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In the battle for the streets of Mosul in Iraq, drones in the hands of ISIS terrorists made life hell for the Iraq army and civilians. Today, defense companies are racing to develop the lasers, microwave weapons, and technology necessary for confronting the next drone threat. Seth J. Frantzman takes the reader from the midnight exercises with Israel's elite drone warriors, to the CIA headquarters where new drone technology was once adopted in the 1990s to hunt Osama bin Laden.

In Behind the Gas Mask, Thomas Faith offers an institutional history of the Chemical Warfare Service, the department tasked with improving the Army's ability to use and defend against chemical weapons during and after World War One. Taking the CWS's story from the trenches to peacetime, he explores how the CWS's work on chemical warfare continued through the 1920s despite deep opposition to the weapons in both military and civilian circles. As Faith shows, the believers in chemical weapons staffing the CWS allied with supporters in the military, government, and private industry to lobby to add chemical warfare to the country's permanent arsenal. Their argument: poison gas represented an advanced and even humane tool in modern war, while its applications for pest control and crowd control made a chemical capacity relevant in peacetime. But conflict with those aligned against chemical warfare forced the CWS to fight for its institutional life--and ultimately led to the U.S. military's rejection of battlefield chemical weapons.

The Obama administration's controversial use of drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen has made the subject a hot topic of political and academic discourse. While most of this debate has focused so far on the legal, ethical and prudential use of large armed aerial vehicles, this article seeks to address the potential wider impact of this new technological innovation. The article argues that drones constitute a new and disruptive technology not just in the way that they have been used to enable a new form of counterterrorism. Instead, it argues that drones pose a new form of terrorist threat against the West which is at present under-analysed, unarticulated and underestimated. Part of the reason for this underestimation is the failure to appreciate the scale and scope of drone use for commercial purposes which is about to unfold. Technological innovation now means that drones will be capable of many jobs currently performed by small planes and helicopters, but more cheaply and easily—in addition to many other new applications. The proliferation of this cheap and easily available technology will make its application for terrorist use easy to achieve and difficult to counter. The ability of drones to penetrate traditional defences and established conceptions of what constitutes a plausible threat is a challenge which so far has gone unheeded. This article seeks to challenge that complacency.

In this engaging book, Jeremy Black argues that technology neither acts as an independent variable nor operates without major limitations. This includes its capacity to obtain end results, as technology's impact is far from simple and its pathways are by no means clear. After considering such key conceptual points, Black discusses important technological advances in weaponry and power projection from sailing warships to aircraft carriers, muskets to tanks, balloons to unmanned drones-in each case, taking into account what difference these advances made. He addresses not only firepower but also power projection and technologies of logistics, command, and control. Examining military technologies in their historical context and the present centered on the Revolution in Military Affairs and Military Transformation, Black then forecasts possible future trends.

This article examines the potential for a shift in defense logistics and the DOD’s relationship with industry to meet the logistical demands of the modern battlespace. The concept outlines solutions that protect supply chains and manufacturing capabilities through increased agility, adaptability, and resilience. The article uses historical examples and a survey of technologies to make a case for change. It examines enabling technologies and offers an implementation strategy. Artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, big data resources, and ever-improving manufacturing methods comprise the key enabling technologies. The implementation strategy involves establishing a market ecosystem that adequately protects intellectual property and does not jeopardize major contributors to the US economy. The US can evolve its industrial base to meet future logistical demands that spur innovation and sustain competition to emulate industrial age capacity at information age speeds. This change effectively pivots defense logistics from supply management and provision to a deployable, war materiel producing system. The emergent paradigm creates a force structure and manufacturing capability adaptable to the entire spectrum of conflict in an on-demand capacity.

The Obama administration's controversial use of drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen has made the subject a hot topic of political and academic discourse. While most of this debate has focused so far on the legal, ethical and prudential use of large armed aerial vehicles, this article seeks to address the potential wider impact of this new technological innovation. The article argues that drones constitute a new and disruptive technology not just in the way that they have been used to enable a new form of counterterrorism. Instead, it argues that drones pose a new form of terrorist threat against the West which is at present under-analysed, unarticulated and underestimated. Part of the reason for this underestimation is the failure to appreciate the scale and scope of drone use for commercial purposes which is about to unfold. Technological innovation now means that drones will be capable of many jobs currently performed by small planes and helicopters, but more cheaply and easily--in addition to many other new applications. The proliferation of this cheap and easily available technology will make its application for terrorist use easy to achieve and difficult to counter. The ability of drones to penetrate traditional defences and established conceptions of what constitutes a plausible threat is a challenge which so far has gone unheeded. This article seeks to challenge that complacency. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Responds to Senate?s concerns that further consolidation in the military-aircraft industry from its current three prime contractors would pose risks to innovation and cost through limited or no competition in contracting for military aircraft and related weapon systems for the Defense Department. Describes that industry, evaluates what is required to maintain the industry at a high level of innovation, assesses industry?s prospects for innovation and competition, and identifies policy options open to the DoD.

Is there a reason for the busy citizen-leader to read about air and space history, theory, and doctrine? Yes, asserts David Mets, because without some vision of what the future is likely to bring, we enter new conflicts unarmed with any ideas and highly vulnerable to confusion and paralysis. He wrote this book to help the aspirant American leader build a theory of war and air and space power, including an understanding of what doctrine is, and what its utility and limitations are. Since its earliest days, airpower has been one of the dominant forces used by the American military. American airmen, both Navy and Air Force, have been continually striving to achieve precision strikes in high altitude, at long range, or in darkness. The search for precision attack from standoff distances or altitudes has been imperative to national objectives with expenditure of American lives, treasure, and time. This work covers the whole history of American aviation with special attention to the development of smart weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles and the influence they have had on the effectiveness of airpower. In a chronological treatment, emphasizing theory and doctrine, technology, tactics, and strategy. Mets also details both combat experience and intellectual processes, lethal and non-lethal, involved in the preparation of airpower. In addition to the narrative discussion, the work offers sidebars and feature sections that facilitate the understanding of key weapons systems and operational challenges. It also offers A Dozen-Book Sampler for Your Reading on Air and Space Theory and Doctrine. The work concludes with a brief look at information warfare and with some speculations about the future. Through this thorough consideration of the evolution of American airpower and technology, Mets provides, not only a map of the past, but a guide to future generations of airpower and its potential for keeping the United States strong and safe.

The global spread of science and technology expertise and the growing commercial access to advanced technologies with possible military application are creating potentially serious threats to the technological superiority underpinning U.S. military strength. Key to dealing with this situation is the ability of the U.S. intelligence community to be able to provide adequate and effective warning of evolving, critical technologies. To assist in performing this task, the Technology Warning Division of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) asked the National Research Council (NRC) to undertake a study examining technology warning issues. This report provides the first part of that study. It presents an assessment of critical, evolving technologies; postulates ways potential adversaries could disrupt these technologies; and provides indicators for the intelligence community to determine if such methods are under development. The intention of this report is to establish the foundation for a long-term relationship with the technology warning community to support the examination of technology warning issues.

In a gripping story of international power and deception, Engel reveals the \"special relationship\" between the United States and Great Britain. As allies, they fought Communism; as rivals, they clashed over which would lead the Cold War fight. In the quest for sovereignty and hegemony, Engel shows that one important key was airpower, which created jobs, forged ties with the developing world, and ensured military superiority, ultimately affecting forever the global balance of power.