Technology changes things, sure. The question is, how do you recognize the early signs of change before they become catastrophic? I spend most of my days working on that question in academia, but what about our armed forces? Noah Shachtman regularly covers that issue in DefenseTech:

Like a lot of other sage observers, Naval Postgraduate School professor John Arquilla isn’t nuts about the idea of spending a ton on Cold War-style weapons systems when we’re supposed to be fighting terrorists and insurgents. But Arquilla is one of the first military analysts I’ve heard say that “the Pentagon’s big platforms [aren't] merely the wrong weapon systems to fight present and future wars, but [are] actually likely to bring defeat.”

The superiority of aircraft made huge battleships a liability just before World War II. The climax of Top Gun pretty much centered on the vulnerability of our all our ships — including aircraft carriers — to missile attack (BTW, those Exocet missiles now sport ranges as high as 180km). But these are just a few examples of the general problem. Of course, the Navy isn’t the only force with big, Cold-War iron. There’s more, including some good quotes at DefenseTech.

big iron, defense, defense spending, defensetech, future combat, future military, John Arquilla, military, Noah Shachtman, pentagon, war

DefenseTech reported on the FireFly, a disposable camera that can be shot from the M203 grenade launchers used by US land forces. The cameras fly 600 meters in eight seconds, wirelessly sending pictures back to the soldier’s PDA. Now they’ll know what’s over that hill or around that corner.

Not that soldiers don’t need this sort of thing, but one wonders when Hasbro will release a plastic version in bright colors. Or maybe I’ll just put my camera in the catapult with the self timer running. You’ve gotta figure that even if the camera is destroyed, I should still be able to get the pictures off the memory card.

tags: ballistic, camera, defensetech, disposable camera, firefly, grenade, grenade camera, grenade launcher, grenade launchers, ground forces, m203, military, point and shoot, point n shoot, soldier, soldiers