30 March/April 2022
COURTESYU.S.^ ARMY^ (DRONE,^ TOURNIQUETS);GETTY^ IMAGES^ (BIOMETRIC)Military
(^6) Tech
tors spotted a tall, bearded man they recognized as
Osama Bin Laden. But as Stars and Stripes reported,
“the elation was quickly erased by exasperation. The
Predator had yet to be equipped with missiles.”
It was the start of a process that would lead
drone warfare to becoming a major factor on the
modern battlefield. In 2020 alone, the Trump
administration used a Reaper drone to kill top
Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, and Azerbai-
jan used Turkish- and Israeli-developed drones
to overwhelm the Armenian military and end
the decades-long Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in
a matter of weeks.
The Afghan government, especially under for-
mer president Ashraf Ghani, was particularly
pliant to U.S. military requests, as it depended
heavily on U.S. support and aid. However, the
American exit from Afghanistan may not affect
the readiness of the military for future fights.
“While the conf lict in Afghanistan allowed the
testing and rapid development of communication
and precision weapons capabilities, the Taliban
didn’t operate air capabilities,” says Justin Bronk,
a research fellow for Airpower Technology at the
Royal United Services Institute in the U.K. In the
case of an offensive conflict with a peer adver-
sar y such as Russia or China, these developments
would be of limited use.
“The advantages of UAVs [Unmanned Aerial
Vehicles], for example, are rendered useless in the
context of an enemy that can cut the link between
operator and aircraft,” Bronk says.
And China, which has not been involved in a
major military conf lict since its war with Vietnam
in the 1970s, is proving that a strong military may
not even need an active testing ground. It recently
shocked the Pentagon when it tested a hypersonic
missile that circumnavigated the globe. And in
their own Xinjiang province, the People’s Lib-
eration Army recently built two mock aircraft
carriers that bear the distinctive traits of Amer-
ican carriers—to possibly practice locating,
tracking, and destroying the U.S. Navy’s most pre-
cious asset in any future wartime.
TESTED IN
AFGHANISTAN
The nearly 20-year
conflict saw the
development of both
transformational and
controversial new
military tech.
ON THE SPOT
SURVEILLANCE
In 2019, the U.S. equipped
a battalion from the 82nd
Airborne with experimental
mini drones that could be
carried on a soldier’s person
and flown with a handheld
controller. This allowed them
to rapidly scout nearby terrain
from a safe position.
BIOMETRIC DATA
COLLECTION
In one controversial
development, U.S. and local
authorities trialed biometric
data collection, like iris scans,
to compile large amounts of
data on populations. Experts
now worry the Taliban could
use the tech to find Afghan
allies who aided the U.S.
MEDICAL HELP ON THE
BATTLEFIELD
As casualties from IEDs
mounted, battle medicine
developments focused on
treatments that could be
given at the scene. Medics
developed tourniquets that
could be applied with one
hand, allowing injured soldiers
to use it on themselves.
THE^ ADVANTAGES^ OF^ UAVS^ ARE
RENDERED USELESS IN THE
CONTEXT OF AN ENEMY THAT^ CAN^ CUT
THE LINK BETWEEN^ OPERATOR^ AND
AIRCRAFT.