So, technically it’s a “program” or “operations,” not explicitly a new weapon. Still…
But what do we suppose it is? Any ideas out there? Kooky Alex Jones suggests it is some sort of (not 1920s-style) death ray–possibly microwave–that is tank-mounted and capable of scorching bodies and liquefying vehicles in short order. A perusal of Wiki’s Directed Energy Weapons page led me to an article about MEDUSA, a weapon conceived of about 3 years ago that uses laser and microwave beams to sequester electrons into high-energy packets.
Any other speculation? Or is it indeed not a weapons platform but an “operation:” some procedure the military has developed, much like they created the technique of “painting” bomb targets with lasers, thereby increasing the accuracy tremendously. Or maybe just some elaborate, painstakingly executed combination of existing tactics—say, deep-cover intelligence (moles planted among the resistance), airborne drones that loiter and watch targets for days, if necessary, before finding an ideal strike time, and then precision reaction from attack aircraft and ground troops?
(Mods, if this is not concrete enough for GQ, please move.)
It probably isn’t anything particularly impressive.
Look, why exactly is Woodward publishing this? Obviously because folks in the Pentagon want this “secret” project to become public. Why do they want that? To sow fear, uncertainty and doubt among the insurgents.
I’d bet a large sum of money that this isn’t any sort of energy weapon or any sort of new weapon, but rather some sort of command and control and targeting system.
But come on: “We have a brand new secret weapon that has turned the tide against terrorism. It’s really really effective, and so we needed to brag about it to the American public. But it’s secret so we can’t tell you what it is. But trust us, it’s really cool.” Uh huh.
Counterinsurgency is about intelligence, intelligence, intelligence. You can’t kill people you can’t find. My guess would be some surveillance technology that gives an unprecedented ability to eavesdrop or spy upon suspected targets. Maybe something like peeking into buildings using ambient background radiation, or a hardware/software combo that alerts you if anyone within 100 meters just muttered the arabic for “kill the fucking Americans”.
William Saletan in Slate had an article today about how drones are being upgraded with new ‘nonvisual identification’ and the ability to track targets even when they’re indoors. He focuses on how they’re being used in Afghanistan, but mentions that they’re also in use in Iraq. It seems likely that he’s talking about the same thing as Woodward.
Maybe the program is to bluff about a new top-secret program in the hopes that it’ll scare terrorists into giving up before they get targeted. Personally, I think that’s the most likely guess.
Coalition forces have been taking DNA samples from everyone arrested in Iraq for several years now, IIRC. I wonder if it’s some sort of tracking or tagging system so they can follow the bad guys back to their buddies, then blast them?
I presume it is simply an improved lash-up of intel to the deciders to the shooters. That being said, it would be interesting to speculate on potential new targeting technologies.
I once worked on a project that could detect internal-combustion engines at great distances by their incidental (radio) transmissions. Does the human body have something like this?
I like the chips secretly implanted in everyone we ever picked up, but such a wide-reaching program would well-known by now.
Another more basic option would be a system that could track a target, even if he mingled with many others in a crowd. He goes in the building, gets up in the morning, goes to work and all this time we can distinguish him from everyone else.
Slight tangent: In reading the OP, I am reminded of some of the Soviet surveillance techniques exposed in William Poundstone’s 1983 book Big Secrets. One was the use of some virtually unwashable UV-reflective “powder” that stayed on a person’s hands and allowed tracking an individual’s movements for quite a long time.
But another one really flummoxed me – the ability to eavesdrop on indoor conversations through the vibrations of windowpanes :eek:
And that was late 1970s technology … they must’ve come a long way on this stuff in 30 years.
Maybe the Red Owl automated counter sniper system has finally been fielded. This system was supposed to be mounted on something like a packbot and able to move along with dismounted troops. When it acoustically detected an incoming round it automatically fired back on the spot where it calculated the round came from.
“I just said that! There is no B-3 bomber. I don’t know how these rumors get started!”
That could offer up some really interesting and novel alternatives in friendly fire incidents.
My guess: They’ve outfitted a number of notable physicists with armored and powered exoskeletons to fight terrorism and solve the pressing questions in nature. Either that or the M&M Enterprises Super Stealth Bomber.
RedOwl was supposed to be in the field last year, but as far as I know it was not an automated return fire system. Just IDing where the round came. I have not seen any armed variations, though that doesn’t mean it isn’t planned or already fielded without public knowledge.
Further speculation in Slate as to what it is. A lot of the suggestions don’t sound right to me, since I don’t see how they’d let you track a target (I’m assuming that’s a person) while they’re inside a building.
Yeah… automatically returning fire sounds like a really, really bad idea. Especially if the other friendly unit is also equipped with this Barn Owl thing. Someone else will show up later and find two slaughtered platoons and a couple of robots with dead batteries and empty magazines.
I would imagine that Woodward is just trying to move a few books. It’s not like he’s an unknown in the intelligence community, and I highly doubt that the Army or whoever would leak a story about some new uberweapon through a journalist rather than their own scarcely more credible PR departments.
The guys we released from Gitmo have explosives implanted in their bodies, triggered by voice recognition circuitry. Thanks, Osama, for all those audio tapes you sent out!
I recall verbal stories about such devices in the early 1980s, available off the shelf. This 1966 Esquire article describes a shotgun microphone with a long range (“right through the window”), though they recommend using tiny transmitters instead.
the ability to use lasers bounced off glass windows to record conversations has been reported for decades. Many years ago quite the fashion statement was made by various office buildings in the DC area when windows were covered by aluminum foil. I don’t know that either the laser or the foil actually worked, but the laser idea seems simple enough. And the shotgun mic described here predates even the laser idea.
My personal favorite bug was the ability to remotely (from the telephone closet of the building, not across town), turn on certain models of the old ATT desk phones. The receiver stayed on the hook and there was no indication that the phone was active. When that story was popular (back in the 80s), the super-cautious would unplug their phone from the wall before having a conversation.
