Redden, chief of the human research and engineering directorate field element at the U.S. Army Infantry Center at Fort Benning, Ga.

However, military researchers are grappling with several challenges to create this fusion. Helicopter pilots, for example, cannot use infrared sensors through windshields, noted Chief Warrant Officer Wade Fox, an adviser to the night vision devices branch at the Army 110th aviation brigade, Fort Rucker, Ala. “A fused system is really where we want to go.”

Such a system could still be used by crewmembers like door gunners who can stick their heads outside windows. For pilots, an infrared sensor could be mounted outside the cockpit, and the imaged fused on a helmet-mounted device. However, external cameras can create distortion caused by viewing the same object from two different angles, also known as a parallax effect, which makes it difficult to maneuver.

Rapid Fire 09/21/06

* No '08 Joint Strike Fighter for Navy

* Kurds, Israelis team up

* Lotsa guns for Iraqi army

* Atlantis comes home

* Border tech doomed to fail?

* Kitchen sinks vs. IEDs

* Chinese, Iranian weapons spread

* Special agent: semi-secrecy sucks

* Teens invade SOCOM HQ

* Engine on a chip

* Open source, artificial limbs

* 50 years in, no AI

* Get ready for ATM crime spree?

* Laser JDAM: quick, deadly

* "Tactical Daddy" vs. diaper bags

* Nine in a row

(Big ups: JQP, JH, PG, Dan, JA)

Amtracs Forever

The Marines are fitting their 25-year-old AAV-7 amphibious tractors with thermal sights, replacing old starlight scopes with a range of just half a mile, according to Defense Industry Daily:

The replacement AAV7A1 day/night sight must provide daylight as well as nighttime sighting ability to detect targets to 4.7 km, recognize targets to 2.5 km, and identify targets at 700 m.

The news comes hot on the heels of rumored deep cuts to the Marines' Expeditionary
Fighting Vehicle, a long-delayed attempt to replace more than a thousand AAVs with as many new vehicles featuring stabilized cannons and better armor and comms.

The idea behind the EFV is to field a vehicle that's closer to a Bradley than to a boat, since these days the Marines spend a lot of time far inland, fighting like Army infantry. Despite the clear operational need for EFVs, the expense has proved just too great -- a quarter of the Corps' procurement budget over five years, according to some estimates.

The AAV upgrades reflect the Marines' growing acceptance that they're going to have to hold onto these ancient vehicles indefinitely. The first sign was the initiation of a top-to-bottom rebuild similar to the Army's tank remanufacturing initiative that aims to keep 15-year-old M-1s crawling into the 2030s. National Defense Magazine explains:

[T]he AAV’s suspension system is replaced with one derived from the Army’s Bradley Fighting Vehicle. In place of the current 400-horsepower engine, the AAV gets a 525-horsepower Cummins V903, also installed in the Bradley. The HS-400 transmission is rebuilt and modified to include a new torque converter, upgrading it to the HS-525 configuration. The remainder of the vehicle is rebuilt according to original specifications.

The problem of ageing weapons is everywhere in today's DoD. The Navy is rebuilding P-3 Orion patrol planes from the 1970s to keep them flying until the new P-8 enters service. The Air Force is studying ways to upgrade F-15s to complement the "silver-bullet" F-22 fleet. Meanwhile, B-52s keep on chugging, 40 years after they rolled off the Boeing assembly line.

But the Marines have it worst. Nearly everything in their arsenal -- from fighter jets to helicopters to trucks -- is old, real old. And it's all decaying ever faster in the heat and sand of Iraq. The bill for repairs so far? $30 billion.

--David Axe

Drones, Blimps Lose Out in Border War

For those of you hoping for hordes of drones and blimps to start patrolling the Mexican and Canadian borders, there's bad news this morning. "After a face-off among large military contractors, the Boeing Company was picked by the Homeland Security Department to lead a high-tech effort to secure borders," the Times reports. And unlike proposals from Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and others, Boeing's plan for the Secure Border Initiative, or SBInet, doesn't rely that much on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or airships.

"Boeing's proposal relied heavily on a network of 1,800 towers, most of which would need to be erected along the borders with Mexico and Canada. Each tower would be equipped with a variety of sensors, including cameras and heat and motion detectors," the Washington Post notes. Boeing teamed up for the project with an Israeli company that built a bunch of the imaging equipment used in Israel's controversial fence along the West Bank. That gear, Boeing said, would be less risky and expensive than UAVs or airships -- even though both have been used to watch over southern Arizona for illegals.

But, not to worry: the Times says that there are still a few drones in the Boeing plan -- "small, relatively inexpensive unmanned aerial vehicles that can be launched from a pickup truck by an agent in the field and then fly for, perhaps, 90 minutes." I'm guessing the paper means these drones here.

"Homeland Security has been criticized harshly in recent years for initiatives that have either failed or far exceeded their budgets. In one case, cameras that the department installed on the borders broke down in bad weather," the Post observes.

"The administration has spent $429 million of the taxpayer's money to try and secure our borders with two already-abandoned border security programs," said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss). He expressed concern that the same thing will happen to SBInet.

Mindful of that record, Boeing emphasized that all its technology has been proven to work. "The low-risk approach is probably going to carry weight here."

"The contract will at least initially be much more limited than some industry officials had expected, valued at $80 million instead of the $2 billion estimate given for the six-year deal," the Times writes.

Final Word on YouTube Whistleblower

For weeks now, Mike DeKort, a former Lockheed Martin engineer, has been calling shenanigans on the firm for alleged ethics breaches. What started as a crude stand-up on video-sharing site YouTube has escalated into something of a media frenzy. Now the Coast Guard and Lockheed Martin are calling shenanigans right back.

Their contention is that DeKort, who hasn't worked on Deepwater in 18 months, is out of touch ... and citing outdated documents to corroborate his claims.

The lynchpin of DeKort's case is his contention that LockMart botched a program to upgrade Coast Guard patrol boats. To back up his claim, DeKort has been citing a Coast Guard Inspector General report (PDF!). But the Coast Guard says that report relies on data that are six months old. Since then, the service has addressed all the problems, according to spokeswoman Mary Elder:

The report addresses challenges relating to certification and accreditation of Deepwater [command and control] equipment, specifically on WPB 123 [patrol boats]. Subsequent to the audit, the Coast Guard has received class-wide Authority to Operate (ATO) these patrol boats while conducting secure communications. This certification followed testing by independent, third-party examiners working to standards used and endorsed by the U.S. Navy and National Security Agency.

Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin spokesman Troy Scully stresses that the company has investigated each of DeKort's issues -- some more than once -- and has corrected any faults. "I'm not sure what will make him happy," Scully says of DeKort.

DeKort told me what would make him happy: to put his conscience at ease, he wants to see the findings of all investigations. But Lockheed (perhaps rightly) says those are proprietary.

--David Axe

Hez Hacked Israeli Radios

This is downright shocking, if true. "Hezbollah guerrillas were able to hack into Israeli radio communications during last month's battles in south Lebanon, an intelligence breakthrough that helped them thwart Israeli tank assaults," Newsday reports.

Using technology most likely supplied by Iran, special Hezbollah teams monitored the constantly changing radio frequencies of Israeli troops on the ground. That gave guerrillas a picture of Israeli movements, casualty reports and supply routes. It also allowed Hezbollah anti-tank units to more effectively target advancing Israeli armor, according to the officials...

The Israeli military refused to comment on whether its radio communications were compromised, citing security concerns. But a former Israeli general, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Hezbollah's ability to secretly hack into military transmissions had "disastrous" consequences for the Israeli offensive...

Like most modern militaries, Israeli forces use a practice known as "frequency-hopping" - rapidly switching among dozens of frequencies per second - to prevent radio messages from being jammed or intercepted. It also uses encryption devices to make it difficult for enemy forces to decipher transmissions even if they are intercepted. The Israelis mostly rely on a U.S.-designed communication system called the Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System...

With frequency-hopping and encryption, most radio communications become very difficult to hack. But troops in the battlefield sometimes make mistakes in following secure radio procedures and can give an enemy a way to break into the frequency-hopping patterns. That might have happened during some battles between Israel and Hezbollah, according to the Lebanese official. Hezbollah teams likely also had sophisticated reconnaissance devices that could intercept radio signals even while they were frequency-hopping.

During one raid in southern Lebanon, Israeli special forces said they found a Hezbollah office equipped with jamming and eavesdropping devices.

It was my impression that this kind of signal interception was really, really hard to do -- especially for an irregular force like Hezbollah. I know there are some radio and commsec gurus who read the site regularly. Weigh in here, guys.

Or maybe the article itself contains the seed of what actually happened. "Besides radio transmissions, the official said Hezbollah also monitored cell phone calls among Israeli troops," Newsday notes. A raided Hezbollah base had list of "cell phone numbers for Israeli commanders."

Cells are, of course, way easier to intercept. "Israeli forces were under strict orders not to divulge sensitive information over the phone." But maybe they talked anyway. Maybe they thought Hezbollah would never be sophisticated enough to grab their calls.

UPDATE 3:25 PM: Weeks ago, the Times of London and Asia Times had hints of this.

Apparently using techniques learnt from their paymasters in Iran, they were even able to crack the codes and follow the fast-changing frequencies of Israeli radio communications, intercepting reports of the casualties they had inflicted again and again. This enabled them to dominate the media war by announcing Israeli fatalities first.

“They monitored our secure radio communications in the most professional way,” one Israeli officer admitted. “When we lose a man, the fighting unit immediately gives the location and the number back to headquarters. What Hezbollah did was to monitor our radio and immediately send it to their Al-Manar TV, which broadcast it almost live, long before the official Israeli radio.”

(Big ups: JQP, /.)

Lasers Speak to Subs

Communicating with subs underwater is beyond tough. Sound moves through seawater in very strange ways, with water temperature, salinity, and density speeding up and slowing things down -- garbling conversations in the process. Electromagnetic transmissions (like radio) are no better -- the sea has some funky electrical conductivity. During the Cold War, sub authority Joe Buff notes, the Navy managed to get super-simple, one-way messages to its subs, with a pair of giant (28-mile!) extremely low frequency transmitters, based in the Midwest. But those transmitters were shut down, a few years back.

The Navy's new idea is to get specially-tuned lasers to handle the job, instead. The service has handed out a pair of small business innovation research contracts to Bothell, WA's Aculight Corporation and Bedford, MA-based Q-Peak to build blue-green, quick-burst lasers for transmitting messages across the deep. Acluight, for example, wants to use a combination of semiconductor and fiber lasers to produce a low power beam (around 10 watts) at about 532nm spectrum range. The idea is to get pulses as quick as half a nanosecond, repeating as much as 10 million times per second.

Blue-green lasers have been discussed for a while as potential sub-talkers, with good reason. Seawater has a lot of organic junk floating around inside, which makes it "turbid" -- "nearly opaque to light over much of any distance," Buff explains.

Blue-green light's frequency is best at penetrating through this turbidity, given the mix of sizes in microns of the particles and other stuff that prevents seawater from being transparent. (Of course, some areas such as the Bahamas are famous for the clarity of their water, but this is very much the exception, not the rule, globally speaking.) This same turbidity is essential to giving submarines their invisibility while submerged, so it's a double edged sword.

Rapid Fire 09/19/06

* Meet the new cybersecurity czar

* Chinese warships dock in San Diego

* 25 mph boots?

* Sign here for NSA spying

* "Dumbest Weapon Decision of the Decade"

* Air & Space Power Journal: "Space Power" stinks

* Brits: we underestimated