PENTAGON BUDGET BLACKMAIL

Give us more money, or soldiers aren't going to get paid. That's the cynical game the Pentagon's leadership has been playing with the Army's budget in recent months. And now, it's crunch time.

Since the fall, Rumsfeld & Co. have been dipping into the Army's day-to-day funds -- like money for soldiers' paychecks -- and then daring Congress not to make up the difference with a second, "supplemental" pile of cash.

The tab comes due this Spring, Defense Daily reports. The Army needs $41 billion of that supplemental kitty by then, or else it is going to go broke, without cash left to pay G.I.s.

Already, the service has pulled forward some $11 billion in funds from the third and fourth quarters of its [fiscal year 2005] budget, a senior Army budget officer said at a briefing on Friday.

“I think it’s early May when we run out of money,” the official said. The most money is being spent on operations and maintenance. “What we’re doing right now is taking monies from the fourth quarter and the third quarter…we’re already spending, you know, my September paycheck.”

“We’ve pulled in about the last five and a half months to spend in the first six and a half.”

That same official said that this sort of spending has no practical effect on soldiers, according to Defense Daily. And he's probably right, for the moment. What politician would vote to deprive a soldier of his paycheck?

But key members of Congress, like Sen. John McCain, are getting increasingly fed up with this backdoor effort to add tens of billions to the defense budget by essentially holding G.I.'s livelihood hostage. Sooner or later, things are going to come to a head.

DRONES WRONG FOR BORDER WATCH?

The Homeland Security Department has been using pilotless spy planes to patrol the Mexican border for nearly a year. Vigilante groups have been putting unmanned eyes in the sky for even longer. But a new report from the Congressional Research Service is warning that there could be some pretty major drawbacks to using robotic border guards.

The technical capabilities of the UAVs have been tested in a military context, but serious safety and technical issues need to be addressed if the program is to be expanded domestically…

There are concerns regarding UAVs high accident rate. Currently, the UAV accident rate is 100 times higher than that of manned aircraft…If control systems fail in a manned aircraft, a well-trained pilot is better positioned to find the source of the problem because of his/her physical proximity. If a UAV encountered a similar system failure, or if a UAV landing was attempted during difficult weather conditions, the ground control pilot would be at a disadvantage because he or she is removed from the event. Unlike a manned pilot, the remote pilot would not be able to assess important sensory information such as wind speed…

Another consideration is how well the [border patrol] could respond to UAV imagery. Are there enough border patrol resources to investigate all UAV identified targets? Would the lack of human resources render high technology like UAVs less effective?...

A final potential question pertains to civil liberties such as personal privacy. Some are concerned that UAVs deployed over the United States may provide government agencies a new ability to clandestinely monitor citizens…

However, the report suggests, there is an alternative to the drones: aerostats, "the helium-filled blimps that don’t fly horizontally but are instead tethered to the ground with a cable that provides power. Like UAVs, aerostats are unmanned and can loiter for long periods of time. But the blimps crash less, have had extensive testing in civil settings, and may not cost as much as putting robots in the skies.

(thanks to Nick for the tip)

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The bosses here have come up with a nifty little application for the military-minded: a toolbar that gives one-click access to defense headlines, photos and videos from the site's "Shock & Awe" grab bag, and discounted gear for service members. Click here to check it out.

ANTI-MISSILE PASSES TEST AT SEA

We give the missile defense program a pretty hard time around here, especially when they don't even manage to pass their own dumbed-down tests. So give the Star Wars crowd some credit: one of their interceptors successfully downed a mock warhead on Thursday. It's "the fifth success in six such tests of the fledgling U.S. anti-missile shield's sea-based leg," according to Reuters. The ground-based component of the missile shield has, obviously, not performed nearly as well.

The target rocket was fired from the U.S. Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands, Kauai, and was hit a few minutes later from a Standard Missile-3 interceptor fired from the USS Lake Erie guided missile cruiser. The ship used the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Weapon System to track the target. By year's end, the U.S. Navy wants 18 ships equipped with the system, Defense Daily notes.

"Last fall," Reuters observes, "the Japan-based Arleigh Burke-class destroyer Curtis Wilbur became the first component of the anti-missile shield to be put on patrol in the Sea of Japan to guard against North Korean attack."

Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's former chief of testing and evaluation and a normally vicious skeptic of the missile defense system, was muted in his reactions to yesterday's test. But he did have this to say:

I assume that the intercept took place so soon after interceptor launch - just two minutes - because they wanted to demonstrate the capability intercept a short range enemy missile, and at relatively close range from the launching Aegis ship. Depending on the actual geometry and conditions, such tests can be highly scripted to be successful on such a short time scale.

THERE'S MORE: Canada decided yesterday not to join in the American anti-missile effort. And that elicited a rather odd reponse from U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci: "We simply cannot understand why Canada would in effect give up its sovereignty – its seat at the table – to decide what to do about a missile that might be coming towards Canada."

Right. Canada makes its own decisions about how best to spend its money and defend its citizens. And that means it's giving up its sovereignty. Whatever you say, Paul.

(thanks to RC for the pointer)

AND MORE: "What the U.S. Ambassador is saying is that the U.S. has arrogated to itself the right to invade Canada's airspace in order to fire at an incoming missile that may be aimed at Canada, the U.S., or Mexico, even if Canada objects to such an action," Defense Tech Dad Tom Shachtman says over on the forum. "This in effect negates Canadian sovereignty over its own airspace."

Jeff Quinton points out that a retired Canadian general has just made a similar point -- that, as Jeff puts it, "NORAD/Northern Command... are set up to provide security for the whole continent and that Canada could be shut out of the planning process."

"Canadians will not have any participation in the actual decision-making or the rules of engagement or anything to do with ballistic missile defence," lieutenant-general George MacDonald, the former vice-chief of defence staff and now a consultant, tells the National Post. "We will simply be feeding the system."

AND MORE: "Prime Minister Paul Martin said Canada must be consulted before the U.S. decides to fire on missiles that enter Canadian airspace, despite Ottawa's refusal to participate in America's missile defence program," the CBC reports.

"I don't think that anyone expected that there would be any other finger on a button than the Americans," Martin said Friday, a day after his decision not to join the program.

"But in terms of Canadian airspace, yes we would expect to be consulted. This is our airspace. We're a sovereign nation. And you don't intrude on a sovereign nation's airspace without seeking permission," Martin said.

JITTERS FOR RADIO PROJECT

During the early days of the Iraq invasion, some Marines were forced to use as many as seven different radios to communicate with colleagues and superiors. That's why the Defense Department has been working so feverishly on "Jitters," or JTRS, the $5 billion Joint Tactical Radio System effort to replace 750,000 old-school radios with software-based models.

But now, National Defense magazine reports, Jitters may be in trouble.

Encryption problems and an array of other technical shortcomings are throwing the entire project into question, said industry sources...

The JTRS version known as “cluster 1,” intended for use aboard Army helicopters and ground vehicles, is scheduled for a major Defense Department review this summer.

An Army technical review, known as “early operational assessment,” is slated for April. In January, however, the Army ordered the contractors to halt JTRS-related work for at least six weeks.

“Technical challenges were encountered during development and integration that indicated the need for upgrades in performance and modifications in design,” said Timothy Rider, spokesman for the Army Communications and Electronics Command.

This marks a sharp reversal of fortune for JTRS, which was hailed by Pentagon officials in 2002 as a “transformational” program that would underpin the Defense Department’s vision of an interconnected “network-centric” military force...

The Army declined to elaborate on what exactly the technical issues are that potentially could derail this program. Industry sources contacted by National Defense indicated that one key area of concern is the encryption technology, which is overseen by the National Security Agency. Changes in the JTRS “security architecture” requested by the NSA potentially could delay the deliveries of JTRS cluster 1 by two years. Unlike previous generations of military radios, JTRS is entirely software-based, making the system more susceptible to hacking and prompting NSA to tighten the encryption requirements.

THERE'S MORE: NSA concerns aren't the only reason Jitters is being delayed, Inside Defense notes.

The system’s processing and memory capacity included no room for growth. Studies showed that the limit of the system’s random access memory was likely to be exceeded and would lead to “possible erratic performance that would be difficult to isolate,” said Tim Rider, a spokesman for the Army's the Communications-Electronics Life Cycle Management Command.

As a result, program officials determined that moving from the prototype’s early limited functionality to the final design “would not be possible,” Rider said...

Program officials realized the challenges would lead to cost increases by October 2004, Rider wrote in response to questions. There were three key signs. First, Boeing needed more resources to finish hardware and non-waveform software requirements that would address memory shortfalls. Next, new baseline requirements emerged. Also, evolving operational scenarios and the development of the Defense Department’s Global Information Grid expanded the understanding of a networked system of systems, which has driven upgrades to the radio system architecture that are needed to comply with National Security Agency standards...

In January 2004, the program received a reserve fund of $159 million for potential financial risks that were known to exist before the contract award. Boeing and the Army program office are preparing a plan and cost estimate for any additional cost increases and cannot provide specific figures until that process is complete, Rider said.

LOS ALAMOS' COSMIC NUKE-SPOTTER

I've been fascinated by cosmic rays, ever since they turned Ben Grimm, Reed Richards, Sue Storm, and her kid brother Johnny into world-saving superheroes. So I was glad to hear that Los Alamos scientists had figured out a way to use the rays to detect smuggled nuclear material. Government Executive explains:

The technique involves the use of muons, which are produced when cosmic radiation decays as it hits the Earth. Los Alamos researchers have developed a system that uses muon radiography to detect uranium, plutonium or other dense materials. A suspect object, such as a cargo container, is passed through two pairs of detectors - one set above the object and one below - that record muons' paths before and after they pass through the object. Analysis of the energy and trajectory of the muons results in a three-dimensional map of the inside of the suspect object...

Muon radiography has several advantages over detectors now deployed at U.S. borders, which use either X-rays or gamma rays, according to the laboratory. For example, gamma-ray detectors are less penetrating than those using muons, produce results that require additional interpretation and require the use of hazardous material such as cobalt.

Los Alamos scientists are now working to develop a set of muon radiography detectors large enough to scan large metal objects within 60 seconds. As the process develops, inspectors using the detectors may be able to clear a vehicle within about 20 seconds of muon exposure, the laboratory release says.

"We believe we've worked through all of the major obstacles to building a prototype system for a range of security issues," Chris Morris of the laboratory's Physics Division.

There's no word, yet, on whether the detector could serve as an early warning system, should the Skrulls invade, or Galactus decides to return to eat the planet.

SURVEILLANCE IS FUN!

Being Big Brother can be such a drag, staring at walls of black-and-white security monitors all day. It's a one-way trip to napville. And it doesn't exactly make for tight security, either. One person can only watch six to eight surveillance screens for about twenty minutes before everything goes blurry, according to the watcher's rule of thumb.

An Atlanta start-up, Vistascape, has been livening things up for monitor jockeys, with a bowl full of eye candy, to keep them engaged in what they're doing. Screen banks are replaced with a single, 3D-view of a facility that lets a security officer "fly" around the area from his desktop, and focus on a single intruder. The U.S. Navy, the port of Corpus Christi, and several private energy companies are all using the system. About 20 other installations – including Boston's Logan Airport -- are scheduled to get in on the fun soon. My article in this month's Wired magazine has an example of how it works.

THERE'S MORE: Patrick Di Justo has a hot article in today's Times on the dangers of unsecured webcams. Teenagers in panties are mentioned.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR DEFENSE TECH

34! Send flowers!

POLICE DOGS GET K-9 CAMS

There's been a new edition to Defense Tech's headquarters staff -- Pablo, a cute-as-hell retriever-lab blend on loan from the girlfriend's sister. Pablo has been helpful about getting the folks here out of the house (for once). But he hasn't been enlisted for surveillance duty. Yet.

That may change, as Defense Tech considers following the lead of the Northumbria Police Department, and outfitting Pablo with a mini camera and wireless transmitter that sits on the top of the pooch's head. (via Gizmodo)

THERE'S MORE: Hopefully, these spy-doggies will get a nice set of K-9 armor when they're out on patrol.

SPYBOYS, START YOUR BLOGGING

Former Centcom intelligence analyst and Defense Tech pal Kris Alexander has some advice for our spyboys in this month's Wired magazine: start blogging.

It's an open secret that the US intelligence community has its own classified, highly secure Internet. Called Intelink, it's got portals, chat rooms, message boards, search engines, webmail, and tons of servers. It's pretty damn cool... for four years ago...

The first step toward reform: Encourage blogging on Intelink. When I Google "Afghanistan blog" on the public Internet, I find 1.1 million entries and tons of useful information. But on Intelink there are no blogs. Imagine if the experts in every intelligence field were turned loose - all that's needed is some cheap software. It's not far-fetched to picture a top-secret CIA blog about al Qaeda, with postings from Navy Intelligence and the FBI, among others. Leave the bureaucratic infighting to the agency heads. Give good analysts good tools, and they'll deliver outstanding results.

And why not tap the brainpower of the blogosphere as well? The intelligence community does a terrible job of looking outside itself for information... If intelligence organizations built a collaborative environment through blogs, they could quickly identify credible sources, develop a deep backfield of contributing analysts, and engage the world as a whole. How cool would it be to gain "trusted user" status on a CIA blog?

Sign me up, Kris!

ROBO-COPTERS GET MEAN

For those of you worried that the Defense Department might have decided to bail on the idea of building an armed, robotic helicopter, don't fret. The dream of unmanned killer copters is still alive, at least in some corners of the Pentagon.

The U.S. military's highest-profile robo-copter project, the Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (UCAR) program, crashed and burned a few months back, after the Army decided to pass on funding the UCAR's next, $160 million phase.

But some smaller efforts are continuing. The Army recently test-fired a set of rockets from one of its Vigilante unmanned copters. The December trial marked the first time a first rotary-wing drone let loose such weapons. In the not-too-far future, the modified UH-1 "Huey" is expected to make the step up to launching guided missiles, like the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS).

Meanwhile, Boeing is turning one of its special forces copters, the Little Bird, into an unmanned killer, too. In a press release, Boeing said it sees the drone as being "uniquely suited for precision re-supply; communications relay using large, heavy packages; airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; downed pilot recovery, and weapons delivery."

With a $1.6 million Army grant, the company is expecting to try out a whole bunch of weapons systems on the Little Bird drone, too. Those include the APKWS, the Hellfire missiles now aboard Predator drones, as well as the GAU-19/A gatling gun, which soldiers on manned helicopters have long used, to deadly effect.

THERE'S MORE: Paris Hilton, watch your ass. Check out Gizmodo's take on the robo-copter.

DEFENSE TECH IN SPACE

Showing a stunning and ongoing lapse in judgement, the producers over at BBC/Public Radio International's "The World" continue to have me on the program to talk about defense geekery. The topic this time: space war.

Dr. Evil was mentioned. And so was Ronald Reagan. Pete Townsend, unfortunately, was not in attendance for today's talk. Maybe next he'll return for the next episode.

JIMMY CARTER: SUPER SPY?

The rumors are that the Navy's newest nuclear sub, the USS Jimmy Carter, has been designed for spywork, with a "special capability... to tap undersea cables and eavesdrop on the communications passing through them," according to the AP.

The rumors are right, Military.com's undersea warfare experts believe. Here's what retired Rear Admiral Hank McKinney, the former commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's submarine force, had to say:

The Navy has for years carried out special surviellance missions with nuclear submarines. Most of these missions utlilized attack submarines that were not extensively modified. Specialized communications intercept equipments were installed in existing spaces on board these submarines. A few have been modified for special oceanographic missions and capabilities. In the past, these included USS HALIBUT, USS SEAWOLF, USS RICHARD B. RUSSELL, and USS PARCHE. Each of these submarines was modified to accomodate these new missions. In the case of USS JIMMY CARTER, all of the modifications were made before the submarine was delivered to the Navy. This submarine will be utilized to conduct many specialized missions, some of which will be routine unclassified oceanographic research operations which will advance our knowledge of the ocean. Some of the missions will be highly classified missions which I am unable to comment on. (emphasis mine)

Undersea thriller author, submarine authority, and Military.com columnist Joe Buff notes that a 2001 Wall Street Journal article unveiled the NSA's desire to tap undersea cables. "It is reasonable to presume that [the ability] to do this underwater, by properly trained Navy divers, is now achievable," Buff writes.

Ironically, an earlier nuclear sub named USS Seawolf, commissioned in the 1950s, was secretly modified with a hull section that allowed saturation divers to work on the seafloor at considerable depths. (Saturation divers spend a long period living and resting in a shirtsleeves environment with a mixed-gas atmosphere pressurized to equal the depth of their job site. After days or even weeks of daily work shifts, they then undergo a long period of hyperbaric decompression to be able to return to sea-level air. France claimed several years ago to have had men in "soft" scuba outfits -- not hard exoskeleton suits -- perform useful manual tasks on the bottom at 3,000 feet.)

In my opinion USS Jimmy Carter is highly likely to include such facilities, essentially a modern-era Sea Lab built into the submarine itself.

Click here for more, as Buff goes deep into mechanics of listening in on undersea chatter.

The issue of how to collect the tapped communications in real-time also isn't new. In addition to the undersea tap referenced in the [Journal] article, which by the way affected the Soviet Navy's Pacific Fleet headquarters and waters in the Sea of Okhotsk off the western Pacific, another tap was emplaced to listen in on Northern Fleet communications near Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula on the Barents Sea off of the North Atlantic -- this tap was not betrayed by the spy mentioned in the article, because he did not know about it. The idea was seriously discussed in the American intelligence and submarine community of laying an undersea cable from that tap to Iceland, using submarines and divers, so that a listening station could monitor the cable's message traffic continuously. Open sources state that this cable wasn't built, partly because the Cold War ended and the cost didn't seemed justified.

However, with technology at least fifteen years more advanced now, it is quite possible that Carter can carry within her 100-foot long, 42-foot diameter special "wasp waist" hull section's "garage space" a considerable length of fiber optic cable. (Wasp waist refers to the narrow inner pressure hull, which allows for the ocean-interface garage space volume between the pressure hull and the outer hull that conforms to the overall streamlined teardrop shape of the vessel.)

This hypothetical cable need not be led up onto land in friendly turf for it to be useful. It need only establish enough "stand-off distance" from the tap, out into neutral or international waters, where various means of transmission of intercepts are more feasible without enemy detection or interference. These include a hard-wired or acoustic-link modem station that is monitored by submarines that deploy there in rotation for Indications and Warning missions. Or, as the article says, various radio buoy transmitters and other means could be used to continually relay intercepts on to the NSA for detailed analysis. Spread-spectrum or frequency agile, super high frequency (SHF) or extremely high frequency (EHF) transmitters, with very low probability of interception, mounted on low-observable buoys, constantly "talking" to U.S. spy satellites, are surely within current technical means if budgeting were available.

These transmitters could be powered for lengthy periods using the latest generation of fuel cell or semi fuel cell technology, some types of which are open to the sea and in fact use naturally circulating seawater as their electrolyte. Such radio buoy bandwidth would be adequate to convey information from a fiber optic cable, especially given mathematical data-compression techniques and artificial intelligence routines in an attached computer that could quickly "learn" which cable lines and which message traffic were truly of strategic interest to the United States. (A communications laser might be used instead of a radio, just as some submarine/satellite comms links now use laser beams.)

It is also worth noting that the garage space and "people tank" facilities within Carter's added hull section are almost certainly mission reconfigurable, that is, easily altered to serve different mission profiles. This is the case with the USS Virginia design, and it appears likely that the same new, hyper-flexible approach to submarine architecture was applied to Carter's special modifications; the design and construction work of the two overlapped, witness both ships being commissioned into the Navy in 2004/2005. Thus Carter is able to do many different and exciting things with her 50 commandoes, her garage space, and her ocean interface for deploying and retrieving unmanned (and autonomous?) undersea vehicles and perhaps also aerial vehicles.

THERE'S MORE: Two years before the Journal's story broke, Inside Defense told the world about the secret modifications being made to U.S. subs.

"EX" STRESS RELIEF FOR G.I.S

First we found out that the Army was planning to ply G.I.s with the raver favorite Ketamine, or "Special K," as a morphine substitute. Now comes word that "American soldiers traumatized by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are to be offered the drug ecstasy to help free them of flashbacks and recurring nightmares," the Guardian reports.

The US food and drug administration has given the go-ahead for the soldiers to be included in an experiment to see if MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, can treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

Scientists behind the trial in South Carolina think the feelings of emotional closeness reported by those taking the drug could help the soldiers talk about their experiences to therapists. Several victims of rape and sexual abuse with post-traumatic stress disorder, for whom existing treatments are ineffective, have been given MDMA since the research began last year...

The South Carolina study marks a resurgence of interest in the use of controlled psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs. Several studies in the US are planned or are under way to investigate whether MDMA, LSD and psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, can treat conditions ranging from obsessive compulsive disorder to anxiety in terminal cancer patients. (via Boing Boing)

NUCLEAR "RED LINES" GET SMUDGED

"Not so long ago, the terrifying rules of nuclear chicken were clear," writes the New York Times' David Sanger in a gripping Sunday opinion piece. But not any more.

When only superpowers and their allies held nuclear arsenals, deterrence worked, because all sides understood the horrific consequences of a misstep. Even during the most unnerving confrontations, like the Cuban missile crisis, there were clear "red lines" beyond which no sane leader would intentionally step...

But the lesson of the past few years is that red lines have blurred, to the point where they are now little more than pink smudges. And now, no one seems to know the rules. Not the Bush administration, as it sends conflicting signals about what it and its allies will do if diplomacy fails to disarm Iran and North Korea. Not Kim Jong Il, or the Iranian mullahs, as they test new and undefined limits. And why not test them?

They all know that India, Pakistan and Israel joined the nuclear club without ever accepting the rules laid out in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Even after India and Pakistan set off tests in 1998, the sanctions America imposed were relatively mild and short-lived. As soon as America needed Pakistan's help after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the country was transformed from nuclear outlaw to "major non-NATO ally."

Nicholas Eberstadt, a North Korea scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, wonders about this: "You have to think the Iranians are watching how we handle the North Koreans in the next few months. If you won't do anything with a big cheater, what are the middle and future cheaters to think?"

Go read it all. The standard-issue story on armed robots in the same section -- "Darpa, don't let your robots grow up to be Skynet," essentially -- is eminently skippable, however.

RAPTOR'S RUSSIAN BOOGEYMAN

Air Force chief of staff Gen. John Jumper has been working overtime, ever since the F/A-22 "Raptor" stealth fighter program got slashed by the Pentagon leadership.

First, he flew one of the jets himself, at nearly Mach 2, to show off how cool the Raptor really was. Then, he had a team of F/A-22s buzz by the Super Bowl.

Now, according to Inside Defense, he's telling "lawmakers that the U.S. military's ability to dominate the skies may be threatened by a Russian aircraft that has not yet been built, and which aerospace analysts believe may never fly."

Gen. Jumper... warned “the design for the Sukhoi 40 is on the boards right now,” in a Feb. 8 hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Defense analysts said Jumper was referring to Russia's plans for a fifth-generation fighter that is to replace the Su-27 Flanker and MiG-29 Fulcrum. A design for this new fighter aircraft program, known as the PAK FA, is being crafted with a prototype expected in 2006 and production beginning in 2010, according to a May 6, 2004, Aviation Week article.

Aviation industry analysts, however, believe the enormous costs required to design and build such an aircraft... are beyond the means of the Russian government.

Use of this fledgling Russian aircraft program to make the case for the F/A-22 raised the eyebrows of some analysts. One, who asked not to be named, called it a “pitiful argument.”

THERE'S MORE: Over on the Defense Tech forum, reader NH mounts a strong, well-reasoned defense of the Raptor. Check it out.

ISRAELIS GO DEEP TO STOP STRIKES

Since the start of the second Intifada, tunnels dug beneath the Gaza Strip have become an underground highway for Palestinian militants and their weapons. "Israeli security forces have uncovered more than 100 tunnels, some as long as 800 meters, as deep as 15 meters" in the last four years, Defense News' Barbara Opall-Rome notes.

Now -- even with signs of tensions cooling -- the Israelis are trying a blend of tactics and technology to try to close off the tunnels.

IDF will soon acquire... 100-ton vehicles known here as the Trencher to rapidly dig tunnels and ditches. Water-filled trenches, which seep into the soft, sandy soil of the Rafah border area, can collapse tunnels lying underneath.

Defense and industry experts say acoustic, seismic, thermal and other sensors promise to help as well.

One potential solution, by Herzliya, Israel-based Hadas Detection and Decoding, is intended to detect tunnels more than 20 meters underground. Known as the Underground Fence Solution or the UltraFence, and marketed by Rafael Armament Development Authority, the system analyzes acoustic noise and seismic changes to distinguish types of underground activities such as digging, walking or motorized movement...

The other system under evaluation uses underground seismic antennas. Developed by Electro-Optic Research and Development (EORD), a national laboratory affiliated with Israel's Technion University in Haifa, the system filters out noise to determine the precise nature and location of underground threats...

While many struggle to devise technological solutions, a senior operations officer suggested Israel might consider a Palestinian tactic.

Since late January, when the Palestine Authority assumed responsibility for security in Rafah, Palestinian security forces have uncovered and destroyed two arms-smuggling tunnels. In at least one of those instances, local security officials filled the tunnel with raw sewage.

"When we go in and destroy tunnels, it's sometimes only a matter of time until the debris is cleared and the tunnel is reopened for business. But they filled the tunnel with [excrement], which totally clogged all the air holes for breathing. That tunnel won't be used for years," an IDF officer said.

SPACE CHIEF: THINK ATTACK FIRST

Major General Daniel Darnell, head of the Air Force's Space Warfare Center, has some advice for satellite companies. If there's trouble with your orbiter, your first response should be “think possible attack.”

Never mind the fact that "no country, not even the United States, currently has a working anti-satellite system in its arsenal... outside of the remote chance of someone launching a nuke into space," as the Center for Defense Information's Theresa Hitchens points out. (Although the U.S. is putting some jammers in place.) And never mind the fact that "the Air Force does not have the capability at this time to ascertain on the spot whether any disruption of satellite operations is due to a malfunction, such as faulty software or space weather, or the result of some sort of deliberate interference or attack."

Nope, satelitte operators should go ahead and assume their machines have been sabotaged by evildoers. And that's a serious problem, Hitchens reminds us. Because under current U.S. military doctrine, a strike against a satellite "would be considered an act of war subject to military response. In other words, we will shoot back."

But at whom or what? The satellite that happens to be nearest the disabled one? The "rogue state" du jour?

The wholesale adoption by the Air Force of such trigger-happy thinking would obviously be a recipe for disaster, raising the likelihood of the United States launching an accidental war... Suffice it to say, there will be a price to pay the first time a U.S. anti-satellite weapon shoots down an innocent Chinese communications satellite because a crucial widget on a U.S. satellite conked out due to faulty manufacturing processes.

Hitchens sees this all as an attempt to help sell space weapons to a sometimes-reluctant Congress and Pentagon brass. And I can see her point.

But what if the bosses already believe the Chicken Little talk? After all, wasn't it Donald Rumsfeld, the big boss himself, who warned in 2001 of a "space Pearl Harbor." Then Gen. Darnell's warning wouldn't be a sales job at all. It'd be an official expression of U.S. policy to shoot first, and ask questions later.

THERE'S MORE: "In the absence of a clear national strategy and policy on new military missions in outer space, the administration of President George W. Bush is funding programs that will create 'facts in orbit,'" Hitchens and friends write in a separate CDI report, which gives a program-by-program breakdown of what the Pentagon has in store for space in the upcoming budget.

TIMES' ROBO-SOLDIER MANFUNCTION

Quick question: How does the paper of record run a story on drone soldiers, with only the briefest of mentions about the armed robots that are actually on their way to Iraq? (The graphics are slick, though.)

SNEAKY SUPPLEMENTAL

You'd think that, two years into a war, a secondary, "supplemental" budget for the Pentagon would be for handling last-minute military contingencies. Responding to battlefield emergencies. Coping with unforeseen turns of events.

But you'd be wrong, unfortunately. Because major chunks of the Pentagon's $82 billion supplemental defense bill are only distantly related to the fights going on in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The most obvious example: the $5 billion or so devoted to Army "modularity." That's the push to break American troops into 43 smaller, more easily deployable brigades, from the current 33. It's part of a long-standing effort by the Army to reorganize its forces. And it's something the brass has seen coming for years, now. There's no reason to lump modularity in with funds for Afghanistan and Iraq.

No reason except for politics, that is. With the supplemental labeled by the White House and the press as an Iraq/Afghanistan bill, it becomes essentially impossible for any self-respecting politician to turn it down. Voting against money for troops in harm's way – that's political hara-kiri.

The supplemental also includes about $13 billion for Army payroll, to make sure G.I.s get paid. But nearly $2 billion of that money wouldn't have ended up in this bill -- if Pentagon chiefs hadn't already taken it out of soldiers' paychecks.

A few months back, the Defense Department leadership realized they hadn't devoted more than a pittance to armoring up their fleet of trucks (a hardly unforeseen circumstance, given the hundreds of roadside bomb attacks on convoys). The Pentagon brass needed money for the job, fast. And so they decided to dip into the Army payroll -- knowing, of course, that there would be a supplemental bill coming down the pike in a few months. And knowing that just about every Senator and every Congressman would vote for the thing.

"I always tell people, thank God for the supplemental. We would not be able to do anything... without them," Lt. Gen. Joseph Yakovac told an Association of the United States Army conference last year. "If those don’t happen, we’re in a world of hurt."

But wouldn't it be better if they planned for these things up front, instead of sneaking them through the back door? Is this any way to fund a military at war?

The Pentagon says it's making hard choices about which of its massive programs to keep, and which of them to cut.

“Well, how serious can they be if they’re not fully accounting for Iraq and Afghanistan? They basically have got two sets of books operating,” Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., a House Armed Services Committee member, tells Defense News. “If you treat [Iraq and Afghanistan] as off the official budget, then how are you ever going to make real adjustments to the portfolio and the investments?”

THERE'S MORE: "Why this funding is in an emergency supplemental [request] is hard to explain. It looks as though they want a bigger defense budget without admitting it," the Lexington Institute's Loren Thompson tells the Washington Post.

On Capitol Hill, some Republicans and Democrats have criticized the Pentagon's reliance on the supplemental request, saying it curtails congressional oversight and distorts understanding of defense spending. "It removes from our oversight responsibilities the scrutiny that these programs deserve," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told military service chiefs at a hearing Thursday.

PENTAGON ADMITS IRAQI TROOP LACK

During the 2004 election, the President and his team talked endlessly about the countless battalions of Iraqi troops that were helping out the coalition in its counterinsurgency fight. On May 15 of last year, for example, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld told Wolf Blitzer that "we now have 200,000 Iraqi security forces that are out there providing security in their country, and frankly, being killed themselves."

But the Pentagon's supplemental budget bill, released yesterday, shows just how hollow those words were. In fact, the Defense Department now admits in a $5.7 billion request to train local troops, there are hardly any Iraqi forces that are able to put up a fight.

The Iraqi Interim and Transitional Governments, with Coalition assistance, have fielded over 90 battalions in order to provide security within Iraq during a period of an intense counterinsurgency campaign that was designed to suppress the development of democracy. All but one of these 90 battalions, however, are lightly equipped and armed, and have very limited mobility and sustainment capabilities. These limitations, coupled with a more resilient insurgency than anticipated when the Iraqi Security Forces were initially designed, have led the Prime Minister of Iraq to request forces that can participate in the "hard end" of the counterinsurgency, and to do so quickly. (Emphasis mine. And yeah, I caught the little Bushism, too.)

ARMY WANTS DISHWATER DOUBLE-DIP

Water takes up to 40 percent of the U.S. Army's daily logistical load -- nearly 55 pounds of water per soldier per day, when medical treatment, meal rehydration and bathing are factored in.

The Army's latest attempt to cut down on that burden: a set of filters that reuses the dirty, soapy water from field kitchens.

Ordinarily, "pots, pans, utensils and other dishes are washed, rinsed and sanitized in the field with a three-sink food sanitation center that consumes nearly 250 gallons of potable water daily," notes a press release from the Army's Natick Soldier Systems Center. "Wastewater is either poured onto the ground, or stored in a tank or bladder for disposal."

Natick researchers are focusing on two different filter systems instead to recycle the water instead.

The Splitter XD from Infinitex uses spiral-wound membranes... [While a] micro-distiller from Ovation Products Corp [relies on a] vapor compression distillation process... Both processes use a commercial filter to pre-screen suspended solids, are low or no-maintenance, and are as easy to operate as flipping a switch...

Testing proved 85-90 percent of the greywater could be recovered, leaving 10-15 percent of it concentrated sludge for backhauling.

That's good enough for the Natick folks to start building water recycling into its next generation of field kitchens. But the recovered water still won't be clean enough to swig. To get drinable water, Pentagon researchers believe, soldiers will be need to pluck it out of thin air -- or condense it from their Hummers' tailpipes.

MISSILE DEFENDER CAN'T GET IT UP

I love it when the Arms Control Wonk gets all bitchy. Especially when it's about missile defense.

In Sex and the City, Trey MacDougal, the husband of a principal character, has a little problem performing, um, performing under pressure.

The Missile Defense Agency's own Trey, Henry "Trey" Obering III, seems to be having a little trouble getting the old missile up and on course, himself.

For the second time in two months, a missile defense interceptor failed to launch from Kwajalein in the Pacific Ocean.

Again, the target, perhaps representing a North Korean ICBM hurtling toward a U.S. city, performed flawlessly.

MDA spokesman Rick Lehner said the early indications pointed to a malfunction with the ground support equipment, not the missile itself.

That's usually the excuse in these situations, huh?

THERE'S MORE: Remember, the last time Obering's missile malfunctioned, he blamed the whole thing on an itsy-bitsy software glitch that would never get in the way of the weapon's performance ever, ever, ever again.

But today's excuse -- that the ground support equipment was likely behind the fizzle -- sounds a whole lot like the initial reports from that never-to-be-repeated flop.

ARMOR BOAST HAS SOFT UNDERBELLY

When Army Secretary Francis Harvey bragged last week that every American vehicle in Iraq was about to be armored up, Defense Tech readers smelled a rat.

Maybe what Harvey was saying was technically true, readers figured. But a whole lot of those supposedly toughed-up vehicles would be protected with jury-rigged, "hillbilly armor" -- the kind that's cobbled together from scrap heaps and landfills.

Now, the L.A. Times has confirmed what the folks here had already guessed. "About a quarter of the 25,300 military vehicles venturing outside bases will have only the makeshift steel plates known to soldiers as 'Mad Max' or 'hillbilly' armor."

There are three levels of vehicle armor in Iraq. About 6,000 Humvees have "level 1" armor, meaning they were manufactured as armored vehicles, with beefed-up engines, air conditioners and equipment to handle the added weight. They weigh 2,000 pounds more than the standard Humvee, with steel-plated doors, steel plating under the cab and several layers of ballistic-resistant glass in the windows. They were designed to protect against rocket-propelled grenades, small-arms fire, shrapnel and some land mines.

Next are 12,000 vehicles that have factory-made, "level 2" armor bolted on in the war zone.

Then there are the 7,300 vehicles with Mad Max armor, slated to be phased out this summer.

The remaining unarmed vehicles won't travel outside protected bases, except on cargo trucks, military officials said.

When Chief Warrant Officer Randall Menough's crew began fashioning armor at Camp Buehring last year in Kuwait, there was no Army directive to Mad Max vehicles. But they did it anyway.

DRONES OVER IRAN: YAWN

The Washington Post may have put the story on page one. Drudge may have hyped it in gajillion-point type. But, really, I don't see why people are making such a fuss over the fact that the U.S. has been flying unmanned spy planes over Iran.

After all, we found out last month that American troops have been running covert raids on Iranian soil, to gather intelligence on Tehran's nuclear program. And there's been word for weeks that American jets of some kind have been buzzing through Iranian airspace, testing the Mullah's early-warning systems. So it's only natural, these days, to have drones support these efforts.

There was one interesting part of that story, though: that "the drones were first spotted by dozens of Iranian civilians and set off a national newspaper frenzy in late December over whether the country was being visited by UFOs."

Now, if the Pentagon had sent flying saucers to Iran, that would have been some news.

THERE'S MORE: Fox News is trumpeting a headline that the "Pentagon Denies Flying Drones Over Iran." But inside the body of the article, nothing of the sort takes place.

"Senior Defense Department officials said Monday they have no knowledge of any U.S. drone flights over Iran," according to Fox, "and U.S. intelligence officials would not comment on any such flights."

Maybe Fox had its greenest rookies reporting this story. But having "no knowledge" of something is a classic non-denial denial -- a cover-your-ass move, not a straight answer. And any reporter with more than a month of experience would know the difference.

LOS ALAMOS BLOG GOES NUCLEAR ON MANAGEMENT

The managers I've encountered have been kinda squirrely. The researchers, on the other hand -- the folks down in Los Alamos National Lab's scientific trenches -- have been beautifully blunt, for the most part. A big chunk of their work may be secret. But the men and women of Los Alamos have rarely had a problem coming out into the open and articulating exactly what they thought was wrong with the lab -- and with the reporters who cover it.

Now, Los Alamos simulation specialist Douglas Roberts has given lab employees a chance to vent 24/7, with a new blog, LANL: The Real Story. And what they're saying about Los Alamos director Pete Nanos and his management team is not pretty.

After an intern got zapped in the eye with a laser, and a pair of classified disks supposedly went missing, Nanos shut down the lab, calling scientists who refused to comply with safety and security regulations "buttheads" and "cowboys."

At LANL: The Real Story, employees are blasting back, using all the literary tools at their disposal. Even limericks.

Under LANL's new management plan,
if you try to do science you're canned.
Shall we instill a revolt?
Or just give up and bolt?
Either way, it's "game over," man.

Quoth Nanos, "Disks are missing, oh dear!"
"They're neither here, nor here, nor here!"
"You're all cowboys, I say."
"Now we'll do it MY way!"
Make way for intimidation and fear...

Oh Nanos, why don't you just leave us?
Your actions really do grieve us.
Those missing disks?
Just labels amiss!
If we're butt-heads, then you must be Beavis!

Ian Hoffman has a great backgrounder on Roberts and his blog here.

PENTAGON STARTS SPACE WAR TRAINING

Just in case you were wondering whether or not the Pentagon was really serious about knocking other countries' satellites out of orbit, comes this item from C4ISR Journal. The Defense Department, it seems, has "launched a series of exercises designed to sharpen its understanding and management of counter-satellite operations."

The three-year Joint Space Control Operations-Negation (JSCO-N) program will help the Pentagon figure out which satellite-killers to buy, and determine which procedures to follow when knocking the orbiters out.

According to a report from the Pentagon's testing and evaluation office, the Defense Department wants to "target an adversary's space capability by using a variety of permanent and/or reversible means to achieve five possible effects: deception, disruption, denial, degradation and destruction..."

"The JSCO-N effort includes three 'field tests,'" C4ISR Journal's Jeremy Singer notes. "The first of those, Terminal Fury 05, was scheduled to take place in December, according to the report. It was to be followed by Terminal Fury 06 and Unified Endeavor 06."

Not surprisingly, the Pentagon refused to give details on the exercises. But, as Singer observes, "the Air Force has for at least the past few years been working on systems for neutralizing enemy satellite capabilities. The service announced in October 2004 that one such system, designed to disrupt satellite radio-transmissions, is now being fielded." In 2003, the Air Force released its "Transformation Flight Plan," which spelled out a number of anti-orbiter weapons, including "ground-based lasers, air-launched missiles and space-based radio frequency transmitters capable of disrupting or destroying other satellites."

THERE'S MORE: On the other hand, Defense Daily has this...

Weapons in Space? Not this year, it seems, or a least not part of the Missile Defense Agency’s budget. The Missile Defense Agency is not funding any new space-based programs in the FY ’06 defense-spending request, although the controversial Near Field Infrared Experiment, NFIRE, remains in the budget. “Space-based is not part of this budget,” says a senior Pentagon official. The “debate” on whether to develop a space-based capability has not yet taken place, according to the official. Another thing you won’t see is a follow-on on to Russian American Observational Satellite program, or RAMOS, which was “defunded” in the FY ’05 budget.

AND MORE: "It is true that the space-based test bed was delayed by two years, but that decision is accompanied with an increase in classified funding for futuristic missile defense programs from $ 160 M to $ 350 M," the Arms Control Wonk notes. "That's a lot of secret money."

LOS ALAMOS STIFFS WHISTEBLOWER

Los Alamos is at it again, smacking down whisteblowers who are pointing out eye-popping safety and security concerns.

Los Alamos auditor Dan Brown discovered that one of the lab's most important atomic facilities didn't even have a basic 'containment structure' to hold in radiation in case of a nuclear accident," CBS reports. And he found out that the lab's top-secret X dvision -- the one at the center of the Wen Ho Lee scandal -- had never been subjected to a proper security or safety review.

But when Brown told lab managers about his concerns, he tells CBS, "the only response I got was the areas I had been given responsibilities to audit have been taken away from me."

I could link to a dozen similar stories, of course. (Here's one.) But, frankly, the relentless grind of Los Alamos' serial incompetence is really starting to get to me. Maybe this is how the bad guys win in the end -- by exhausting their opponents, by persevering in a war bureaucratic attrition, by being so awful, so often that we eventually just grow numb. Or maybe it's just Friday at five, and I need a beer.

TEXAS, SANDIA SHACK UP

Sandia National Laboratories has always been the smaller, saner, more prim sister to Los Alamos, her neighboring nuclear lab to the north. So maybe it's not so surprising that after flirting with the idea of bidding to run Los Alamos, the University of Texas has decided to shack up with Sandia instead.

The five-year deal -- the first of its kind -- calls for the Longhorns to start independently reviewing the work of Sandia scientists and engineers. A Texas representative will get a spot on Sandia's board. And the University will be reimbursed for its troubles.

Texas has been interested for a while now in the prestige and cash that comes from the national labs. "In 2002, the UT System spent about $800,000 on a bid to manage Sandia, but the contract went to defense contractor Lockheed Martin, which currently runs the laboratory," the AP notes. And Texas has about 900 grand in research contracts with Sandia.

The University put months trying to cobble together a bid to run Los Alamos, the scandal-weary birthplace of the atomic bomb. But, in the end, Texas officials felt like they couldn't handle the job without a corporate partner. And when they couldn't find a partner, they decided not to bother with Los Alamos, and turn to Sandia.

ARMY CHIEF: ALL IRAQ VEHICLES ARMORED

It took long enough. But "in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday [here's the prepared version], the Army’s civilian chief pledged that by next week, no soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan would drive outside the base perimeter in an unprotected vehicle," Defense Daily reports.

Francis Harvey, the new secretary of the Army, told committee members: “After Feb. 15, no vehicle carrying an American soldier will leave a protected base without armor.”

For months, the Army’s top officials have been under fire over a failure to send enough armored vehicles into the theater of operations... Harvey, in his first appearance before the committee, said the Army had tackled the problem, increasing the number of armored vehicles in theater by a factor of more than 100 since August 2003.

“In the fall of 2003, when the insurgency in Iraq began to intensify, there were approximately 250 armored tactical wheeled vehicles in theater,” Harvey said... By month’s end, Harvey continued, “at least 32,500 tactical wheeled vehicles will be in the Iraq and Afghan theaters, and they will be protected.”

Those figures include more than just up-armored Humvees, which come in a number of variants, including factory-modified vehicles and those equipped with “bolt-on” armor kits.

Gen. Peter Schoomaker, who also testified, noted that the full range of Army vehicles--including the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck, Heavy Equipment Tactical Transporter, Palletized Load System truck and fuel tankers--are now being equipped with some form of up-armoring.

“The public focus has generally been on the Humvee -- we’ve made real progress on the Humvee,” he said. “The real boost has been in the fact that we are now armoring every wheeled vehicle -- trucks, HEMMTs, HETTs, PLS trucks, tankers, all of this.”

I'll take Harvey and Schoomaker at their word. But their accounts seem to run head-first into a December report by the AP that "of more than 9,100 heavy military haulers in Iraq, Afghanistan and nearby countries, just over 1,100 have received upgraded protection." Harvey and Schoomaker's testimony would also appear to contradict what the New York Times had to say about Army National Guard's trucks, back in November.

There are plans to produce armor kits for at least 2,806 medium-weight trucks, but as of Sept. 17, only 385 of the kits had been produced and sent to Iraq. Armor kits were also planned for at least 1,600 heavyweight trucks, but as of mid-September just 446 of these kits were in Iraq.

Anyone wanna guess who's telling the truth and who's spinning here?

DEFENSE TECH REVEALED

By now, most of you have probably guessed the truth: the editor of Defense Tech is not some frail, little bag of human bones and flesh. No! He is a mighty cyborg, programmed to destroy all in his path. And here is his name:

(Get your a cyborg name of your own here. You can even order up custom t-shirts with your new, ultra-intimidating alias across the chest.)

FUNDS CUT FOR NUKE MONITORS

The President thinks loose nukes are the "biggest threat facing this country," right? So then why the hell is he cutting funds for international nuclear monitors?

THERE'S MORE: Super, just super. "North Korea on Thursday announced for the first time that it has nuclear weapons and rejected moves to restart disarmament talks any time soon, saying it needs the armaments as protection against an increasingly hostile United States."

BIO-SENSORS: DON'T BOTHER

Do yourself a favor and check out Slate's roundtable, from the authors of Safe: The Race To Protect Ourselves in a Newly Dangerous World.

All of the items they're discussing will be at least passingly familiar to Defense Tech readers -- stuff like next-generation lie detectors and programs that comb through data trails for potential enemies of the state.

But yesterday's discussion, about the ability (or lack thereof) of government-funded machines to detect biological attacks, is particularly illuminating. Because, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars dumped into the sensors, the gadgets are, for all intents and purposes, useless.

A quick example: for years, the military has been trying to put together bio-detectors that use laser radar, or LIDAR, to pick up toxic clouds. But the dust and organisms that naturally float around in the air often blind the sensors, absorbing the light before it gets to the cloud. And even when LIDAR sensors can see through the grime, they don't have the ability to figure out what that cloud actually is. Just like radar can only figure out the broad outlines of a plane, LIDAR only sees that there's a cloud of something biological in the air. But what exactly that something is -- the sensors can't tell. Pollen, anthrax, and diesel exhaust all look about the same, according to Al Lang, a LIDAR researcher at Sandia National Laboratories.

Of course, most reports about America's bio-defense never bother to mention this not-exactly-insignificant point. Nor do they get too caught up by fact that the attack the Bush administration is gearing up to stop -- a giant toxic cloud, released over a crowded city -- is just about the least likely terrorist attack of all time.

The Safe crew, on the other hand, nails it. "At the moment, there's really only one feasible way to put together a sensor network for detecting biological attacks: assign the job not to technologies but to people. Today, as throughout the history of public health, most disease outbreaks are spotted when a clinician recognizes something unusual or out of place."

TEACHER'S PEST

Yesterday, Defense Tech pal Adam Penenberg was reckless enough to invite me down to his business and economics reporting class at NYU's journalism department. I blabbed for a while about my adventures in blogging, and about the manifold ways I had managed to piss my editors, readers, and fellow writers off.

Miraculously, all of the dozen-or-so the students were able to stay awake through the blather (although for a young woman sitting to my right, it seemed like a pretty serious struggle). Even more remarkable were the questions the students asked: BS-free queries about how a writer develops a beat, finds material, and maybe even makes a few bucks in the process.

Adam has the class group-blogging right now. And the results are pretty impressive -- about a thousand times better than the drivel I tried to pass off as journalism in college. Go give 'em a click.

PREDATOR ATTACKS ON TAPE

Last week, it seemed like a bit of an odd move, the Air Force rush-ordering a slew of armed Predator drones. After all, the unmanned planes hadn't taken out a major target since 2002. And since then, they've been mostly relegated to spy duty.

Or so we thought.

Newly-released footage shows that the Predators have been actively battling Iraqi guerillas, "firing Hellfire missiles to rescue U.S. troops under fire in Iraq and destroy insurgent targets," according to CNN.

The U.S. Air Force released 10 video clips... all from the summer and fall of 2004, show[ing] what officials say are insurgents planting roadside bombs, firing at U.S. positions and gathering to attack U.S. troops... The video came from sensors on Air Force Predator unmanned aerial vehicles...

Some of the footage was a clip of Marines under sniper assault during an August battle in Najaf. A Predator responds to a call for air support and fires Hellfire missiles at the building housing the sniper. The building crumbles in an explosion.

Another clip shows insurgents gathered around armed trucks. The cross-hairs of the Predator locks onto one of the trucks and a missile destroys it...

Pilots more than 7,000 away in Nevada, control the unmanned planes from their post at Nellis Air Force Base. Their sophisticated cockpits resemble a high-priced video game.

A really violent one. Vehicles lined up in a row are there one minute, and incinerated the next. Floors of building are wiped out. Walls collapse. And city corners go up in flames -- all because of these killer drones.

THERE'S MORE: Of course, these Predators aren't the only armed robots reporting for duty in Iraq. While the flying drones blast insurgents from above, by this spring, machine gun-carrying Talon bots will be patrolling the streets of Mosul.

FLOPS, NEW THREATS BEHIND STAR WARS CUTS

Sure, the Bush Administration's missile defense system has flopped just about every test it's faced. But that's not the only reason the program is being cut by more than a billion dollars a year, says BusinessWeek.

"The war on terror and Iraq may have taken their toll on missile defense and changed the way Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld assesses potential threats," the magazine notes. Worries about incoming missiles have given way to 9/11-style terrorism fears, and the war in Iraq.

"The Rumsfeld vision of future warfare has had a severe collision with reality," says Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a conservative think tank in Arlington, Va. The problems facing missile defense, he says, are "the relatively weak case for the overall mission and the need to spend money in other ways.

Consider as well the difference between the 2000 election and last year's. Five years ago, missile defense was one of Bush's key issues... "America must build effective missile defenses based on the best available options at the earliest possible date," he declared during his first run for the White House.

Since then, despite the roughly $10 billion a year that has poured into the program, Rumsfeld has conceded the system doesn't have to be 100% effective. It just has to work well enough to change the calculation of an enemy thinking about lofting a missile at Los Angeles or New York. Problem is, it doesn't even seem capable of doing that, as [a botched] December test showed...

And as the American program struggles, other countries are making headway in pursuing new technologies. Scott Ritter, the former arms inspector in Iraq who correctly concluded Baghdad had no weapons of mass destruction, now says Russia has tested an SS-27 Topol-M mobile ballistic missile that would render the current Star Wars scheme useless. It is too fast to hit right after takeoff unless the interceptor is lucky enough to be really close to the launch pad.

Also, the SS-27 is hardened against lasers, so the Airborne Laser -- a program already way behind schedule -- wouldn't work. And because it's maneuverable and capable of releasing three warheads and four decoys, it would be much harder to defeat as it falls in the terminal stage of flight.

[Missile Defense Agency] spokesman Lehner says Ritter's objection misses the point of his agency's goal, which is to address "the more rudimentary missiles North Korea and Iran are developing." But what if Pyongyang or Tehran buys an SS-27? "I don't know about that," he told BusinessWeek Online.

THERE'S MORE: Despite a litany of broken budgets and shattered deadlines, it looks like the Airborne Laser (ABL) is returning to the forefront of missile defenders' minds.

The laser-firing 747 last year achieved "first light" -- successfully testing its ray gun. And now, "agency officials consider the program 'quite healthy,' and they are planning to attempt a target shoot-down in 2008," Inside Defense says. Just last month, an MDA official refused to give a date for when that test might go down.

"It is revolutionary, it is disruptive, meaning this required inventions and doing things that have never been done before," a Pentagon official told the AFP, likening the potential impact on warfare of the airborne laser to the advent of nuclear power. "And it has done so well, certainly in the last ten months that we really need to pursue this to a conclusion. We’re encouraged by everything we’ve seen."

The MDA has long been concerned about knocking a missile down right when it takes off, in its so-called "boost phase." But the task has been deemed all-but-impossible by a collection of leading physicists. And, one by one, the technologies the MDA to pursue this task have failed to deliver. Now, there's only a single "boost phase" option left for the MDA. And that's the laser jet.

"FUTURE COMBAT" GETS FUNDS

If there was one part of the Pentagon budget that looked for sure like fat, waiting to be cut, it was the Army's $127 billion Future Combat Systems program, or FCS.

In December, the Pentagon recommended cutting $1.5 billion a year from the hulking modernization effort. Congress called the program -- which revamps almost every element of soldiers' lives, from the guns they carry, to the officers they salute, to the armored vehicles they drive -- beyond unrealistic. Outside observers saw in FCS a disaster waiting to happen.

Nevetheless, FCS hasn't just escaped the axe in this year's Pentagon budget -- it's grown, from $2.8 to $3.6 billion, Defense Daily notes. The Defense Department has requested $231.6 million for the Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System, a set of guided artillery shells and loitering mini-missiles being developed as part of FCS. The Pentagon wants to put another $107.6 million into the Non-Line of Sight Cannon, a 20-ton, 155mm, tracked cannon that can blast targets up to 30 kilometers away.

The Army is also adding $35 billion over 7 years to restructure its forces into smaler, more mobile units -- a key component of the FCS effort, which sees soldiers fighting in smaller, more mobile groups. And the Stryker light armored vehicles, a FCS precursor, is slated for $905.1 million this year to pay 240 more of the personnel carriers. So much for trimming the fat.

THERE'S MORE: The Defense Department may have promised billions in budget rollbacks last month. But now, Defense News notes, "even the Pentagon admits it: the 2006 budget calls for 'a healthy increase,' not a deep cut in defense spending.

At $439.3 billion, the 2006 spending plan would give the military $18.7 billion more than it has for 2005. The Defense Department would get a 4.8 percent increase while other federal agencies are being held to less than 2.2 percent...

And there will be more to come — perhaps $100 billion more — in the form of emergency supplemental appropriations to pay war costs.

The 2006 budget Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is sending to Congress Feb. 7 "continues our strong growth," a senior Pentagon official said. It pushes defense spending up 41 percent since President George W. Bush took office.

PENTAGON SENDS BILLIONS INTO SPACE

Aircraft carriers may be retired, and new-fangeled fighter forces may be slashed. But, in this year's budget, the Pentagon's plans for space are getting a $2 billion boost, according to Defense Daily.

At the heart of these efforts in the Space Radar (SR) program -- an effort to build a constellation of 10 to 24 satellites by 2012 that would track everything below, from planes to tanks to individual people. Last year, Congress wiped out all but $75 million from the SR project, citing the program's outsized ambitions and underdeveloped technologies.

But SR has been restructured into something more manageable, Defense Department officials promise. The Pentagon now wants to have a its first, full-sized SR satellite in orbit by 2015. In the short term, the Defense Department would launch one or two satellites about one-quarter the scale of a [final] system," Defense Daily notes. "The satellites would be used to prove the concepts of tracking moving ground targets from space, collaborating with airborne assets and downlinking data to both military and intelligence officials." The Pentagon now wants $226 million for SR this year, with an additional $4.2 billion earmarked through fiscal year 2011.

The Defense Department budget also calls for nearly $11 billion over five years for the troubled Transformational Communications system, which uses lasers, instead of radio waves, to pass along data. Last year, Congress cut funding for that project by nearly $300 million. The Space Based Space Surveillance program, meant to keep watch over potential enemies in orbit, is scheduled to get $115 million next year. And the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program, to build the next generation of rockets to take satellites into orbit, will get $864 million next year and $6 billion over the next five years. Initially, the Pentagon had planned to "rely on the commercial launch market to cover those costs, but the market has not flourished as expected," Inside Defense observes.

In recent years, the Pentagon's space program has been teetering on the edge of disaster -- and sometimes falling off that cliff. A 2003 Defense Science Board report cited "systemic problems" with America's military space effort. "Cost has replaced mission success" as the "primary means" for evaluating new military space equipment, the report notes. And "low cost estimates throughout the acquisition process" have "lead to unrealistic budgets and unexecutable programs."

Nevertheless, the Defense Department's spending on space continues to grow, as soldiers grow more reliant on satellites to guide their bombs, relay their messages, and find their enemies. "Space is a critical part of our warfighting priorities and I think the budget reflects that," a Pentagon official told reporters in a background briefing on the budget. "As a whole, I think space did very well."

THERE'S MORE: The goal of the Pentagon's Transformational Communications -- to send messages in space via laser -- sounds cool. But major, major technical hurdles remain, Aviation Week notes.

Devising cryptographic gear for laser communications and handling the extremely high data rates of future systems will be a challenge... One decision developers may be forced into is whether to encrypt at all. The industry official points out that intercepting the narrow-beam laser communications in space would be extremely difficult for an adversary, as would intercepting a downlink...

But encryption technology isn't the only area that may require attention. As microprocessors become faster and more compact, the Pentagon's goal of radiation-hardened equipment merely one generation behind the non-hardened commercial standard is becoming more elusive. As commercial processors become more compact and require more heat dissipation, developers of radiation-hardened equipment are struggling to provide proper shielding and still deliver the required performance in the limited space.

NEXT GEN NUKE? NOT!

If you listen to the New York Times, the country's atomic labs are designing "a new generation of nuclear arms meant to be sturdier and more reliable and to have longer lives." But Arms Control Wonk Jeffrey Lewis says that the Times has the story about the $9 million Reliable Replacement Warhead program all wrong.

Not long ago, the Wonk explains, "Congress shifted $ 9 [million] from 'Advanced Concepts' (which really was designing new nuclear weapons) to the 'Reliable Replacement Warhead' program that would 'improve the reliability, longevity, and certifiability of existing weapons and their components.'"

Rep. David Hobson (R-OH), one of Congress' fiercest opponents to new nukes, recently described the program as 'refurbishing some existing weapons in the stockpile without developing a new weapon that would require underground testing to verify the design.'"

Now, it's not like the Bush administration has given up on new nukes altogether; the Defense Department is expected to ask for millions this year to study bunker-busting atomic weapons. But this program mentioned by the Times today, that isn't how the Bushies are planning on doing it.

RAPTOR'S SUPER BOWL SHUFFLE

The Air Force's next-generation stealth fighter, the F/A-22, is in big trouble. So the service is looking to the Super Bowl to save the jet.

The Pentagon's proposed budget for next year calls for a cut of $15.5 billion in funds for the so-called "Raptor," trimming the fleet of F/A-22s from 277 planes to 180.

In response, the Air Force brass is mounting a major league PR campaign for the fighter. Last month, Air Force chief of staff John Jumper flew a Raptor over Florida at nearly Mach 2, to show the plane off. Now, the Project on Government Oversight notes, a pair of the jets will buzz by Jacksonville's Alltel Stadium during the Super Bowl festivities.

"We are enthusiastic to showcase the air dominance capabilities of the F/A-22, and the Super Bowl is the perfect venue to do so," Brig. Gen. Jack Egginton, commander of the 325th Fighter Wing, tells the AP.

Go Iggles!

CRIME SCENES, TOUCHED UP

This page on the Toronto Crime Stoppers site is meant to be a help to the police -- "a series of crime scene photos in which victim(s) and perpetrator(s) have been digitally removed," notes Defense Tech pal Xeni Jardin. A batch of images, for example, that "once depicted acts of violent sexual abuse of a nine-year-old girl, [now] contain[s] only inanimate objects -- a sofa, a bed, a wall, a water fountain. They're published online with a public request that anyone who recognizes the site contact authorities."

But, in reality, they show just how fragile evidence can be in the age of digital cameras. If victims can be Photoshopped out of crime scene, who's to say a .45 can't be cut-and-pasted into a suspect's hand? Why couldn't a perp be airbrushed into an alibi?

I've got an article in an upcoming issue of Details magazine that tackles this topic. And here is a related story I wrote last summer for the Times.

TRICKED-OUT CATAMARAN READY TO SAIL

High-tech ship to patrol the coasts: kinda cool. Tricked-out, ultra-fast, aluminum catamaran to test out all the gear: awwwwww yeah!

This Saturday, on Whidbey Island in Washington state, the Office of Naval Research will christen its "Littoral Surface Craft – Experimental, or "X-Craft." The 262-foot long vessel, with a crew of 16 Navy sailors and 10 Coast Guardsmen, is designed to try out the technologies that will be going into the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the Navy's shoreline fighter of the future. By checking out the relatively low-cost X-Craft's hydrodynamic performance, structural behavior, and engine efficiency now, the Navy hopes to save a bundle later when it builds the LCS.

The X-Craft will also be able to switch from fleet protection to sub-hunt to anti-mine to amphibious assault mode quickly, by using a series of 16, interchangeable "mission modules" -- standard twenty foot containers, tucked into the X-Craft’s climate-controlled mission bay.

A multi-purpose ramp "will allow X-Craft to launch and recover manned and unmanned surface and sub-surface vehicles up to the size of an 11-meter Rigid-Hull Inflatable Boat," according to the Navy.

"From its flight deck, X-Craft will be able to operate with two H-60 type helicopters or VTUAVs [helicopter-esque drones] at a time."

The X-Craft, weighing in a 950 metric tons and able to speed long the waves at up to 50 knots, will be finished up this April. And then it will move down to San Diego, where the catamaran will have its home port.

CAR CHASES ZAPPED?

After spending the last week with the hardworking officers of the Chicago Police Department, I've learned that there are few pleasures in life that can top the raucous joy of the high speed car chase. So I'm hoping this Wired News article is wrong -- that there is no technology that could render hot pursuits obsolete.

James Tatoian, chief executive of Eureka Aerospace in Pasadena, California, is developing a system that uses microwave energy to interfere with microchips inside cars. Once the chip is overloaded with excessive current, the car ceases to function, and will gradually decelerate on its own, he said.

"If you put approximately 10 or 15 kilovolts per meter on a target for a few seconds, you should be able to bring it to a halt," Tatoian said.

Most cars built in the United States since 1982 have some type of on-board microprocessor. Today, the processors are advanced enough to control functions such as fuel injection and GPS equipment.

Eureka Aerospace's High Power Electromagnetic System consists of a series of wires arranged in a 5-foot-by-4-foot rectangular array. The interference is emitted in a conical shape outward from the device.

Tatoian said that while he is not the first to come up with the idea of using electromagnetic interference to stop cars, he has been able to reduce the size and power consumption of such a device so that it would be much more portable...

Eureka Aerospace hopes to have a working prototype that the sheriff's department can test by late summer... Cmdr. Sid Heal, who evaluates technology for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, said that after seeing a preliminary demonstration of the device last year, he was very enthusiastic about its prospects...

In current situations where police need to disable a car they are pursuing, sometimes the officers must resort to spike strips, which are designed to puncture the vehicle's tires. Heal said that with an electromagnetic interference system, a potentially dangerous outcome (such as loss of control from flat tires) could be avoided.

"The beautiful part of using the (microwave) energy is that it leaves the suspect in control of the car," he said. "He can steer, he can brake, he just can't accelerate... It's going to change law enforcement tactics."

Please God, no.

NEXT-GEN WARTHOG TAKES OFF

It wasn't too long ago that the Air Force was making noises about cancelling the venerable, scrappy A-10 Warthog close air support plane. Last week at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, "a significantly upgraded version of the 1970s-era Warthog with new advanced precision engagement capabilities took its first flight," Inside the Air Force reports.

The $300 million [A-10C] program gives the Warthog two new glass multifunction color cockpit displays, along with a digital stores management system that allows pilots to control weapons through computers. Also, a new grip and throttle, which incorporate a number of buttons and switches to control various functions, will allow Warthog pilots to command most of the aircraft’s functions without taking their hands off the throttle and stick…

The power supply onboard the aircraft also has been increased to manage the new weapons the fighter will employ -- the Joint Direct Attack Munition and Wind-Corrected Munitions Dispenser...

Finally, the PE [precision engagement] program provides the fighter with a fully integrated targeting pod capability to deliver the smart weapons. A-10Cs can carry up to six Joint Direct Attack Munitions and Wind Corrected Munitions Dispensers.

The upgrades give A-10 pilots an “unbelievable” increase in situational awareness, along with a reduced workload, said Maj. Trey Rawls, a pilot with Eglin’s 40th Flight Test Squadron who commanded the aircraft during its first flight last week. He spoke with ITAF Jan. 24.

Air Combat Command is aiming to begin deploying in 2007 only A-10Cs to combat theaters. The entire active-duty, Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve A-10 inventory of 356 aircraft is scheduled to receive the upgrades.

Not bad for a plane that Air Force generals have been trying "to kill it from the moment it was born," as Slate's Fred Kaplan notes.

Why the antipathy? To understand that, "one must go back to 1947, when the Air Force broke away from the Army and became an independent branch," author Robert Coram explained in a 2003 New York Times op-ed.

"Strategic bombing," which calls for deep bombing raids against enemy factories and transportation systems, was the foundation of the new service branch. But that concept is fundamentally flawed for the simple reason that air power alone has never won a war.

Nevertheless, strategic bombing, now known as "interdiction bombing," remains the philosophical backbone of the Air Force. Anything involving air support of ground troops is a bitter reminder that the Air Force used to be part of the Army and subordinate to Army commanders. For the white-scarf crowd, nothing is more humiliating than being told that what it does best is support ground troops.

Until the A-10 was built in the 1970's, the Air Force used old, underpowered aircraft to provide close air support. It never had a plane specifically designed to fly low to the ground to support field troops. In fact, the A-10 never would have been built had not the Air Force believed the Army was trying to steal its close air support role -- and thus millions of dollars from its budget -- by building the Cheyenne helicopter. The Air Force had to build something cheaper than the Cheyenne. And because the Air Force detested the idea of a designated close air support aircraft, generals steered clear of the project, and designers, free from meddling senior officers, created the ultimate ground-support airplane.

It is cheap, slow, low-tech, does not have an afterburner, and is so ugly that the grandiose name "Thunderbolt" was forgotten in favor of "Warthog" or, simply, "the Hog." What the airplane does have is a deadly 30-millimeter cannon, two engines mounted high and widely separated to offer greater protection, a titanium "bathtub" to protect the pilot, a bullet- and fragmentation-resistant canopy, three back-up flight controls, a heavy duty frame and foam-filled fuel tanks -- a set of features that makes it one of the safest yet most dangerous weapons on the battlefield.

"When the first Gulf War was being planned in 1990, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the chief of U.S. Central Command, had to fight the Air Force to send over a mere 174 A-10s for his use," Kaplan writes. "Yet in the course of the war, those A-10s knocked out roughly half of the 1,700 Iraqi tanks that were destroyed from the air... Even the Air Force brass had to admit the planes had done a good job, and they kept them in the fleet."

By the second Gulf War, however, the Air Force was again considering putting the Warthog out to pasture. Air Combat Command's Maj. Gen. David Deptula told a subordinate to work up a "persuasive" argument for "terminating the A-10 fleet." It never happened. And the Warthog has gone on to be one of the most effective fighters on the Iraqi campaign.

USAF WANTS KILLER DRONES ASAP

Air Force leaders want a new squadron of killer drones, and soon. So the generals are ready to spend $161 million to get the new robots and their weapons right away.

According to an Air Force document obtained by Defense Tech, the service is taking millions out of its maintennance budget for this fiscal year, and putting the money instead into 15 new Predator MQ-1 unmanned planes. The added cash will allow production of the drones to rise from one and a half to two planes a month.

$7.7 million will be used to fuel the integration of the laser-strike Viper Strike munition into the drones. Another $14.4 million wil buy 140 Hellfire missiles; those are the weapons that a Predator used back in November, 2002 to take out a group of Al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen.

Since then, there hasn't been much talk about armed Predators on killing missions. But with the Iraqi insurgency dragging on, this new, hurried-up purchase could be a sign that the Air Force is looking to revive the drone's deadliest role.