Since the first gun appeared on a battlefield, bullets have dealt death in straight lines. As the shortest distance between two points, lines are great, but they mean enemies can hide behind walls or buildings and not get hit, a clearly undesirable prospect for anyone in the business of shooting enemies. Now, the Department of Defense is testing a bullet that can change direction in mid-air.
Small, homemade bombs are an ever-present threat in America’s wars. Commonly known as Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs, these bombs are easily made by insurgents, hidden along patrolled roads, and surprisingly deadly. In the early years of the Iraq war, the Department of Defense commissioned a serious bomb-proof vehicle program and borrowed lessons from submarine warfare to protect troops against these bombs. There’s another, lower-cost way for America to fight IEDs: Dogs.
Japan's military plans to take defense to the heavens in 2019. According to a report by Japan's Kyodo News Agency, Japan's Self-Defense Forces plan to add a space monitoring branch, to be jointly run by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Air Self-Defence Force. The "fourth battlefield"-space-contains a lot of stuff that's worth protecting, and Japan is hardly the first military to consider it.
As early as next year, the Department of Defense will test-fly an entirely new type of combat drone. The craft is called Ares, for Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded System, and it’s designed to take off and land vertically. Unlike airplane-esque drones, which are cumbersome to launch and land, Ares could drop into a tight spot, unload supplies or rescue soldiers, and then zip up and away.
Congress wants the machines it's been buying to shoot down missiles to, you know, shoot down missiles. In the recently passed 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the congressional bill that grants the Department of Defense the ability to spend money, the House of Representatives set aside rules and goals for a better "Exo-atmospheric Kill Vehicle." It's the latest in a long series of developments for missile defense, and it shows that members of Congress are as eager for a working version as they are frustrated by the continued lack of success.
Inside the US National Defense Authorization Act, the congressional bill that grants the Department of Defense the ability to spend money alloted to it, lie a host of amendments that alter the way American military force is acquired, spent, and applied. This year's bill, H.R. 4435, already has three submitted amendments governing the use of drones by the military. Amendment 99, wants to clarify how the casualties of drone strikes are labeled, so that official language matches the ambiguity of reality. Amendment 218 wants to make sure no drone strike ever kills another American. Amendment 234 wants to transfer drone authority away from intelligence agencies and into the hands of uniformed military personnel. Together, they constitute a substantive critique on the worst excesses of America's targeted killing program.
