US Congress Funds Laser Weapons 423
An anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post reports that the US Congress is funding laser weapons for use in the near future. Low-power lasers called 'dazzlers' are already being used in Iraq to temporarily reduce a person's vision. High-power laser weapons would allow precision attacks that minimize civilian casualties. From the Post: 'The science board said tactical laser systems could be developed for broader use because they "enable precision ground attack to minimize collateral damage in urban conflicts." The report suggested, for example, that "future gunships could provide extended precision lethality and sensing." The board also proposed using lasers to protect against rockets, artillery, mortars and unmanned airborne vehicles by blasting them out of the sky. Last month, the Army awarded Boeing $36 million to continue development of a high-energy laser mounted on a truck that could hit overhead targets. But deployment is not expected until 2016, even if all goes well.'"
Re:Cue Shark Jokes in 3 2 1 (Score:3, Insightful)
Battlefield Use (Score:4, Insightful)
Laser use remains controversial because a protocol of the Geneva Conventions bans their use in combat when they are designed to cause permanent blindness.
Conventional weapons (bombs, mines, bullets, missiles, etc.) can cause death, permanent paralysis, limb loss, and even blindness. What is the difference, really?
Also, what does it mean when fighting a group that does not abide by the Geneva Convention?
Military Industrial Complex (Score:5, Insightful)
$36 million, eh? Not much when you say it quick. I suppose it's a drop in the ocean of US defence spending.
Other countries manage to generate growth without being such warmongers. What is it with the US and this obsession with devising new and more efficient ways to wage war? Dwight Eisenhower's warning [google.com] seems to have been more prophetic than many would have realised. This war machine has every congressman in its pocket, it's sucking the taxpayer dry, and it's out of control.
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:2, Insightful)
Shouldn't this be from the "pew-pew-pew" department?
Screw your "vaporize-ware" gag. I'll take cheap meme humor any day of the week!
Re:Military Industrial Complex (Score:2, Insightful)
When the Russians go rolling across Europe again as the resources of the planet become scarce, remember you said that. You will be praying for the U.S. and all of its "wasteful" high-tech weaponry to come on over (again) and save you. Maybe next time we should stay home and let you all eat each other.
the other countries (Score:5, Insightful)
generating growth without spending on defense exist in peace due to the efforts of the us military. a world without us military spending would be a world of russian imperialism and utter havoc in the middle east, and those "peaceful" countries would radically ramp up their own defense spending, or cease to exist, or become war zones
the usa is the de facto peacekeeper in the world today, for better or worse. some day, it won't be, nothing is forever, and that world will not be a more peaceful one, but a more warlike one, until it transitions to a new peacekeeper
some people don't understand this, and its due to a common misperception: peace is not a state of absence of war potential. peace is a state of balance in war potentials between two or more sides. the world exists in this constant tension, always has, and always will. you would understand this ugly but undeniable truth if you truly understood essential human nature
peace is nothing more than a state of balance between two deadly potentials. remove one of those balances, and in the transition to a new state of balance, much bloodletting occurs. that's all peace is. a balance between war potentials. it is absolutely impossible in this world for peace to exist without any armed forces. such a world would be full of more bloodshed, random warlord. a world of two massive armies with loaded guns pointed at each other is meanwhile perfectly peaceful. i didn't say this is a good thing, i just recognize an unfortunate ugly truth when i see one
but there ar epletny out there, raised in a coccoon of relative peace ot the rest of human history and other parts of this world, who are blind to this reality. they live in a hermietically sealed bubble, and they begin to develop attitudes about peace and war which frankly, is absurd
if you don't agree with this assessment, or don't understand it, you don't really understand the nature of the human beings living around you, and you aren't in very good touch with your own human nature
a lot of people don't understand exactly what creates peace in this world. real peace is a balance between two deadly potentials, not the absense of any deadly potential
understand that about the nature of peace, or live in denial
So whose pro-laser... (Score:4, Insightful)
The emergence of the laser is certainly going to make the long standing Democratic argument against missile defense suddenly seem pretty silly. Missile defense any more has gone from intercepting everything from ballistic missiles to shells in flight. Question to either candidate is, whose going to fund and field laser research at the current breakneck Bush pace? Will McCain have the patience for this technology or will he call it a taxpayer boondoggle and cut it? Will Obama remain starry eyed about diplomacy or will he retain a pragmatic strategic edge? Which candidate, too, will have the honesty to admit that the USA's own strategic nuclear delivery systems will need to be upgraded when its own defenses make it obsolete?
Re:Military Industrial Complex (Score:1, Insightful)
What is it with the US and this obsession with devising new and more efficient ways to wage war?
Someone will build the weapons. If you're lucky enough to be first to invent it, you get to sell to everyone else.
As for efficiency, would you prefer we go back to carpet bombing?
Again with the lasers (Score:2, Insightful)
The precision claim comes from the fact that lasers are coherent beams of light. We've all seen laser pointers. You point them at something, and they mark it with a very compact spot of light. That is where "precise" comes from. Therefore, the thinking goes, if you make a laser weapon, it too will be "precise," right? Yes and no. Yes, it will hit whatever you point it at, but it will do so with the precision of the pointing mechanism, not the laser. Put it on a helicopter, and the laser will weave around as much as the helicopter. Well, you say, put it on some kind of gyro-stabilized device. Fine, that does give you additional stability, until the chopper moves outside the range of the pointing device, as when the pilot detects an incoming RPG, or has to do an emergency maneuver for whatever reason. Again, the laser will rake an unintended target. My point? The "precision" argument is Pentagon bullshit. The object of the exercise is 1) for the Pentagon to retain its vast funding and influence, 2) for the defense industry to retain its vast funding and influence, and 3) for current politicians to retain their vast campaign funding, lobbying perks, and influence.
Just as the "dazzler" weapons "temporarily reduce a person's vision," the more destructive weapons will produce much more powerful light scattering that will blind people even ata a distance and produce potentially significant collateral damage in the area of the target. The astute reader will note that damage outside of the point of light on the target due to reflection and other light scatter reduces much of the precision of the weapon. Again, it is Pentagon bullshit, not science or engineering.
Wake up, people. How long will we have to give away hundreds of billions of our hard-earned tax dollars to liars, cheaters, thieves, swindlers, murderers, and war criminals of every stripe?
A sick world (Score:1, Insightful)
When we have people who are starving to death and cant afford a place to live anymore, losing their jobs, dont have healthcare, and so on, what does congress do? Throws more money on expensive weapons to kill people. Just what we need. Society always is shocked and dismayed when someone commits suicide, "oh, how could they do such a thing". But then implement policies which place people in such desperation that it seems to be the only way out, and cut back safety net programs which are the only thing that keeps some people lives, refusing to help those who are in need. There is always enough money to kill people, but never enough money to save them. We have a society that sees state sanctioned killing of people as totally acceptable but helping people and keeping people out of desperation that drives them to suicide is unacceptable. How dare we try to help people make sure they have enough to eat when we have trillion dollar corporate welfare and trillion dollar wars and giveaways to defence industry and tax breaks to the wealthy to pay for? When we have wealthy billionaires who cant be bothered with taxes, so they can afford their dozens of mansions, yacht and private islands to escape the havoc they have wreaked on society?
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on
military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching
spiritual death" --Martin Luther King
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like anyone with a minimum of imagination to think about the kind of wounds these weapons will cause. Seems horific to me. It always strikes me how these weapons are promoted to "eliminate targets", and while one might think about destroying infrastructure, they are actually talking about killing.
But hey, I guess more weapons is just what the world needs.
(sorry for the sarcasm).
Re:the other countries (Score:4, Insightful)
"Would be?" What's with the conditional tense?
That was all you had to say. The two dozen repetitions of 'you don't understand human nature' were a bit superfluous.
Europe was once a patchwork of opposing 'war potentials' as you describe them. There was a network of alliances pointing guns at each other in the belief that it would lead to peace. In reality all it took was a single assassination to trigger off the first world war. Modern Europe is a network of treaties and agreements where governments work together for mutual benefit. Result? It would now be impossible for the likes of Germany to go to war with France or any EU member to go to war with another.
There is an alternative to violence or the threat of violence in international relations. The American attitude of 'a gun in everyone's pocket keeps everyone safer' is one that doesn't work at home, and in world affairs it's a very high stakes game to be playing in the interests of proving that your ideology is correct.
Re:A sick world (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Military Industrial Complex (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, FDR's socialist programs are sucking us dry. Two-thirds of our federal budget is spent artificially propping up failed entitlement programs.
the eu (Score:3, Insightful)
will either ramp up defense spending after what happened to georgia, or become a vassal state to moscow if the usa lowers its defense spending. if more in europe think like you than me, it will be a vassal state then
the eu has done all it has done in the realm of peace over the last 50 years due to existing in a world larger than europe: sitting between the poles of moscow and washington, guns pointed at each other. not in the middle of a volatile balancing act of many european powers that existed for hundreds of years before world war ii. that power struggle is dead, subsumed to a larger struggle. so of course integration makes sense, simply because the power struggle lies elsewhere, for the first time in centuries
as for archduke franz ferdinand, yes, of course, armies with a lot of war potential can break down into havoc. yet no armies at all is even worse, since more death and destruction occurs at the civilian level. i mean, its not like the eu doesn't have a police force, right? a police force is nothing but a standing army against the rise of street warfare that a society would succumb too without guns pointed at them, a sad fate we see in corrupt and weak places all over the world today
and finally, the eu has taken a wonderful step towards integration rather than infighting, i celebrate it. and this is a model for the future of the entire world
but it was all made possible by being under the protective umbrella of its huge neighbor across the atlantic, in which all the states had to align, in order to oppose being gobbled up by the ussr
and the russian bear awakes again
so listen to me now, or wait until death and destruction visits europe again before you pick up a gun
but why you think, after i hope at least some tiny bit of exposure to world history, that mankind is a peaceful creature, is beyond me. every generation someone is born who wishes through will of pwoer and force of arms to dominate as much as he can. he is either kept down, or he rises amid bloodshed, and becomes the new keeper of the peace
that's all there is in this world of men
is that sad? yes. is that ugly? yes. its also 100% true and undeniable
make peace with that fact, irony intended, and give up this ridiculous way you think about your world
Re:Battlefield Use (Score:3, Insightful)
I think I remember hearing that this same reasoning in the first gulf war led some commanders to order their troops to turn the intensity of their laser blinders down so that they worked only as laser sights to then kill the target.
I think it's probably just an excuse. While that sounds bad and hypocritical, I can empathize. If you're suddenly face to face with an enemy combatant, and he has a gun, you want to be sure he's not going to fire back. If you put a giant hole in his head and chest, he's not going to. If you shine a laser in his eyes, that's not quite as sure a thing, he might fire back blindly and hit you or another member of your squad.
Of course, it would be nice to have bloodless wars, but I myself would not want to be testing those nonlethal weapons when I'm up against lethal weapons.
One realistic solution might be to say we're no longer going to supply our "allies" with conventional guns, only with non-lethal devices like this, especially seeing as how about half the time we end up fighting our former allies and they use the guns we gave them against us.
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like anyone with a minimum of imagination to think about the kind of wounds these weapons will cause. Seems horific to me.
Not to belittle your point here, but have you seen the wounds that todays weapons cause? They are already horrific. I think this is a step in the right direction because while the wounds we cause are already bad, what we need is a weapon with less collateral damage. The fact is a bullet is affected by many things, how clean your barrel is, the wind, what round you are using, etc. So when you fire it there is no guarantee you will hit what you are aiming at even IF you aim dead on. There is also the problem of a ricochet if you miss. With a laser weapon, you don't worry about wind or many other factors. Ricochet is also not a real concern.
gun crazy private militia (Score:0, Insightful)
You mean like blackwater, the first goons they will be deploying in US cities once the food and bank run riots start? That gun crazed private militia that has thousands of bonafide killers, guys who will kill anyone for a stinking check? Or the regular Army, the guys who are all in Iraq even though it has been proven every single excuse used to go in there was a total lie, those order followers? Or how about all the darth vader combat oriented paramilitary cops they have now, where the main criteria for employment is previous urban combat experience?
I'd put small time yokels way down the list of potential threats as to dudes who will be lazing you -or worse- in the future.
Here's a hint: you've been successfully brainwashed by the fascists who have hijacked government and taken it over. Really, read some news headlines lately, if you can't see it is just more bigtime coup action, you need to step away from the keyboard for awhile and do some historical reading and note the parallels with other despotic regimes. They just successful stole all your money, and your children's money and put you into economic bondage for the next..well, forever.
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:5, Insightful)
Laser weapons powerful enough to damage any target will permanently damage the eyesight of anyone who looks at as much as a non-specular reflection of the beam. So much for collateral damage.
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:4, Insightful)
The very premise is that you're in war, and need to kill someone. So the question is: do we kill the target, or do we kill the target and everyone else in the general area or just happens to be unlucky?
Improving weapons is humane.
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't think about the damage they will cause think about the profits they will generate. The endless arms race, trillions of dollars thrown away and why, because they are not happy the current variety of ways they can kill as many human beings as possible. Inevitably the race will shift back to biological and chemical warfare as a way to get past high tech weapons.
The most insane amongst them will crawl into holes into the ground, where they will remain for decades whilst they try to kill the rest of us off. The arms race ends, either once we are all dead or they have so destroyed society that when are sent back into the stone age.
completely backwards (Score:1, Insightful)
I guess you are a governmental employee because your stupidity and ignorance is showing. It is *Russia* who has all the natural resources that western Europe wants. Russia has no need whatsoever to go "rolling across Europe" to go seize..nothing. What would they want, the vast oilfields of France or something? Can you not read just a little? Go do some googling around who has what today for resources, russia is freaking rich, Western Europe not so much, they have to import energy and other raw materials. They went into Georgia because the first day of the Olympics that zionist and neocon stooge in Georgia decided to attack some Russians and folks who would rather be allied with Russia. They got their ass kicked, and then the Russians made sure they would be in no position to retaliate. And they don't want those airfields to be used by Israel to go attack Iran. They are way tired of Israel and those Israeli mafia types they kicked out of Russia when they were hijacking everything in sight with the collapse of the USSR. And they also don't appreciate the US going back on it's promise to not expand NATO all around them. The US government outright lied to them, and had their advisers and Israeli advisers in there for that hit on South Ossetia. And they lost, tough shit.
Re:Battlefield Use (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not looking for extra diatribe on poor treatment of some POWs. I'm only commenting on our mostly good treatment and care for POWs, and the tangible boon that it brings to our military forces.
Re:A sick world (Score:2, Insightful)
Either you're a leftist troll, or somebody with a big heart who has simply been seriously deceived by the Establishment. You might want to check out this [wikipedia.org] pie chart. We spend about 2/3 of our budget on "programs of [pretended] social uplift." These programs do not, for the most part, "uplift" people. But they do ensure that Democrats keep getting elected. Which is their real purpose.
There are programs designed to ensure Republicans get re-elected too. They're just as evil, but not nearly as expensive.
yes, iraq is better under bush than saddam (Score:4, Insightful)
and, with hope and time, it will become another turkey, rather than another iran (that is, not very religious)
but this a longterm fight
part of what is necessary to get us to that goal is a change in strategy. the bush attitude works great when stupid but steel resolve is what is needed, but at other times you need a deep thinker and a willingness to be flexible to win the day. its a chess game, not just a punching match, and now we are entering a time after iraq has been won when the cowboy must yeild to the chessmaster
that's one of the hidden strengths of democracy. we are not stuck with one unyeilding strategy. every 4 years, we try out a new one, and in this way, adapt and find the best, and have a time for... change we can believe in ;-)
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:3, Insightful)
There is also the problem of a ricochet if you miss. With a laser weapon, you don't worry about wind or many other factors. Ricochet is also not a real concern.
I know nothing about weapon-strength lasers, but what about reflective surfaces? I know there's enough around the house that when I'm playing around with one of those laser cat toys, there's plenty of stuff around that reflects enough of the beam that the reflection is clearly visible. And i'm not even just talking mirrors, but things like dishes, vases, even sufficiently shiny wood furniture reflects at least some of the beam.
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:4, Insightful)
Improving weapons is humane.
Not going to war is even more humane.
And no, I don't believe war can always be avoided or even should always be avoided. But we can do a hell of a lot better job than we've done so far.
But maybe that won't happen until someone figures out how congresscritters can get large amounts of funding for peace projects in their districts ...
Re:Military Industrial Complex (Score:5, Insightful)
When the Russians go rolling across Europe again as the resources of the planet become scarce, remember you said that. You will be praying for the U.S. and all of its "wasteful" high-tech weaponry to come on over (again) and save you. Maybe next time we should stay home and let you all eat each other.
As opposed to the US, who is currently rolling across the Middle East in search of precious hydrocarbons that we need to fuel our military-industrial complex that has to keep growing to fight all of the people we piss off as we roll across the Middle East in search of precious hydrocarbons?
(And yes, we should stay home and let them eat each other...it's their business.)
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:5, Insightful)
We have seen every development of new more advanced weapons lead to more and more killing and less and less regard for human life. Rather than stopping the killing of civilians, it just makes it more acceptable by giving cover to those who killed the civilians.
If a soldier goes into a town and stabs an innocent child with a sword, there is do doubt he is a murderer, if he shoots him with a rifle, then some people will be willing to believe it was an accident, a stray bullet, opps, if he man flys over in a plane and drops a bomb, oh well, theres always some collateral damage, the child isn't even acknowledged as a human being, the killer is 100% blameless.
Smart bombs are not to reduce civilian casualties but the make them acceptable, oh yes, we dropped these bombs all over civilian houses, we dropped them on this hospital, of this school, but these were smart bombs, they targeted the evil doers next door, all the innocent people that were still killed by the horrible shock wave were just collateral damage.
Oh we didn't drop that horrible weapon napalm on these people, be used this harmless white phosphorus for illumination, the civillians who had their faces burned off were just collateral damage.
These weapons will be used to kill everyone in the area just as before, except now they will have a new line. Oh we used a laser to get the evil doers, all these blind children with thier faces burned off are just collateral damage, theres a lot less of them than if we had used a normal bomb.
Whats that idea? Send in troops on the ground to actually find and shoot the bad guys rather than blast the whole neighbourhood from the air? That's crazy talk! But then an American might have died, and as you know 1 American soldier = 10000 Iraqi children, people back home might not support our important war for oil and Bushes approval ratings might go down if an American dies, we can't have that!
Re:Battlefield Use (Score:2, Insightful)
While the above is true for some cases, and is reasonably insightful (2, insightful IMHO) I think that things like treatment of POWs are one of those things that are ignored when performed to a satisfactory standard but are very, very damaging when performed poorly. The Abu Ghraib prisoner-torture scandal, Guantanamo Bay... these things have significantly harmed America's reputation abroad.
I very much doubt that, in the next great war America wages, becoming an American POW will be nearly so attractive.
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:4, Insightful)
Your mirrors, dishes, vases, etc would turn into shrapnel so fast & with such energy that you needn't worry about any reflections.
Oh good, so I don't have to worry about laser reflections!
What's that about the shrapnel though?
Seriously, that sounds even worse than bullets in terms of killing innocent people in the area. (I won't stoop to dehumanizing them into 'collateral damage'.)
Re:Yes, they will be clean (Score:3, Insightful)
Mil-Lasers will be perfectly clean weapons. You'll have a nice point'n'click aerial picture of some crowd, and only the terrorists on which you click will be instantly vaporised~
Well, that's the PR KoolAid. You know that, just like any other recent military innovation, which was supposed to diminish collateral damage, the Laser won't be a revolution. "Won't be the answer" as you say.
The rest of your post is fine, but I think this point is a little off. I don't think the development and potential overuse of lower-collateral-damage weapons in a war are directly relatable to overuse of non-lethal weapons in a civilized domestic police environment.
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:2, Insightful)
As recently as the U.S. Civil War, the idea of wiping out enemy troops and all their resources was endorsed by W.T. Sherman (the idea's originator), Grant, and Lincoln. In world war 2, entire cities--hundreds of thousands of people at once--destroyed, firebombed, nuked. Vietnam had nothing on it.
In medieval times pillaging, massacre and total depopulation was a standard part of war. A few places temporarily lifted the traditional (non-scriptural) Christian ban on polygamy, due to want of men.
Before that it was common to destroy civilizations and take the survivors as slaves, if they were lucky. Muhammad had the radical idea that innocents should be enslaved rather than killed, and treated nice (relatively).
The more civilization, the more technology, the more ability we have to target only the belligerents, which is what civilized warfare ought to do.
Re:the eu (Score:5, Insightful)
They had this mindset after world war 2, this lead to decades of famine and oppression at the hands of Stalin and his successors. It was soviet policy that the military needs come first, way ahead of any other concerns even above feeding and housing their own people. This mentality gave them an army unrivalled by any other single power but it also lead to their downfall. Slowly their technology dropped behind everyone else's, their ability to support their civilian infrastructure lagged even further, they could not compete in international trade, civilian morale was non-existent and the only mechanism keeping the civilian population in line at some points was the secret police and their best military machines could not manage to defeat a bunch of determined rebels in Afghanistan.
What bought the US into dominance in the latter half of the twentieth century was is diplomacy and trade. Given the enormous advantage the US had by being untouched by the war the US focused its energy into strengthening alliances and trading with partners which gave the US money to expand both its military services and civilian infrastructure as well as invest in greater educational and scientific facilities. Even when manufacturing moved to Asia the US still found a strong economy in high tech arenas.
Perhaps you are familiar with the old saying, "he who lives by the sword dies by the sword" and history has proven this time and time again. No militaristic power (Huns, Mongols, Third Reich) has ever succeeded for very long, and nowhere near as long as cultural (Roman Empire) or Economic powers (British Empire). The most successful empires did have large armies but did not use them as a first resort and placed much more emphasis on diplomacy and trade. Going back to my example of the Soviet Union, who faced multiple rebellions due to the harsh conditions which had to be put down by force was eventually undone by untrained and ill-equipped Afghans, the Soviet military power was never able to rebuild as they didnt have the civilian and scientific power to do so, their only diplomatic card was their army which they used at every occasion and when they withdrew from Afghanistan they lost all diplomatic power.
This will not be the case with the withdrawal from Iraq, provided it is not put off to too long. The strength of the US has always been her trade and diplomacy, despite the idiotic actions of your current leader the US is still held in relatively high esteem with her major allies (European and Pacific) and if military funding was not increased it would not reflect badly as the US's significant partners would still trade with and bolster her.
Not going to happen and is not necessary. The old Soviet Union fell after their direct first military defeat, this is because they had no other strenghts apart from their military. The new Russian Federation is different, it is depended on export to (shock horror) Western Europe to maintain its economy, primarily energy exports and their military is a shadow of its former power. Russia is no threat to Europe and Russia stands to lose more by losing favour amongst Europeans.
Even if Putin launched and invasion today, they would be hard pressed to get past the first wave of EU defenders. Germany and Britain have two of the worlds best militarys, in addition to France, Turkey, Sweeden and were not even counting European Allies such as Japan, Australia/New Zealand, Canada and the US. Add to this that Russia does not have current generation equipment equivalent to Challenger2/Lepoard2/Abrams Tanks, Eurofighter/F22/F35 aircraft, modern assault rifles, UAV's, guided missiles, so on and so forth, in addition to this most of their military equipment is mothballed and poorly maintained. But the biggest one of all is,