TSUNAMI

We all know what happened in South Asia over the weekend. The Times has a list of ways you can help. So does the Post. And this Amazon Honor System page for the Red Cross has already raised more than a million four million seven and a half million thirteen million bucks. Let's all add to it.

PAIN RAYS, LASER JETS, AND STUN GUN SHOCKERS

From pain beams to stun guns to laser jets, real-life ray guns seemed to blasting their way from the world of sci-fi into the realm of reality in 2004. There were setbacks, to be sure -- missed deadlines, bloated budgets, and a sense that supposedly "non-lethal" energy weapons might not be so safe, after all. But, by the end of the year, the dream of a blaster in hand seemed a whole lot nearer than it did in 2003.

LASER JET: GOOD NEWS
After decades of bloated promises, busted budgets, and missed deadlines, the troubled Airborne Laser project finally got a bit of good news yesterday.

The program's goal is to mount a high-energy, chemical laser onto a 747 jet, so it can shoot down incoming missiles. But whether such a laser would ever work remained very much an open question. On Thursday, some answers emerged, when Northrop engineers successfully tested the laser.

ANTI-LASER CONTACT LENSES
I think we all winced when we read, back in September, about the Delta pilot who was hit in the eye by a laser while flying a 737. Or about the 20 year-old Los Alamos intern who was zapped during a July experiment.

Air Force researchers must not have liked what they read, either. That's presumably why they're looking to develop a contact lens that can protect against laser blasts.

LASERS 1, MORTARS 0
Lasers have been getting pretty good at knocking down rockets, as we've seen in tests over the last few years. Now, the ray guns are starting to prove that they can zap one of the most common battlefield threats – mortars – as well.

ARMY FOCUSING ON "EASY" LASER WEAPONS
In the world of laser guns and death rays, there's hard to pull off. And then's really, really hard to do. The Army has decided to concentrate on developing some of the easier "directed energy" weapons. The idea is to prove to a skeptical military community that lasers can, in fact, be used to blow stuff up -- and not just on Babylon 5.

RAY GUN RESEARCH POWERS UP
The most powerful lasers today probably wouldn't work that well as weapons. They have the energy needed to zap oncoming missiles. But, powered by enormous vats of chemicals, they're really too cumbersome to work in the battlefield.

Solid state lasers don't have those logistical problems. Until recently, though, the energy they've generated has been pretty puny – just 10 kilowatts or so, instead of the 100 kilowatts that most think are needed to make a workable weapon. Now, Aviation Week reports, the Defense Department is on track to demonstrate three, solid state laser designs that can hit the 25 kw mark.

DEATHS DOG STUN GUN MAKER
For executives as Taser International, this should be the best day, ever. The company just signed a $1.8 million deal with the Pentagon – the largest in Taser's history. But the stun-gun maker can't shake allegations that their supposedly "non-lethal" weapons have killed more than a few of their targets.

CORONER: TASERS DIDN'T KILL
They're still not sure why 31 year-old Frederick Jerome Williams died in police custody. But it wasn't the five shocks to the chest from a Taser stun gun, the Gwinnett, Georgia County medical examiner's office has concluded.

TASERS IN THE SKIES
Firing bullets in an enclosed space is rarely a good idea. So I guess it was only a matter of time before someone decided to arm airline security guards with tasers instead.

NEXT-GEN STUN GUNS TARGET CROWDS
The problem with today's stun guns is that you can unload a can of electrical whoop-ass only on one person at a time. But that may be starting to change.

SONIC WEAPON IN IRAQ
U.S. soldiers in Iraq have new gear for dispersing hostile crowds and warding off potential enemy combatants. It blasts earsplitting noise in a directed beam. "

"E-BOMB," FOR REAL?
On the eve of the Iraq invasion, it was being hailed as America's next "wonder weapon." The "e-bomb" -- a munition using high-powered microwaves to fry circuits and computers -- was about to be dropped on Baghdad, we were told. Now, Aviation Week reports, there are a pair of efforts underway at the Pentagon to use high-powered microwaves -- the core of the e-bomb -- for real.

BRING THE PAIN
When U.S. soldiers are faced with a hostile crowd, they only have, broadly speaking, two options for breaking it up: the bullhorn or the machine gun. Words or bullets. Deadly force, or no force at all. What's need instead is a weapon that falls somewhere in between. That shoots to hurt, not to kill. That drives away looters, without driving up casualty counts. A microwave-like pain ray, let's say.

SOUPED-UP ARMORED CARS PREPPED FOR IRAQ
Soldiers in Iraq might soon get armored vehicles equipped with pain rays, sonic weapons, or guns that automically return fire – if a Pentagon project works out as planned.

PAIN RAY GOING AIRBORNE
It was only a matter of time, I guess. First, the Air Force builds a real-life, microwave-like pain ray. Then, it gets a company to strap that real-life, microwave-like pain ray to the back of a jet.

NO SCI-FI TECH FOR "FUTURE COMBAT"
Back in 1999, when the Army launched Future Combat Systems, its $117 billion modernization program, "discussions were dominated by visions of an all-electric, laser-firing fleet of fast-moving tank-like vehicles unburdened by the weight of conventional armor," notes National Defense. "Five years later, reality has set in."

NUKES SPREAD, LABS CLAMP DOWN

Both Bush and Kerry said it: the spread of nuclear weapons is the biggest security problem the country faces. And 2004 saw that situation get a whole lot worse, with both Iran and North Korea moving further down the atomic path.

Here at home, the nuclear news was a bit better. Plans for new atomic weapons were scrapped by Congress. And the Energy Department finally got serious about security at its nuclear labs -- after a slew of lost classified disks and laser in the eye shamed the bureacracy into acting.

PAK NUKE SALES OVERT, GOV'T APPROVED
Pakistan's government is trying to portray the sale of nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea as the cloak-and-dagger work of a few, isolated rogues. But that's a lie, says Jane's Defense Weekly. Nuclear sales were so out in the open that underlings of Abdul Qadeer Khan -- the father of the Pakistani Bomb -- were handing out glossy brochures advertising their services at a 2000 arms conference.

IRAQI URANIUM NOW IN U.S. LABS
The good news: U.S. troops and scientists have taken a heap of radioactive material out of insecure locations in Iraq. The bad news: they may have brought the stuff to one of the most insecure locations here in America.

1 YEAR UNTIL IRAN NUKES
"Some American analysts warn that there is only a year or so left to stop Iran from achieving nuclear self-sufficiency. After that, they say, the country will have the means to create a nuclear arsenal without outside help, forever altering the Middle East balance of power."

NUKE STOCKPILES ON THE RISE
No matter what Iran decides to do about its nuclear program, the chances of radioactive material getting into dangerous hands continue to grow.

IRAN'S NUKE PAUSE - BAD NEWS?
So Iran has apparently stopped enriching uranium for the moment, pressing pause on its nuclear program. Great news, right? Actually, it could hardly be worse, argues Michael Levi, the Brookings Institution's resident atomic authority.

NEW NUKE RESEARCH BLOWN UP
It ain't dead, yet. But the Bush administration's push to research and develop new nuclear weapons could be on the verge of flat-lining, after a key Congressional leader moved on Wednesday to eliminate funding for the atomic arms projects.

WHAT'S A "BUNKER BUSTER" NUKE?
In the debate tonight, Sen. Kerry made an aside about cutting the money to develop a new, "bunker-busting" nuclear weapon. What's he talking about?

GUARDS CHEATED NUKE SECURITY DRILLS
Security guards at the country's leading nuclear storehouse have been cheating during antiterrorism drills -- perhaps for as long as 20 years.

NOT AGAIN! LOS ALAMOS LOSES SECRET DISK
It's become a recurring nightmare for managers at the nation's most important nuclear weapons lab: a hard drive or disk, filled with classified information, goes missing. And suddenly, Los Alamos officials, trying to remerge from years of scandal, have a whole lot of explaining to do.

SANDIA HAS BUTTER FINGERS, TOO
Los Alamos isn't the only weapons lab that can't seem to keep track of its classified disks. Sandia National Laboratories just announced that they, too, are "searching for a missing floppy disk that was marked classified."

"AT A MINIMUM, ELECTROCUTION"
The heart-warming stories of safety violations from the country's top nuclear weapons lab continue to pile up, like presents under the ol' yuletide tree.

LOS ALAMOS SHUT DOWN
Los Alamos National Laboratory director Pete Nanos shut down the country's leading nuclear weapons lab on Friday, after a set of classified computer disks disappeared, and a student was hit in the eye with a powerful laser beam -- all in the space of a week.

ABRAHAM TO LOS ALAMOS: GET A CLUE
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has heard from his top deputies about the security situation at Los Alamos. And he is pissed.

LOS ALAMOS SCIENTISTS SPOOKED
There's something missing from all the hubbub about security breaches and safety violations and political maneuverings over at Los Alamos: a sense of how the lab's 12,000 employees feel about having their workplace shut down. The answer, in a word, is spooked.

NO SECRET DISKS FOR NUKE LABS
Stop using classified disks -- everywhere. That's the order Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham handed down today, telling the country's entire nuclear weapons complex to lay off the use of classified CDs, Zip disks, floppies and portable hard drives until new training and procedures are put in place.

NUKE LAB FRAUDSTERS COP A PLEA
The men who helped start the current wave of scandals at Los Alamos have pled guilty to charges of conspiracy and mail fraud,

LOS ALAMOS CAVEMAN CAUGHT
Authorities have evicted a man from a cave on Los Alamos National Laboratory land where they say he apparently lived for years with the comforts of home — a wood-burning stove, solar panels connected to car batteries for electricity and a satellite radio.

NUKE LAB CONTRACT: AMNESIA ATTACK
Imagine, for a moment, that you had held your job for the last sixty years. And then the boss wanted you to re-apply for your job, all over again. But your past performance over the decades – that would barely count, when you filled out the application.

You'd call that kind of a mixed, message, right? But it's exactly what the Energy Department did, when it began to put the Los Alamos National Laboratory's contract up for bid, for the first time ever.

SPACE WAR, MOON BASES, AND SPYSAT MYSTERIES

Guiding bombs, relaying orders, finding a safe way through hostile territory -- just about everything a modern military does on the ground depends on a satellite in space. So it's no wonder that the Pentagon spent a nice-sized chunk of 2004 getting ready for an eventual showdown in orbit.

This was also the year that NASA was sent back to its mission of manned exploration -- and astronaut entrepreneurs reached the edge of space. Can trips to Alpha Centauri be far behind?

PENTAGON PREPS FOR WAR IN SPACE
An Air Force report is giving what analysts call the most detailed picture since the end of the Cold War of the Pentagon's efforts to turn outer space into a battlefield.

For years, the American military has spoken in hints and whispers, if at all, about its plans to develop weapons in space. But the U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan changes all that. Released in November, the report makes U.S. dominance of the heavens a top Pentagon priority in the new century. And it runs through dozens of research programs designed to ensure that America can never be challenged in orbit -- from anti-satellite lasers to weapons that "would provide the capability to strike ground targets anywhere in the world from space."

SPACE WAR BUDGET UNVEILED
$75.9 million to shut down enemy satellite communications. $84.6 million for projects like relay mirrors that would re-target laser beams in space. $15 million for weapons that ram into satellites and other "space control" efforts. That's just a small sample of what the Pentagon plans to spend on space war research next year, according to a study from the Center for Defense Information.

AIR FORCE: ALL'S FAIR IN SPACE WAR
The American military has begun planning for combat in space. And commercial spacecraft, neutral countries' launching pads – even weather satellites – are all on the potential target list.

PENTAGON WANTS MINI-KILLERS IN SPACE
"Arms Control Wonk" Jeffrey Lewis has uncovered what looks like a Pentagon wish list for orbital combat. At the top of the list: a slew of itty-bitty satellites. Their mission: "Destruction of Enemy Spacecraft."

AIR FORCE: SATELLITE JAMMER READY
The U.S. Air Force is ready to start jamming enemy satellites. So says ISR Journal, which reports that the Counter Communications System (CounterCom), a radio frequency-based system to disrupt communications satellites, has been declared operational by the American military.

USAF WANTS SELF-AWARE SATELLITES
One of the things that makes Rummy & Co. the most nervous is that nobody has a clue what's up there in orbit. Imagine how vast and opaque the seas must have seen to World War I-era commanders, and you'll get the idea. The Air Force may have a fix: turn satellites' internal monitors outward, to keep tabs on space.

TETHERS: SATELLITES' SAVIOR?
How could satellites be saved from nuclear attack? Simple, the Pentagon says: with giant, electrically charged space-ropes.

IRAN'S "TROJAN HORSE" IN SPACE
Iran is planning on launching its first satellite early next year. And it's not so the mullahs can catch the Knicks game or HBO Latino.

MOON BASE: RECURRING DREAM
Moon Base? Old news. In his hotly anticipated announcement Wednesday, President Bush ordered NASA scientists to plan for a manned "foothold on the moon." They might look through their old filing cabinets to start. Because the U.S. government and its contractors have been planning lunar colonies since long before Neil Armstrong took his one giant leap for mankind in 1969.

NO IDEA TOO WILD FOR NASA'S SCI-FI ARM
Shape-shifting space suits? Step right up. Antimatter-powered probes to Alpha Centauri? No problem. Robotic armada to destroy incoming asteroids? Pal, just sign on the dotted line. At the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, the wildest of ideas are not only tolerated. They're welcome.

RED, ROUND "TRICORDER" PREPPED FOR SPACE
It's shaped like a basketball. It was inspired by Spock's tricorder. And, if NASA researchers have their way, it could be helping out astronauts aboard the International Space Station in as little as three years.

NASA NUKE MISSION BEGINS
NASA's nuclear-powered mission to Jupiter's moons is on.

SATELLITES SPEED DARFUR AID
Satellites can be used for peaceful purposes, too. A European-led coalition is using the orbiters to boost humanitarian efforts in the conflict-torn Darfur region of Sudan.

SPYSAT MYSTERY SOLVED
A classified spy program that had worked Sen. Jay Rockefeller -- and a nice-sized chunk of Washington -- into a jittering froth has been unveiled.

CONGRESS POKES ALL-SEEING EYE IN SKY
It's a spook fantasy: an all-seeing, always-on, rain-or-shine constellation of satellites, able to keep track of every plane, truck, and person below. Now, Congress is telling the Pentagon to go back to the drawing board.

EURO-GPS: READY FOR ORBIT?
It's a fair bet that satellite navigation won't be at the top of the agenda when President Bush meets with European leaders in Ireland next week for the annual summit between the United States and the European Union. But, in the long run, a little-known agreement to allow New World and Old World satellites to play nice with each other could prove to be the summit item that has the greatest impact on average people worldwide.

EXPLOSIVE, STICKY, AD-HOC ARMOR

In 2004, there was no military technology issue as important as armor. How the Pentagon protected American troops and American vehicles became, for many, the litmus test for Defense Department leadership -- or lack thereof.

Here are some of the year's wildest schemes, biggest steps, and most intense political battles over armor.

PEEL-AND-STICK ARMOR IN IRAQ
Usually, adding to an armor to a Humvee means welding on giant steel plates. Now, U.S. forces in Iraq are starting to stick their armor on, like bumper stickers.

ARMY SAYS NO TO AD-HOC ARMOR
U.S. soldiers have been adding jury-rigged armor to their Humvees, to toughen the vehicles up against RPGs and roadside explosives. The Army is telling its troops to cut it out.

ARMORED POOCHES ON IRAQ PATROL
G.I.s in Iraq may not be able to get armor for their Humvees. Their dogs, on the other hand, are well protected.

ARMY REBOOTS G.I.S' TIRED FATIGUES
Ever since they tangled with the Red Coats, American generals have been giving their grunts more and more and more gear to lug -- from rations to radios, body armor to batteries. Now, for the first time, the Army has decided to junk the old uniforms and start from scratch.

G.I.S GET ARMOR ADD-ONS
A G.I.'s body armor is designed, mostly, to stop head-on attacks, or to keep a soldier from getting shot in the back. But in Iraq, insurgents aren't coming straight at the soldiers. That's why the Army and Sandia National Laboratories are rolling out new body armor add-ons, designed to shield troops' flanks and arms.

SOLDIER ARMOR: STEP INTO LIQUID
Army researchers are working on liquid body armor, to add to soldiers' bulletproof vests.

PAYBACK, FINALLY, FOR ARMOR BUYS
It's become a disgustingly familiar scene: American troops, cornered into to paying for their own protection. Now – thank God – they'll finally start to get reimbursed for what they've spent.

U.S. GETS EXPLOSIVE ARMOR FROM ISRAEL
The U.S. Army wants to protect its Bradley fighting vehicles -- by strapping dozens of Israeli explosives to their skins.

SHOOT TO PROTECT
For many soldiers in Humvees, the best defense against an RPG is to shoot the guy holding the RPG before he can let one off. But another layer of defense may be coming -- a way to blast the RPG in midair.

ARMORED HUMMERS UNDERCUT
Without some extra armor, American Humvees can't stand up to the Iraqi insurgents' onslaught of rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs. "So how is the White House proposing to deal with this?" asks Slate's Eric Umanky. "By underfunding the program to armor Humvees."

ARMOR LACK LEADS TO HEAVY ATTACKS
Raining hell on Falluja is a tactic bursting with political danger. So why do it? The answer, according to Newhouse's David Wood, is because thin-skinned American Humvees can't handle an up-close fight.

RUMMY'S SLICK SUPPLEMENTAL MOVE
You'd think it'd be a top priority for the Army, outfitting troops with new body armor, helmets, and communications gear. But the Pentagon can't seem to find the cash in its $420 billion budget to pay for the equipment.

ARMOR LACK: WHO'S TO BLAME?
So who's responsible for American troops still operating in Iraq without proper protection?

TRUCKS STILL THIN-SKINNED
The Hummers are protected, mostly. It's the trucks that are in trouble.

G.I.S' PAYCHECKS FUND TRUCK ARMOR
So the Pentagon leadership has finally recognized that they need to armor up their trucks. But they've settled on a damn peculiar way of paying for the work. They're dipping into soldiers' paychecks to do it.

THE YEAR IN DEFENSE TECH

Re-runs: not just for television any more! Defense Tech is proud to bring to blogdom the time-honored tradition of recycling fare from the past year, to fill up an otherwise fallow 52nd week.

We'll tackle a different topic each day, staring this morning with drones. Check back in every day for more Defense Techlicious goodness. And don't forget to visit the forum here, where (original, non-recycled) debates are raging on everything from Iraq strategy to ray guns to real-life exoskeletons.

DRONE DOGGIES, ROBO-COPTERS, AND MORE

In robot world, 2004 was a time to get ready. To test out new drone designs. To give the bots a bit of autonomy, and see if they could drive across the desert on their own. To have the machines try on rocket-launchers and smart bombs.

All of which sets the stage of a mighty big 2005. That's when gun-toting drones will be heading to Iraq. New control schemes will be unveiled. And robo-racers might even make it more than a few miles into the Mojave.

DRONE DOGGIE BUILT FOR WAR
A robot dog could one day become a soldier's best friend -- if an Army program works out as planned.

WHIRL-A-DRONE BEGINS TO SPIN
"Right now, it looks a lot like a Frisbee with four wings," the Wall Street Journal says. But, one day, this early prototype could become "an unmanned aircraft capable of hovering in the same spot for days at a time."

KILLER DRONE PLANS REVEALED
They've served, mostly, as spies. Once in a great while, they've moonlighted as assassins. But now, unmanned aircraft are slowly starting to become full-fledged killing machines -- armed to the teeth, and designed for the deadliest parts of war.

ROBO-COPTER: TALK TO ME
"See that building over there? Bomb the hell out of it." That's how easy the Pentagon wants commanding its Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft to be.

REMOTE CONTROL FOR KILLER DRONES
If you're going to have a bunch of killer drones roaming the skies, you better make damn sure you can control 'em. Pilotless plane promoters have long promised this would be doable. And now, after a series of test flights earlier this month, there's reason to think they're right.

TERROR DRONE: NO SWEAT?
If you were worried about the drone that Hezbollah flew over Israel the other day, Stratfor has a word for you: chill.

ARMED DRONES ROLLING TO IRAQ
Hunting for guerillas, handling roadside bombs, crawling across the caves and crumbling towns of Afghanistan and Iraq -- all of that was just a start. Now, the U.S. Army's squad of robotic vehicles is being prepped for a new set of assignments. And this time, they'll be carrying guns.

ARMED ROBOTS, GOOEY SNACKS MADE BY SAME FIRM
Foster-Miller, the company behind the armed robots that are about to be shipped off to Iraq, may win the award for the oddest array of expertise, ever. When they're not building gun-toting, death-dealing machines, Foster-Miller scientists are helping make chewy, gooey fruit snacks; training railway workers in staying safe; building bone-growth devices; and testing out new vending machines for Pepsi.

SWINGING 60'S DRONE OVER IRAQ
Sure, the Pentagon's latest and greatest drones were there. But Gulf War II also saw the remergence of an unmanned plane that got its start nearly four decades ago.

CHALLENGE 1, ROBO-RACERS 0
A million dollars waits the winner of the Darpa Grand Challenge, the all-robot, off-road rally across the Mojave Desert, slated for this weekend. But at the rate the race's preparations are going, there may not be a winner at all.

ROBOT RACERS CATCH A BREAK
The rules were simple: if drone makers wanted to compete in the Pentagon's million-dollar, robotic, off-road rally, they had to make sure their creations could navigate a mile-long obstacle course first. But when the qualifying rounds began Monday for this "Grand Challenge," run by the Pentagon research arm Darpa, it quickly became clear that only a handful of the bots could pass the exam on the opening day. Now, it looks like just about any robot car will be on the starting line in the desert town of Barstow, California.

GRAND CHALLENGE BREAKS DOWN
It looks like all of the robot racers in Darpa's Grand Challenge have broken down in the Mojave Desert.

DARPA'S ROBO-RACE FIX: CARS THAT THINK
After months of hype and twitching buildup, the Defense Department's drone-only rally across the Mojave Desert fizzled. So officials at Darpa, the Pentagon's way-out research arm, are trying to get rolling after the stall out. They way they propose to do it: build cars that can think for themselves.

DRONE LOST AT SEA
Fisherman and divers of Norway: If you see a ten-foot long, robotic mini-submarine swimming off of your shores, please call the U.S. Navy.

DUDE, THERE'S MY DRONE!
Joy in subville: the U.S. Navy has found its mine-sweeping, torpedo-shaped drone.

TERROR GROUP TESTS IRAN'S TECH

This Israeli press flipped its collective lid in November, when the Hezbollah terrorist group flew an Iranian drone over the Galilee. But it's not the only time Tehran-backed fundamentalists have used surprisingly sophisticated means to tussle with Israel, according to Defense News. In fact, "Several Israeli officials and analysts suggested Tehran is using the group to test and promote the products of Iran's defense industry, which has been built from scratch over the past quarter-century to get around international arms embargoes."

In January, an anti-tank missile provided by Iran struck an Israeli D-9 bulldozer in the disputed Shebaa Farms area, killing the Israeli soldier.

They also cited thousands of Katyusha rockets upgraded to 30-kilometer ranges; the Al-Fajr 3 surface-to-surface missile; and the Al-Fajr 5, which can deliver a 200-kilogram payload up to 75 kilometers.

Awar said the most common Iranian weapon in Hizbollah's arsenal is the single-tube 122mm rocket launcher.

"It is light, easy to move around, easy to hide and can be put into action fairly quickly and uses a variety of Iranian ARASH missiles with ranges that vary from 21 to 29 kilometers," he said.

Tehran has consistently denied arming the group.

MOSUL: MORE THAN TRAGEDY

The awful events yesterday in Mosul meant more than just tragedy for 14 American soldiers' families and friends. The attack on Forward Operating Base Marez is a harbinger of even worse things to come in Iraq, Tom Ricks argues in a must-read story in today's Washington Post:

The major difference between the latest attack and the earlier incidents is that it was an attack on a U.S. base, rather than on troops in transit in vulnerable aircraft. That difference appears to reflect both the persistence of the insurgency and its growing sophistication, as experts noted that it seemed to be based on precise intelligence. Most disturbingly, some officers who have served in Iraq worried that the Mosul attack could mark the beginning of a period of even more intense violence preceding the Iraqi elections scheduled for Jan. 30.

"On the strategic level, we were expecting an horrendous month leading up to the Iraqi elections, and that has begun," retired Army Col. Michael E. Hess said.

Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst of Middle Eastern military affairs, said he is especially worried that the insurgents' next move will be an actual penetration by fighters into a base. "The real danger here is that they will mount a sophisticated effort to penetrate or assault one of our camps or bases with a ground element," he said...

The attack also indicates that the insurgency is growing more sophisticated with the passage of time. One of the basic principles of waging a counterinsurgency is that it requires patience. "Twenty-one months" -- the length of the occupation so far -- "is not a long time to tame the tribal warfare expected there," said retired Marine Lt. Col. Rick Raftery, an intelligence specialist who operated in northern Iraq in 1991. "My guess is that this will take 10 years."

Another principle, less noted but painfully clear yesterday, is that insurgents also tend to sharpen their tactics as time goes by. Over the past 20 months, enemy fighters have learned a lot about how the U.S. military operates and where its vulnerabilities lie.

"The longer you are anywhere, the more difficult it becomes," said Hess, who served in northern Iraq in 1991 and in Bosnia in 1996. "They have changed their tactics a lot in the year-plus."

THERE'S MORE: "Worried about recent artillery attacks on American mess halls in Iraq, the U.S. military was just days away from completing a reinforced dining area at the camp where a rocket attack killed more than 20 people in a tent the bunker was meant to replace."

AND MORE: The Mosul blast now appears to have been the work of a suicide bomber. And that's even worse news than a rocket attack. Because it means that insurgents are slipping into American bases, the Times explains.

The announcement on Wednesday of the likely cause of the Mosul attack produced a new source of concern by leaving a crucial question unanswered: How was the attacker able to infiltrate a heavily guarded military base in one of the most hostile regions of Iraq?

It also raised the possibility that one of the most commonly discussed fears of American soldiers stationed at forward operating bases in Iraq had come true - that an Iraqi or other foreign worker had been able through special access, knowledge and privileges to sabotage the troops he was supposed to be serving.

Other heavily guarded compounds have been infiltrated, including the main American governmental zone in Baghdad, where suicide bombers killed five people in October. But the attack on Tuesday far exceeded the size and devastation of any previous strike on American troops within a secured compound.

"I've been expecting it," said Wayne Downing , a retired four-star Army general who headed the inquiry into the bombing at the Khobar Towers housing complex in Saudi Arabia in 1996. "They're trying to get in. We have a terrible problem. We have all this indigenous labor. We don't wash our dishes, cook our own food. When you bring indigenous laborers into camps, you immediately have a security problem."

REMOTE CONTROL FOR KILLER DRONES

If you're going to have a bunch of killer drones roaming the skies, you better make damn sure you can control 'em.

Pilotless plane promoters have long promised this would be doable. And now, after a series of test flights earlier this month, there's reason to think they're right.

In one trial, control of the X-45A experimental unmanned plane was passed from an operator at Edwards Air Force Base in California, to another, 900 miles away, at a Boeing facility in Seattle. The Seattle pilot took over for only six minutes. But the switch was significant, regardless.

Equally reassuring was what went down at the beginning of the month at Edwards. One pilot was able to take charge of two X45s at once, for about an hour.

Eventually, the goal is to let one flesh-and-blood operator guide an entire squadron of death-dealing drones at once. That's still a ways off. But this start ain't bad.

RAPTOR DOWN

Things just went from bad to wose for the controversial F/A-22 jet. One of the stealth fighters has crashed in the Nevada desert, says the Las Vegas Review Journal. The pilot is okay. But no one's sure, yet, why the jet exploded during takeoff at Nellis Air Force Base.

With defense budgets starting to tighten, no project is feeling the squeeze more than the controversial, $40 billion F/A-22 jet. Initially designed back in the 80's to tangle with Soviet MiGs, the so-called "Raptor" has been left without a mission, critics charge. And that $40 billion price tag could double before the full order of 277 planes is complete.

What happens to the Raptor now? It's unclear. But, for the moment, the seven other F/A-22s stationed at Nellis Air Force Base are grounded, pending inspection.

MACGYVER'S SHOPPING LIST FOR G.I.S

In every American platoon, it seems, there's a MacGyver or a B.A. Baracus -- someone who can make just about anything, out of just about nothing. How else can you explain U.S. soldiers' amazing ability to piece together scraps and leftovers, and turn 'em into everything from gun turrets to armored Humvees?

With that in mind, nonproliferation expert Russell Seitz has put together a soldiers' shopping list of (mostly) off-the-shelf items that American troops could put to good use, in a hurry.

Hillbilly Electronic Countermeasures
The Islamists' latest attempt to blow up Pakistan's president with roadside explosives ran afoul of a handy gadget called a VIP2 Road Ranger -- an electronic jammer that keeps radio controlled bombs from being triggered while their intended target is within lethal range. The Pentagon may pay about ten grand for gold-plated Mil Spec [military specification] models, but the free market price of the same technology is closer to a microwave oven -- or a gray-market traffic radar jammer.

Used Tires
Not just any ones, and not the whole donut. What's needed is a program to round up and skive off the Kevlar belts that rim the nation's mountains of balding aircraft radials. This would spare our landfills while affording ingenious Gunnies a prime raw material for spanning hard to fit gaps in improvised explosion shields...

Adhesives
Duct tape kills. If you want to save a lot of lives for a little money, fast, investing it in seriously good epoxies and elastomers with energy absorbing fillers like microballoons is a highly portable way to go. If I sent one thing to Iraq, it would be high tenacity ways and means of enhancing the bonding of the catch as catch can vehicle armor people in theater improvise.

D.I.Y. GUN TRUCK

U.S. convoys have become juicy targets for insurgents. The vehicles roll around the desert with about as much armor as a Chevy pick-up. And the gun trucks meant to protect the supply trains aren't muscular enough to shove guerillas aside.

So one Army Staff Sergeant, James King, decided to take matters into his own hands, The State (via Jeff Quinton) reports. SSG King has designed a new gun truck for convoy protection.

The truck currently is undergoing a seven-day road test in Iraq and initial reports are good, Maj. Ricky Smith, the 175th [Maintenance Company's] commander, reported Wednesday.

“So far, no one has shot at it and that is the effect we wanted — to scare the h--- out of the bad guys,” Smith wrote in an e-mail to The State...

King’s design adds an armored box, bristling with guns, that can be bolted onto the back of a heavy transport truck in a convoy. It is much different than the gun trucks the Army has used for decades. Those are quick, agile gun trucks designed to race up and down the length of a convoy to meet attackers.

King’s gun truck — recently unveiled at Camp Arifjan, where the 175th is stationed in Kuwait — weighs more than 20 tons. The vehicle originally was designed to haul a battle tank...

The walls of the box are protected on the side by several layers of Kevlar. There are a few inches between the Kevlar and the sides of the truck to absorb most of the impact and shrapnel if it is hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, King said.

That part of the design has not been tested, King said. “We won’t know until an RPG hits it.”

The box is made of three-eighths-inch-thick steel plating, which can stop most small-arms fire. The floor is reinforced with two layers of the steel plating to protect against bombs.

The box is armed with one 40-mm and one .50-caliber machine gun. It has room for two other gunners.

If the truck makes it past its first real-world road test in Iraq this week, King and the others who worked on the project will construct seven more boxes for the 7th Transportation Group.

I.E.D. ANSWER = AIRLIFTS?

Here's a way to keep trucks from being blown up in Iraq: stop driving 'em, and fly instead.

The roadside bombs known as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, are responsible for 100 American casualties per month -- despite the American military's best efforts to detect or shut down the bombs.

"To vault the problem, [Air Force Gen. John] Gen. John Jumper is volunteering the service's C-130 fleet to take a substantial part of the Army's truck traffic off the roads of Iraq and move those supplies by air," Aviation Week reports.

"I saw a whole lot of activity going into detecting IEDs, and we saw the enemy change his tactics from one sort of IED to another sort," Jumper says. "I asked the simple question, 'What are we doing to get vehicles off the road to take their targets away?' I wasn't satisfied with the answer. I had a little fit."

The 64 C-130s in theater have already begun carrying an extra 350 truckloads of Army supplies per day, and Jumper has offered to further up the ante to replace 1,600 truckloads per day in the most dangerous areas. Moreover, he has ordered Air Force logisticians to analyze whether the proper things are being moved, if they are being moved to the right places and if the intratheater airlift fleet is large enough to meet the increased demand.

THERE'S MORE: An extra 350 truckloads per day sure sounds like a lot. It ain't. Since Nov. 9, "increased airlift operations has taken about 30 more people per day off the roads," Lt. Col. Michael Caldwell, an Air Force spokesman, tells Inside Defense.

Prior to the uptick in flights, airlift had already relieved 150 troops on the road per day.

The Army has moved a daily average of 3,000 vehicles over Iraqi roads since last February, using about 215 daily convoys, he said.

Jumper said the Air Force has offered the ground components the immediate “opportunity” to offset 350 trucks a day using the existing 64 C-130s in the region, and the service would be willing to ramp up more, if needed. The aircraft mostly carry repair parts and ammunition, Caldwell noted.

PENTAGON BUDGET: DECISION TIME

It's starting to happen, finally. After years of giving the Pentagon something close to a blank check to fund wars, buy new arms, and back massive upgrades to U.S. forces, the White House may be saying, at last, "enough."

According to the Los Angeles Times, President Bush's deputies are asking for tens of billions of dollars in cuts – maybe as much as $60 billion over the next six years. "The Air Force and Navy could be hit especially hard, with each branch possibly losing $4 billion to $5 billion in 2006," the paper says.

When he first got into office, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld faced a choice: fund the future, or pay for the past. He could put money into hulking, weapons designed for a punch-out with the Soviet military. Or Rumsfeld could funnel the cash into defense "transformation," to make American forces quicker, better-networked, and more capable (in theory) of fighting the small, nasty battles of the new century.

Then came 9/11. And suddenly, Rummy didn't have to make a choice at all. Questionable Cold War-era programs, like the F/A-22 jet, look on new life. Transformational projects, like the $117 billion "Future Combat Systems" (FCS) initiative, went full steam ahead. Strict spending limits were junked, as America prepared to fight a new series of wars. What was a $310 billion budget in fiscal year 2001 is now slated to grow to $500 billion, or more.

If Iraq had been conquered quickly, Rummy might have been able to duck the choice between the future and the past indefinitely. But the present has gotten in the way. And as the second year of the conflict begins to draw to a close, avoiding decisions in no longer possible. Much of FCS is being rejiggered, to give today's troops technological advantages. Controversial projects like the Virginia-class submarines, Osprey tilt-rotor crafts, and Joint Strategic Fighters are all getting new, harsher looks.

"The Iraqi insurgents have managed to do what Don Rumsfeld in four years has not managed to do, which is bring about cutbacks in a lot of these Cold War-era weapons," the Lexington Institute's Loren Thompson told the Times.

THERE'S MORE: " While the F-22 Raptor is important to the future, it is not something that is needed to fight the Global War on Terrorism," says Military.com columnist H. Thomas Hayden.

THANKS, JEFFREY!

Any time the phrases "robo-crappie," "stealth, my ass," and "the good weed" are all used in a week at Defense Tech, I know the site has had itself a good run. So let's give Dr. Jeffrey Lewis big, sloppy, wet kisses for his briliant guest blogging last week. And be sure to visit the good doctor at his regular online home for national defense rants, Arms Control Wonk.

MDA: UAVS MAY MONITOR MISSILE DEFENSE TESTS

Britain has a surprising number of firms that cater to the defense industry, organizing conferences and publishing books that are essentially porn for aircraft fetishists.

Jane's is the most famous, of course -- but don't forget the Shephard Group, which is hosted its Unmanned Vehicle conference this past few days.

The big news out of Shephard's UV/North America is that that Missle Defense Agency Director Henry "Trey" Obering (right) is considering UAVs for a variety of missile defense missions.

Shephard's summary of Obering's remarks focused on Obering's continued support for the High Altitude Airship despite "technical problems" that Obering claimed were slowing the project. Of course, the Shephard's intern also rendered Obering as Oberlin, which is a nice college in Ohio. So, grain of salt and whatnot.

Aerospace Daily picked it up something different and more interesting. Apparently, Obering also "said the agency is looking at equipping Global Hawk with a sensor package similar to the one being used on MDA's High Altitude Observatory (HALO)-II, a modified Gulfstream IIB business jet that collects data on anti-missile tests."

Alas, MDA does not regularly publish General Obering's remarks (nothing since June!) and I suspect Shephard's won't be making a transcript available for free -- registration was $1,240 for U.S. participants.

So, we'll just keep an eye out for future developments.

--Jeffrey Lewis

NRO CANCLES ORCA

Lost in all the hullabaloo surrounding the revelation that a third MISTY satellite was in the pipeline but over budget, NRO announced that it was canning its next generation of the data relay satellites.

A senior National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) official told Jeremy Singer of SpaceNews and C4ISR Journal that the NRO has dropped plans for a new generation of laser-optic data-relay satellites.

During a November 23 interview at NRO headquarters, Rear Admiral Victor See, NRO Director of Communications System Acquisition and Operation, announced that the Optical Relay Communications Architecture (ORCA) was being shelved in favor of incremental upgrades to the current generation of NRO data relay satellites (picture above, via Phil Chien) and the Defense Department's Transformational SATCOM.

ORCA was canceled after Congress reduced funding for the program in the FY 2005 budget request. Congress also reduced the funding available to the Transformational SATCOM from $775 million to $475 million and expressed concern about the program.

In case you are wondering, the existence of ORCA wasn’t a secret: Pete Teets mentioned it in his congressional testimony.

--Jeffrey Lewis

UAV ALTERNATIVE TO MISTY

The New York Times is reporting that lawmakers opposed to the highly classified $9.5 billion stealth satellite program alluded to by Senator Rockefeller are arguing that the United States should "rely much more heavily on high-flying unmanned aircraft to take pictures of critical targets around the world."

Government officials told The New York Times tthat the Senate Intelligence Committee has, in each of the past two intelligence bills, called for "greater reliance on other, nonstealthy reconnaissance satellite systems now in existence or in development, including commercial satellites and a new generation of satellites known as the Future Imagery Architecture" as an alternative to the MISTY program.

I was particularly intrigued by the reference to unmanned aerial vehicles because the Predator (above right) and Global Hawk UAV's performed so well in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. A senior Air Force official involved in Operation Enduring Freedom told the Air Force Association Magazine that the Predator had "enabled dramatic increases in timing and accuracy" over information gathered by satellites and traditional aerial reconnaissance.

I even recall some particularly critical articles about the contribution from National Reconnaissance Office in Afghanistan, including one article titled "Bloodshot Eyes in the Sky" that warned the "bold new use of unmanned aerial vehicles [was] raising new questions about how best to divide reconnaissance between aerial and space assets."

Everywhere except the Pentagon, apparently.

--Jeffrey Lewis

IT'S A BIRD! IT'S A PLANE! IT'S A ... STRATELLITE?

Ok, full disclosure: I pinched that headline from Wired.

Engadget notes that GlobeTel Communications of Ft. Lauderdale is on target to launch a prototype Stratellite early next year.

GlobeTel plans a constellation of the airships--I know you did not just call them baloons--to provide wireless services like WiFi, cellular and HDTV. GlobeTel managed to get The Economist to run a puff piece on the technology, declaring the impending death of the communications satellite industry. Engadget was skeptical, noting that GlobeTel "hasn't released any photos of the airship" and the press release "includes the usual legalese disclaimers about 'forward-looking statements'. So, we may have to wait a while to see if this is real, or if they're just full of hot air."

The whole fiery demise of the Hindenberg-thing gave blimps a bad name, so The Economist is right to take seriously today's airships, which bear little resemblance to their mid-century ancestors. The Defense Department, in particular, is considering High Altitude Airships for a variety of missions and developed a prototype solar powered airship that can fly untethered at 70,000 feet altitude with 4,000 pounds of communication and surveillance payload.

There are varying amounts of money in something like 11 seperate program elements in the budget for research and development for missions ranging from tactical communications to ballistic missile defense missions. Airships would also be a candidate platform, along with uninhabited aerial vehicles, for a constalltion of "psuedolites" to provide localized, jam-resistant GPS signals. DARPA even gets a giggle for naming its heavy lift airship ... the Walrus.

--Jeffrey Lewis

SPACE ELEVATORS ARE COOL

Over at Slashdot, a fellow named Neil Halelamien writes "The European Space Agency has announced the 2005 Clarke-Bradbury International Science Fiction competition. For the competition, the ESA's Innovative Technologies from Science Fiction for Space Applications (ITSF) project is accepting short stories and artwork which incorporates or depicts a space elevator in some way. The competition is open to members of all nations, with a submission deadline of February 25, 2005.

Space Elevators have been in the news recently, with The Space Review recently carrying an article summarizing the Third International Space Elevator Conference recently held in Washington, DC.

Space Elevators are really cool. The Wikipedia has a very simple explanation:

A space elevator would consist of a cable attached to the surface and reaching outwards into space [see right]. By positioning it so that its center of mass coincides with the altitude of geosynchronous orbit, either by extending the cable twice this altitude or attaching a counterweight, the elevator would stay in place. Once sent far enough, climbers would be accelerated further by the planet's rotation.

The Space Elevator weblog has pretty much everything else you ever wanted to know about space elevators.

A working space elevator might reduce the cost of space launch to just a few dollars per pound, with obvious commercial and military applications. Several entrepeneurs are hoping to leverage government funding into sustainable businesses. HighLift Systems in Seattle has been pitching the idea to NASA, DARPA, the FAA, and the NRO. Another group, LiftPort Group in Bremerton, is working with the Air Force Academy.

What's with all the companies in Washington State? Maybe its the Space Needle? Or the good weed.

--Jeffrey Lewis

DOES RUMSFELD E-MAIL?

The Project on Government oversight has doubts:

Does Mr. High-Tech Revolution-in-Military-Affairs Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld even have an email address? Apparently not. POGO tried to obtain his email to no avail beginning this Tuesday. You can, however, snail mail him.

What does it say about the future of defense transformation if the SECDEF doesn't use the most ubiuitous application of the PC age?

I mounted my own investigation. After clicking through several hundred news stories (all online, baby) that mention "Donald Rumsfeld" in close proximity to "e-mail", I think POGO is on to something.

Rumsfeld apparently has strong opinions on how to e-mail and keep an inbox clean, according to the Ottawa Citizen:

Mr.Rumsfeld was giving advice on time management to his staff, and the major item was the e-mail in-box. His advice was to stay on top of it, but he also explained how.

The trick is apparently to remember "your own agenda." The letters to answer are the ones that offer an opportunity to advance it. The letters to ignore are the many that don't. And ignore means ignore, as ruthless means ruthless.

Unfortunately, the article -- David Warren, "Me, myself and e-mail," The Ottawa Citizen, December 8, 2002, p. A16 -- is not online. But Rumsfeld's reported use of "letter" to describe an e-mail seems, well, suspicious. It wouldn't be the first time the SECDEF gave unsolicited advice on a subject about which he knows very little.

The only specific reference to Rumsfeld e-mailing comes from the Washington Post, which notes:

[Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Newt] Gingrich uses his access to Rumsfeld to pepper the defense secretary with e-mails on defense-related topics.

The most famous example was Gringrich's intervention to preserve the Stryker Interim Armored Vehicle, which prompted "a recent series of e-mails to Rumsfeld's office now circulating around the Pentagon."

I notice that story says the e-mails were sent to Rumsfeld's office.

I tracked down a website purporting to publish the full text of the e-mails, which are filled with amusing little bits of arcana like the fact that Newt's e-mail address is Thirdwave2@aol.com -- a reference to futurist Alvin Toffler's book The Third Wave.

The e-mails, from Newt's personal account, are addressed to Larry DiRita -- consistent with the hypothesis that SECDEF doesn't e-mail.

Man, defense transformation is screwed.

--Jeffrey Lewis

US TO SHUT DOWN GPS IN CRISIS?

The White House has completed yet another piece of its never-ending review of the Clinton-era 1996 National Space Policy.

U.S. SPACE-BASED POSITIONING, NAVIGATION, AND TIMING POLICY, signed by the President on 8 December 2004, "establishes guidance and implementation actions for space-based positioning, navigation, and timing programs, augmentations, and activities for U.S. national and homeland security, civil, scientific, and commercial purposes."

In other words its a GPS policy, and pretty aggressive one at that.

The policy, which also comes in a classified flavor, reportedly resulted in a directive to the Secretary of Defense (SecDef) to develop plans to shut down civil use of U.S. GPS signals in certain emergencies and to deny advesaries access to foreign space-based satellite navigation services, such as the European Union's Galileo system.

Does anybody remember when Washington claimed that Galileo was unnecessary, because we would never shut GPS down?

The Europeans have been buzzing about what the U.S. might do to Galileo in a crisis. Publication of a new Air Force Counterspace Doctrine fueled these fears, after Peter Teets asked a rather provocative question in the foreward:

What will we do ten years from now when American lives are put at risk because an adversary chooses to leverage the global positioning system or perhaps the Galileo constellation to attack American forces with precision?

Comments like this have a way of being taken the "wrong way." An ugly row recently erupted after a British paper reported that European participants at a Royal United Services Institute conference thought they heard U.S. officials threaten "irreversible action" to deny hostile powers access to Galileo in a crisis--although other participants disputed that any threat was issued.

Some of the dispute can, I think, be traced to a difference in thinking about satellite navigation. Whereas Americans tend to think of GPS as a military application that civilians are permitted to use (reflecting the military origins of GPS), much of the rest of the world sees it as a global public utility. I suspect we'll be hearing a lot about this policy by Galileo's supporters.

--Jeffrey Lewis

PERFORMANCE ANXIETY

MISSILE DEFENSE BOOSTER FAILS TO RISE TO THE OCCASSION

The Missile Defense Agency's Integrated Flight Test (IFT)-13C was aborted "after the interceptor missile experienced an anomaly shortly before it was to be launched." The target, perhaps representing a North Korean ICBM hurtling toward a U.S. city, performed flawlessly.

Let's be clear: This test was a big deal. Thomas Christie, the Pentagon' Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, told Congress in February that the test would be "significant exercise of the Test Bed infrastructure" and would address "a long-standing concern over target presentation that has not yet been tested."

Congress agreed: The FY 2005 Defense Appropriations Bill identifies the test by name, saying that "Integrated Flight Test-13C scheduled for August 200" represents an important milestone.

Accordingly, the conferees direct the Director of the Missile Defense Agency to provide a report to the congressional defense committees within 30 days of the conclusion of IFT-13C, in both classified and unclassified form, including a detailed assessment of the results of IFT-13C.

Can't wait for that report. Each test costs about 100 million bucks.

I've posted a slightly obscene op-ed I wrote about alternative uses for Missile Defense Agency funding over on Arms Control Wonk.com

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists weblog has a comment, with a couple of worthwhile links.

Finally, MDA is not without a sense of irony. Yesterday, MDA awarded Boeing a $928 million contract for FY 05-07 for "construction and non-construction efforts required to field the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) Block 2006 Capability Enhancement (CE) Program."

Ideally, the "enhancement" in mind includes a booster that works. Or not.

--Jeffrey Lewis

PAKISTAN PRINTS

The State Department has awarded Lockheed Martin a $9.4 million contract to develop state-of-the-art fingerprint identification system to help Pakistan to quickly identify suspected criminals and terrorists.

Where do I chip in?

The Pakistan Automated Fingerprint Identification System (PAFIS) comprises a central fingerprint database, criminal history system, and geographically distributed access stations to serve police forces throughout the country. PAFIS will link Pakistani law enforcement community with Interpol and national police agencies such as the FBI. The United States has a similar program with the Republic of the Philippines.

Can you tell a "tented arch" (right) from a "whorl" (below)?

PAFIS is a variant of a similar systems used by the FBI and the Defense Department, which use a software suite developed using Red Hat Linux 7.3 running on National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) clusters. Although the code is open-source, it is also export controlled. "It's free, but it's export controlled, which means if you get it outside the U.S. or you post it on the Internet, the export control people will come get you," an NIST manager told NewsForge.

Um, yeah. The two countries have little tradition of protecting software. An estimated 83% of software in Pakistan and 72% in t