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Iran, preparing for a nuclear break out, seeks sophisticated defensive system
Iran is about 12 months away from its first nuclear weapon; this means that there is a 12-month window for a military attack on Iran without risking a nuclear retaliation; Iran is desperate to acquire the most sophisticated defensive system in the world — Russia-made S-300 anti-aircraft missiles; the system can track up to 100 targets simultaneously while engaging up to 12; it has a range of about 200 km and can hit targets at altitudes of 27,000 meters
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Arresting me softly: NYPD to use Velcro handcuffs on kids
NYPD approves Velcro handcuffs for use on unruly children; cuffs are gentler than the steel model, and safer than Taser guns
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NNSA ships more high-risk nuclear material out of Livermore
Latest shipment reduces high-security nuclear material onsite by an additional 20 percent; part of the government’s plan to consolidate nuclear materials at five sites by 2012, with significantly reduced square footage at those sites by 2017
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U.S. Army, law enforcement agencies, working on EMP grenades
Electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, has been typically associated with high-altitude nuclear explosions — explosions which disable electronic devices hundreds of miles away from the explosion; militaries and law enforcement want a hand-grenade-size EMP device for use in war and crime-fighting
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Trend: Manned-unmanned UAVs for battle, domestic surveillance
In both military and domestic missions, there are situations in which UAVs are preferable, and other situations in which manned aircraft are preferable (or even required); the solution: manned UAVs
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U.S. faces lethal combination of transnational terrorism and criminal gangs
Sometime in the near future a lethal combination of transnational terrorism and criminal gangs is going to cross the U.S. border in force
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Growing crime in Central America boon to private security companies
A combination of a dramatic increase in crime — from drug-related murders to kidnapping for ransom — and a growing perception that government agencies cannot or would not do much about it, have led to a boom for private security companies in Central and Latin America
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Items in FEMA food kits may contain salmonella-tainted peanut butter
Food kits FEMA distributed to thousands of storm evacuees in Kentucky may contain peanut butter contaminated with salmonella
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University of California-Berkeley prepare for the Big One
Cal students train in disaster response and are equipped with the supplies that are necessary to help
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More bad news for Taser guns: They raise deaths in custody
University of California-San Francisco study finds that sudden death of people held by California police increased sixfold in the first year after police departments there began using Taser stun guns
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World's largest supercomputer will be used for nuclear stockpile research
IBM to build a 20 petaflops supercomputer, called Sequoia, for the Lawrence Livermore lab; a petaflop stands for a quadrillion floating-point operations per second; to put Sequoia’s computing power in perspective, what it can do in one hour would take all 6.7 billion people on Earth with hand calculators 320 years, if they worked together on the calculation for 24 hours per day, 365 days a year
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Israeli official: Gaza operation "pre-introduction" for dealing with Iran threat
Israeli ambassador to Australia says “Israel’s efforts in Gaza were to bring about understanding that we are ready to engage in a decisive way” over Iran and its nuclear aspirations
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Countdown toward Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities has begun
Iran has launched its first domestically made satellite into orbit; missile carrying satellite can be used to carry nuclear warheads to Israel — and to Europe; the world has not found a way to stop or slow down Iran’s nuclear weapons program; this means an Israeli attack on Iran is becoming more likely
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U.S. court dismisses Pacific nuclear test lawsuits
Between 1946 and 1958, the United States conducted 67 nuclear tests at the Bikini and Enewetak atolls; the residents of the two islands were removed before the tests and settled elsewhere; the residents were awarded more than $1 billion, and a judicial panel says this is enough
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Tampa authorities use a new Super Bowl security system
The system uses a software program called E-SPONDER, which is built into Microsoft Surface, a tabletop, touch-screen display
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The long view
Robots Just Captured a Russian Position in Ukraine—but Don’t Worry About Real-Life Terminators Just Yet
Military ground robotics are rapidly transforming battlefield tasks. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky recently announced that ground robots (also known as unmanned ground vehicles) had captured a Russian position. But for the immediate future at least, robots are more likely to support that fight, rather than lead it.
How Artificial Intelligence Could Reshape Four Essential Competitions in Future Warfare
How will advances in artificial intelligence (AI) shape the future of war? There is a growing belief among some policymakers and analysts that AI will transform the future of war, but researchers are still in the early stages of understanding how AI will actually change warfighting.
How Influencers Indirectly Mobilize Action and Legitimate Violence
Influencers are key mobilisers of collective action, shaping narratives that create urgency, define group norms, and can indirectly legitimate violence without issuing explicit calls to action.
The ‘Warrior Ethos’ Promises Victory — History Says It Leads to Defeat
Hegseth calls his military doctrine the “warrior ethos” – criticizing “stupid rules of engagement”; saying the U.S. will give “no quarter, no mercy” to its enemies; and that troops would be held to the “highest male standard.” Historians have catalogued similar rhetorical patterns — strongman posturing, contempt for constraint — for decades. This doctrine also has a theory of war: Victory belongs to the ruthless and the ideologically pure. Rules are for the weak. Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan all built their military strategies on some version of the “warrior ethos.” It did not end well for them.