With no due respect to the Marquess of Queensbury, rules are for losers.

In combat, anyway.

Okay, so we don’t condone chemical agents, or go in for biological weapons, and the nuclear option isn’t really an option, but those few boundaries are more for our own protection than the comfort of our enemies, and beyond them the battlefield is very much the Wild, Wild West. Not even the English stand by concepts like “fair play,” or worry about giving the Hun has a “sporting chance” when the gloves come off. In the practice of warfare, winning fast is the only rule that means anything. An enemy reeling in “shock and awe” is an ineffective enemy, and ineffective enemies don’t shoot straight, or hopefully at all. The ideal of modern military doctrine is to win the battle before your enemy realizes they’re in one.

That’s tough to do, which is why it’s almost never done. Still, a lot of really smart people spend a lot of their waking hours devising ways to minimize “friendly” casualties by maximizing the other kind, and by far the surest way to do that is through the command of superior technologies. The warrior with a sharp stick is at a severe disadvantage against one equipped with bow and arrow, who has little chance against one with a pistol, who won’t last long against one armed with a Browning automatic rifle, who would, theoretically, be a sitting duck for an Imperial storm trooper with a fully-charged blaster. The arms race is as old as the human race, and nobody does it better than the much-maligned American military industrial complex. And if our soldiers don’t currently carry blasters, they eventually will, sure as shootin’, because pulp science fiction’s got nothing on the shock-and-awe-inspiring tools that will be standard-issue in a conflict that’s coming soon to a hot-spot near you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a lot easier to get the drop on somebody if you know what they’re up to. Trouble is, heavily-armed hostiles tend to be jealous of their privacy. Thanks to the fertile minds at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), one day soon we’ll be able to keep any number of multi-faceted eyes on our enemies at work and at play with HI-MEMS, or Hybrid Insect Micro-Electrical-Mechanical System. It seems that electronic circuits implanted in the bodies of insects in their pupal stage can be used to direct their movements in adulthood. By attaching surveillance equipment to radio-controlled bugs, reconnaissance officers will be able to scout Indian Country at will from the safety of comfy chairs in an air-conditioned mobile command post.

 

 

 

 

 

The all-important element of surprise is easier to achieve if they can’t see you coming, which is one reason soldiers wear camouflage clothing. But while modern computer-designed camouflage patterns do a good job of approximating the visual characteristics of various environments, they still leave plenty to engage the searching eye. Enter quantum-camouflage, a marvelous material developed by the Canadian firm Hyperstealth Biotechnology Corp. that purportedly causes light to simply bend around whatever it’s shielding. As advertized, it’s an honest-to-gosh cloak of invisibility, and military authorities on both sides of the northern border have confirmed that relatively inexpensive quantum camouflage is compact enough to be easily carried and deployed in the field, equally effective against infrared scopes, and requires no power to function.

 

 

 

 

 

If weapons and ammunition are critical to success on the battlefield, they’re also really, really heavy. And if the average GI is fully capable of marching long distances with 150-pound pack full of 5.56 cartridges, they’re also capable of arriving at the front with their battle-readiness understandably compromised by physical exhaustion. Lockheed Martin is helping the hard-working doughboy take a load off with the fantastical Human Universal Load Carrier (HULC), a powered mechanical exoskeleton that allows its wearer to lug hundreds of pounds for miles on end without undue discomfort or fatigue. An on-board computer fluidly adjusts for motion and load and keeps the light, indestructible titanium frame in constant sync with the wearer’s movements. If not yet ready for action, the concept’s been proven and it’s only a matter of time before the HULC goes to war.

 

 

 

 

 

During World War II, American soldiers fired something like 25,000 bullets for every enemy combatant killed. In Vietnam it was closer to 50,000, and in Afghanistan they’ve been expending roughly 250,000 bullets for each insurgent slain. On a purely value-per-bullet basis it would seem that wars are getting more expensive as they get smaller. Determined to get more bang for their munitions buck, DARPA has created EXACTO (Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance), a .50 caliber shell equipped with inbound computer guidance system. Tasting the ambient weather conditions in flight, the tiny computer manipulates small fins on the bullet’s surface to maintain its intended trajectory, and can even track and pursue moving targets on the fly. It’s a smart bullet that’s also smart business.

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing overwhelms an enemy like overwhelming firepower. To achieve it, you can either shoot one great-big-giant bullet, or you can get a whole lot of soldiers to shoot regular-sized bullets all at the same time, or you can deploy DREAD, a centrifugal gun that puts a new spin on centuries-old firearm technology. In appearance, DREAD looks a lot like USS Reliant in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. In practice, it uses high-speed centrifugal force to shoot 120,000 bullets per second – per second – without a hint of recoil or single spark of muzzle flash. In theory, it can sweep a battlefield clean with a single pass.

 

 

 

 

 

The Navy is already using 30 kilowatt laser cannons to bring down incoming enemy UAVs at a cost of about a dollar per shot. Within the next five years, the Pentagon wants to field fighter jets equipped with laser cannons that can zap enemy aircraft from the skies and incinerate flammable ground targets. Work is currently underway on a 150 kilowatt LaWS (Laser Weapon System) that can burn a hole clean through a ship’s hull.

Diplomacy is great, because war is hell. And it’s an essential mark of humanity to show mercy to the vanquished. But when the shooting starts, the fastest way back to peace is dead ahead and no holds barred.