Drone war is almost synonymous with Pakistan, where for years American drones fought back Taliban and al Qaeda operations across the border from Afghanistan. It's a tremendously contentious policy, with American planes dropping bombs on insurgents within Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (and, often, killing civilians in the process). What happens to the drone war when American forces leave Afghanistan? Turns out Pakistan may use its own drone to battle insurgents. After years of development, Pakistan is putting the finishing touches on the Burraq, an indigenously made armed drone that successfully test-fired a laser-guided missile earlier today.
Three American soldiers* may have died in Afghanistan’s battle of Takur Ghar because of disruptions caused by plasma bubbles - a form of space weather - according to a new study.
Improvised explosive devices are the scourge of the modern battlefield, assembled from simple components and placed along frequently patrolled roads to ambush troops walking by. The American military used a special sensor named Copperhead attached to drones to find these IEDs placed in Afghanistan and Iraq. With U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan winding down, Sandia National Labs, the developer of Copperhead, is handing the technology over to the United States Army.
American military involvement in Afghanistan is winding down. The production run of the MQ-1 Predator, an unmanned surveillance aircraft adapted to carry missiles and strike targets from above, is over. This poses a question for military planners: What kind of drone will the U.S. Air Force need next? A new report, published last Friday by the think tank Rand Corporation, says the answer is more of the same.
The last time the US Army was smaller than 450,000 troops, it was 1940 and the United States had yet to join World War II. Announced yesterday, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel's proposed budget would shrink the American military to the smallest it has been since right before the deadliest war in history. Yet this is not a return to the pre-war state of unreadiness. While the military Hagel proposes might be smaller than the one that precedes it, it will also remain the most technologically advanced military in history.
Out on a routine reconnaissance mission in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, Marine Staff Sergeant James Sides reached out his right hand to grab the bomb. It was the ordnance disposal tech’s fifth deployment overseas, and his second to Afghanistan. But this time, July 15, 2020, the improvised explosive device detonated. Sides was blinded in his left eye and lost his right arm below the elbow.
