A tank is a moving armored box designed to cause some pain. These tracked armored beasts of war are almost a century old, with the basic form more or less solidified by the end of World War II: put the big gun in the turret, and then drive, with a bunch of other tanks, towards the danger. In the massive battles of the European theater, and in the hypothetical plans for a NATO/Warsaw Pact fight in the Cold War, a tank was guaranteed to have clear targets.
Hollowed-out rats made for good "dead drops"—locations for agents to leave messages—according to a story this week on the CIA's news and information page. Scavenger animals were warded off with a dash of hot sauce making the rat unpalatable.
Drones are smaller, slower, cheaper, and lower-flying targets than most airplanes, which makes them a weird threat to modern militaries. Even when just scouting, and especially if outfitted with explosives, the unmanned aerial vehicles are dangerous enough to warrant their destruction, but cheap enough that it doesn't make sense to use a missile.
This week, war robots came to Paris. On display at the Eurosatory 2016 Land and Airland Defence and Security tradeshow, RoBattle is a modular machine from defense firm Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). Seven tons itself, it can carry three tons of sensors, weapons, and other tools it may need for fighting. And much like the first tanks that were built for the difficult war-scarred muddy ground of the Western Front, the RoBattle can climb over difficult terrain. Mostly.
Russia's the only nation with nuclear powered ice breakers, and its latest addition, “Arktika”, is the top dog of Arctic shipping. The Arktika launched early on June 16, ahead of its original 2017 schedule. The 568 foot leviathan displaces over 33,000 metric tons of water and can break through ice 10 feet thick and 13 feet deep, according to Sputnik News, a Russian government sponsored news agency. Baltic Shipyard reports that with a crew of 75 people, the Arktika will operate in the Western and Eastern Arctic seasonally.
In recent disputes with its neighbors, China's civilian maritime forces, such as its Coast Guard and "fishermen militia", have played key roles in acting on behalf of Chinese claims in the East and South China Seas. Thus, recent moves to upgrade its equipment matter greatly for regional security.
Militaries change slowly, and technology moves fast. The “Air Superiority 2030 Flight Plan,” which the Air Force released today, is an attempt to identify the battlefields of the future, and see what the Air Force needs to put in motion today to do its job right in the future. Unspoken, but alluded to throughout the document, is a move away from expensive, long-in-development aircraft.
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