The current TomDispatch has a great round-up of Darpa’s research into the future of urban warfare. But man, do you have to put up with a lot to get to the good stuff.
The article’s main thrust is that the Pentagon is readying itself for a “low-intensity world war of unlimited duration against criminalized segments of the urban poor.” There’s an “assumed need to be in the urban Iraqs of the future, [so] the question for the U.S. military becomes a practical one: How to deal with these uppity children of the third world.“
Yeah, I’m rolling my eyes, too. Like the failed-state jihadists of the world will just go about minding their own business… if the U.S. just stays out their slums. Sure. Worked like a charm, before 9/11.
Besides, the U.S. has been fighting in cities since… well, since before there was a U.S. (George Washington tangled with the Red Coats in New York City, for example.) And we’ve never been all that good at it. The fact is, American armed forces have almost always preferred a stand-up fight — an open war — to some close-quarters, urban combat. That’s what are training is oriented around. That’s what our gear is made for. But the guys plotting to hurt us and our allies are in cities. So it’s into urban canyons our military must go.
The article winces about American military talk of prepping for “Baghdad 2015″ and urban fights of the issue fights. “Today, it’s Baghdad; tomorrow…it could be Accra, Bogota, Dhaka, Karachi, Kinshasa, Lagos, Mogadishu or even a perennial favorite, Port au Prince.” But given how badly “Baghdad 2007″ is going, doesn’t the Pentagon — and especially, its research arms — owe it to the rest of us to get better at those kinds of conflicts? Especially when Baghdad is only one in a long list of urban operations (Mogadishu, Srebrenica, Kabul) the U.S. has found itself in over the last few decades? Wouldn’t anything less would be… well, a dereliction of duty?
Anyway. After several more paragraphs, we get to the meat of the story, on “the wide range of efforts to visualize, map out, and spy on the global mega–favelas that the U.S. has, until now, largely scorned and neglected.” Most of these programs won’t be new to close readers of Defense Tech. But it’s interesting, and helpful, to see ‘em all in one place. Items include…
VisiBuilding: This is a program aimed at addressing “a pressing need in urban warfare: seeing inside buildings” by developing technology that will allow U.S. forces to “determine building layouts, find anomalous quantities of materials,” and “locate people within the building…“
UrbanScape: This program aims “to make the foreign city as familiar as the soldier’s backyard’” by providing “the warfighters patrolling an urban environment with an up-to-date, high resolution model of the urban terrain that can be viewed, manipulated and analyzed.“
Urban Hopping Robots… a semi-autonomous hybrid hopping/articulated wheeled robotic platform [like this one, maybe — ed.] that could adapt to the urban environment… and provide the delivery of small payloads to any point of the urban jungle while remaining lightweight, small to minimize the burden on the soldier.
Close Combat Lethal Recon This deadly, loitering explosive expressively for use in urban landscapes will expand a soldier’s killing zone by reaching “over and around buildings, onto rooftops, and into open building portals.” Think of it as a smart grenade or, according to DARPA Director Tether… “a small mortar round with a grenade-size explosive in it. A fiber-optic line unreels from its back end and provides the data link that allows the soldier to see the video from the munition’s camera and to fly it into the target.”
If it works — and that’s always a big if, when you’re talking about a Darpa project — that does sound like a nasty weapon. Not just in a city. But in any environment.
FWIW, The story leaves of of its list two of the creepiest Darpa programs geared towards urban fights. “Combat Zones That See” tries to strap cheap cameras together, giving soldiers watch over an entire city at once; the “Integrated Sensor is Structure” program aims to do the same thing — with a giant, all-seeing blimp. And then there’s Darpa’s next robotic road race. It’s through… a city! (Cue scary music.)
Call me a skeptic, but I think this spending on urban warfare-centered will all be for naught if we think about terrorists and insurgents as “these uppity children of the third world.“
I think the last three years in Iraq and four in Afghanistan have proven that insurgents, terrorists and militias can be incredibly resourceful and savvy (read: dangerous).
Also, the ‘strategic corporal’ from Krulak’s “Three Block War” can have all of the situation awareness in the world, but it won’t amount to much unless he is constantly present and knows how to apply his knowledge advantage effectively. Are DOD planners thinking about the force structure and educational requirements associated with all of this gear?
Sigh… technology is no substitute for training. How about taking those DARPA dollars and upping the amount of time Joes stay on the range with thier weapons, more fire team/squad level training, and not just for the combat arms folks; CSS people are the weakest link, and you know what’s said about weak links…
The “Mortar round, with Grenade sized blast”? With a fiber optic cable reeling out of it…so that Joe can see his opponent? Someone has been watching way too much “Aeon Flux”! How about using the Gajillion dollars that it will costs for that nifty little toy, and developing a plan that will keep the future Jihadi/wanna be Holy Warrior on his Sofa watching World Cup soccer, instead of ballsy enough to go out in the street, and try to RPG an Abramas that just rolled down his street! We need to get our heads around defeating extemeism at the source– not waiting until the day he has already dug the hole for the IED, or has one of our guys in his sights…its too late then!
I think the military should hire (or consult) some people from the gaming industry. There’s loads and loads of gadgets invented in all kinds of games that would be very usefull in the real world. The disposable camera is one of them (im some form or another), all kinds of connected devices (with swarm behaviour with bulk produced sensors) are another. It’s all there for grabs.
And most of all it’s better interface and information design they need. Maybe the military can get a productivity boost just like businesses did when all programs became user-friendly. (i just read a report/story on the procedure of a JDAM strike, it was insane)