What Becomes Of Israel When Suicide Drones Converge From Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen?

ejmagnier  |  The ongoing conflict’s impact is deeply felt in Israel’s economic and social fabric. On a single tumultuous day, the Israeli stock market plunged by a staggering $13.5 billion, a sign of growing investor anxiety. Adding to the economic strain, the local currency has experienced a sharp decline.

But the impact isn’t limited to the financial charts. On the ground, there’s a palpable sense of desperation. A growing number of Israelis and foreigners are going to the civilian airport, eager to escape the rising tensions. Their urgency is heightened because many foreign airlines have suspended flights to and from Israel. This mass departure highlights not only the immediate dangers of the conflict, but also the more profound, lasting effects it may have on Israel’s social morale and economic resilience. The recent announcement of a US frigate’s support for Israel may seem significant. However, in the grand scheme of things, its impact on boosting Israeli morale appears minimal.

As the conflict intensifies, the recent deployment of a US fleet supporting Israel has attracted some attention. However, insiders within the Axis of Resistance have expressed scepticism about the real impact of this move.

While the arrival of a US fleet is a significant show of force, the strategic calculus of the situation is more complicated. Israel, with its already formidable air capabilities, has hundreds of aircraft and a powerful naval force. Adding 80 to 90 aircraft from the US carrier may not tip the balance as decisively as one might think. The Axis of Resistance argues that the US intervention won’t guarantee victory.

But the implications of this US military support go beyond immediate tactical considerations. There’s a wider geopolitical dimension at play. Any overt US intervention in the conflict could have repercussions far beyond Israel’s borders. The US maintains a significant military presence in Iraq, and these forces could become targets if the US is perceived as intervening too directly in the Israel-Gaza conflict. Resistance groups in Iraq have been unequivocal in their warning: US bases in the region would be at risk of retaliatory attacks.

Moreover, the Hezbollah’s supersonic anti-ship missiles adds another layer of complexity. These missiles, if deployed, have the potential to block Israeli ports, effectively choking off a vital lifeline and adding a naval dimension to the conflict. Such a move would further escalate the situation, potentially drawing in other regional players and expanding the theatre of operations.

The current conflict is deeply intertwined with the broader geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. Any move can have repercussions far beyond the immediate battlefield. The coming days and weeks will reveal how these dynamics play out and whether the region is on the brink of a more comprehensive and complex confrontation.

The sources also criticised Prime Minister Netanyahu’s approach, highlighting the targeting of civilian structures in Gaza, including the residences of leaders, media personalities and vital infrastructure. However, they believe that such anticipated destruction is merely tactical. They believe these actions will not weaken the resistance’s resolve or alter its strategic plan.

Israel’s recent military manoeuvres, including the deployment of troop carriers, tanks and ground forces, indicate a clear intention to launch a ground assault on Gaza. While the scope of this incursion may not be limited, reminiscent of the 2014 ground operation that only penetrated a few hundred metres into Gaza, its implications could be far-reaching.

In the face of these developments, the involvement of the Axis of Resistance alliance becomes crucial. The need for a united and cohesive multi-regional front is more urgent than ever.

Inside sources have highlighted the growing unity and strength of the ‘Axis allies’ in the face of the Israeli military. They argue that the Israeli army, which traditionally relies on air strikes to pave the way for ground operations, avoids direct confrontation unless areas are pre-emptively cleared with extensive bombing. The sources point to instances where Israeli forces withdrew, leaving behind their war equipment when Palestinian militants attacked their military barracks in the Gaza Strip encirclement.

Drawing parallels with the 2006 conflict, the sources suggest that the Israeli army may face determined and fierce resistance, similar to the combined forces it encountered in southern Lebanon after the initial heavy bombardment.

The message is clear: if Israel persists in its aggressive actions in Gaza, the united resistance bloc is ready to offer comprehensive support, possibly opening several fronts. This stance remains firm, regardless of threats from the West. Given the current dynamics, sources no longer rule out the possibility of a barrage of suicide drones entering the conflict launched from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

The Palestinian resistance in the settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip remains unyielding. This continued defiance provides an insight into the apparent indecision and inconsistency of the Israeli army. On the one hand, they tell the 50,000 residents of the settlements to evacuate, only to later reverse this order and ask them to stay put closed indoors.

Superbowl Pre-Game Featured Dancing Robotic Hunter-Killer Police Drones

newsweek  |  Viewers were left "creeped out" by Jason Derulo's robotic backup dancers during a pre-Super Bowl performance.

Derulo performed at the NFL's TikTok Tailgate event to get fans excited for Super Bowl LVII, but one aspect of his performance didn't have the desired effect.

Derulo was joined on stage by a number of human backup dancers, who in turn, were also joined by a collection of choreographed robotic dogs. Social media users shared their concern at the technological advancement, as some likened it to an episode of Black Mirror.

Oh god they’re normalizing robot dogs in the super bowl pre-show thing pic.twitter.com/BwqVJoefoK

— Read Jackson Rising by @CooperationJXN (@JoshuaPHilll) February 12, 2023

"Okay I don't know if anyone else is watching the pre-show performance from Jason Derulo but these little dancing dog robot things are kind of creeping me out," wrote South Dakota-based TV anchor Lauren Soulek. Her sentiments were echoed far and wide across Twitter by other viewers who watched Derulo perform his song "Saturday/Sunday."

"I can't be only one little creeped out by the robot dogs in [Jason Derulo's] pregame performance," wrote user @kingmeup21. "Anyone else creeped out by the robots on the pregame stage?" asked @GinQueenRunner.

TV reporter Devo Brown was also unimpressed. "Umm Jason Derulo pre game performance...ya it was ok. However, I could do without the creepy robot dogs as backup dancers."

Some Twitter users like @JakeMGrumbach likened the animals to the "Black Mirror robot attack dogs." The Season 4 episode "Metalhead" featured faceless four-legged robots hunting down humans.

One user, however, replied that their 9-year-old loved the performance. "What [...] noo they're so cute lol," wrote @CosmicBunnyBabe responding to all of the hate aimed at the robots.

The specific designers of the robots are unconfirmed, but they look similar to the Boston Dynamics robotics that often go viral for their technological advancements. The four-legged designs were similar to their product Spot, though they normally come in yellow, and Derulo's backup dancers were sporting the color gray.

There is often a debate about these humanoid robotics. Recently, social media users debated whether a robot trained to open a door was "cool or creepy."

Briahna Joy Gray, national press secretary for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign, suggested the inclusion of the dogs were an effort to help bring the technology into the mainstream. "I see the deep state is using Jason Derulo's Super Bowl performance to normalize the Boston Dynamics dogs," she wrote with a crying laughing emoji. Not buying into the hype, Twitter user @hominigritz replied with a deadpan, "Robot assassin dogs will never feel normal to me."

Derulo refers to himself as the "King of TikTok" in a number of pre-performance videos, and while the inclusion of the robotic dogs may have "creeped out" some viewers, it ensured his performance trended and was discussed across social media.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

                                                                                                                                                                                                       

 

 

It Will Be Impossible For The 4th Reich To Fight Everyone, Everywhere, All At Once...,

thecradle  |  During his speech on 13 July, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah’s message was clear: No one would be allowed to operate in maritime oil and gas fields if Lebanon was barred from its right to extract energy resources off of its own coast.

The Karish incident early this month was arguably both an espionage raid and a highly accurate political-military security message in its own right.

In its daring operation, Hezbollah calculatingly dispatched three drones of varying sizes and types, flying at different heights, over the disputed Karish gas field. And the resistance group intentionally made it possible for Israeli radar networks to detect the aerial unmanned vehicles in order to gauge Israel’s response capabilities.

Israeli reactions varied between those who considered the drones a serious threat, and those who downplayed the danger, possibly to preserve their military’s prestige that has systematically eroded over years of conflict with Palestine and Lebanon.

And while it is true that Israeli air defenses were eventually able to shoot down the unarmed aircraft after great effort and technical difficulties, as revealed by the Hebrew press, this is only one small part of the story…

The reason Hezbollah sent three different types of drones to Karish was to activate Israeli and American air defense and electronic jamming systems in the region (even their air force), and to test their ability to move, coordinate, and respond within a given time frame. The exercise also intended to test the extent to which these systems are linked to each other.

This meant that Hezbollah had to intentionally leave the drones exposed as easy targets for these systems.

On 25 July, during a live TV interview on Al Mayadeen channel, Nasrallah revealed for the first time that over the “past few years” Hezbollah’s drones “went to occupied Palestine and returned dozens of times without being shot down.”

He then went on to explain their modus operandi in the Karish operation:

“Our two goals of sending the drones are, one, we want to show that we can take this step (escalation), and two, we want the Israelis to fire on that front (near the gas fields). What we did is that we made(forced) the Israelis to open fire…Surely, they fell into the trap…The Air Force planes, F35, and F16, were used to shoot down a drone but could not shoot down the second, so they used the naval surface-to-air missiles (Barak) to shoot down the second. As for the third — let me reveal new information — they did not shoot it down at all, it was of a small type, it went on track and ran out of fuel and fell into the sea, that’s why (the Israelis) only speak of two drones that were shot down.”

A secondary aim of the drone operation was to deliver a message to foreign companies operating in the disputed gas fields.

 

Workers aboard the production vessel were meant to hear and witness the sound and sights of explosions, and the warplanes maneuvering in the skies above them, to alert them to the fact that they were operating in violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial waters, and that these operations would continue to be unsafe.

 

Pentagram Wishes It Had Massive Drone Swarming Capabilities

asiatimes  |  Hyten noted at the time that the first US Joint Warfare Concept (JWC) simply improved on the long-standing US strategy of gathering and using ubiquitous information to coordinate forces and structure battles. However, the JWC “failed miserably” in the October 2020 simulation, since it presumed information dominance in a simulation wherein US forces had to act without that advantage.

In response, Hyten espoused a new concept he termed “expanded maneuver”, which entails aggregating capabilities to provide significant effect, and disaggregating to survive any kind of threat.

This is enabled by AI, cloud computing and machine learning, and could take place in multiple domains under a single command structure, a concept known as Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2), which is the US’ concept to connect sensors from all branches of the US military into a single network.

Former US Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work has stated publicly that in the most realistic Taiwan invasion simulations that the US can come up the US has lost to China with a score of 18-0. These defeats have shown that China’s A2/AD capabilities have evolved to the point that the US can no longer expect to quickly achieve air, space or maritime superiority.

China is not far behind in deploying autonomous drone swarms against US, Taiwanese and allied forces.  Following missile strikes to destroy Taiwan’s command and control nodes and offensive cyber operations to degrade Taiwan’s space-based systems, China may launch its own drone swarms to knock out Taiwan’s air defenses, going against the latter’s air defense radars and missile batteries.

The potential use of drone swarms may fuel an AI arms race between major military powers. Russia, China and the US are already seeking to outdo each other in creating new algorithms and gaining access to critical technologies for autonomous AI, such as high-end microchips.

Increasingly capable AI coupled with the proliferation of drone swarms may thus lead to “flash wars,” wherein autonomous weapons systems react against each other in an uncontrolled chain reaction of escalation.

Massive Drone Swarms Key To Defeating China's Invasion Of Taiwan

thedrive  |  Wargames that the U.S. Air Force has conducted itself and in conjunction with independent organizations continue to show the immense value offered by swarms of relatively low-cost networked drones with high degrees of autonomy. In particular, simulations have shown them to be decisive factors in the scenarios regarding the defense of the island of Taiwan against a Chinese invasion.

Last week, David Ochmanek, a senior international affairs and defense researcher at the RAND Corporation and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Development during President Barack Obama's administration, discussed the importance of unmanned platforms in Taiwan Strait crisis-related wargaming that the think tank has done in recent years. Ochmanek offered his insight during an online chat, which you can watch in full below, hosted by the Air & Space Forces Association's Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

At least some of RAND's work in this regard has been done in cooperation with the Air Force's Warfighting Integration Capability office, or AFWIC. Last year, the service disclosed details about a Taiwan-related wargame that AFWIC had run in 2020, which included the employment of a notional swarm of small drones, along with other unmanned platforms.

"I’m sure most everybody on this line has thought extensively about what conflict with China might look like. We think that, as force planners, we think that an invasion of Taiwan is the most appropriate scenario to use because of China’s repeatedly expressed desire to forcibly reincorporate Taiwan into the mainland if necessary and because of the severe time crunch that would be associated with defeating an invasion of Taiwan," Ochmanek offered as an introduction to RAND's modeling. "U.S. and allied forces may have as few as a week to 10 days to either defeat this invasion or accept the fait accompli. And the Chinese understand that if they’re to succeed in this, they either have to deter the United States from intervening or radically suppress our combat operations in the theater."

Ochmanek explained that the Chinese military has amassed a wide array of capable anti-access and area denial capabilities in the past two decades or so that would be brought to bear either to deter or engage any American forces, and their allies and partners, that might seek to respond to an invasion of Taiwan. This includes a diverse arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles that could be used to neutralize U.S. bases across the Pacific region, anti-satellite weapons to destroy or degrade various American space-based assets, and dense integrated air defense networks bolstered by capable combat aircraft, among other things.

"With all of this, our forces are going to be confronted with the need to not just gain air superiority, which is always a priority for the commander, but to actually reach into this contested battlespace, ...and find the enemy and engage the enemy’s operational center of gravity – those hundreds of ships carrying the amphibious forces across Strait, the airborne air assault aircraft carrying light infantry across the Strait," he continued. There will be a need to "do that even in the absence of air superiority, which is a very different concept of operations from what our forces have operated with in the post-Cold War era."

 

As Well As Autonomous Drone Swarms Operating In Dense/Complex Environments (Slaughterbots)

sciencealert |   In theory, there are myriad real-world applications, including aerial mapping for conservation and disaster relief work. But the technology has needed to mature so that flying robots can adapt to new environments without crashing into one another or objects, thus endangering public safety.

Drone swarms have been tested in the past, but either in open environments without obstacles, or with the location of those obstacles programmed in, Enrica Soria, a roboticist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, who was not involved in the research, told AFP.

"This is the first time there's a swarm of drones successfully flying outside in an unstructured environment, in the wild," she said, adding the experiment was "impressive".

The palm-sized robots were purpose-built, with depth cameras, altitude sensors, and an on-board computer. The biggest advance was a clever algorithm that incorporates collision avoidance, flight efficiency, and coordination within the swarm.

Since these drones do not rely on any outside infrastructure, such as GPS, swarms could be used during natural disasters.

For example, they could be sent into earthquake-hit areas to survey damage and identify where to send help, or into buildings where it's unsafe to send people.

It's certainly possible to use single drones in such scenarios, but a swarm approach would be far more efficient, especially given limited flight times.

Another possible use is having the swarm collectively lift and deliver heavy objects.

There's also a darker side: swarms could be weaponized by militaries, just as remote-piloted single drones are today. The Pentagon has repeatedly expressed interest and is carrying out its own tests.

"Military research is not shared with the rest of the world just openly, and so it's difficult to imagine at what stage they are with their development," said Soria.

But advances shared in scientific journals could certainly be put to military use.

Coming soon?

The Chinese team tested their drones in different scenarios – swarming through the bamboo forest, avoiding other drones in a high-traffic experiment, and having the robots follow a person's lead.

"Our work was inspired by birds that fly smoothly in a free swarm through even very dense woods," wrote Zhou in a blog post.

The challenge, he said, was balancing competing demands: the need for small, lightweight machines, but with high-computational power, and plotting safe trajectories without greatly prolonging flight time.

Meanwhile, China Deploys Autonomous Drone Carriers And Advanced Drone Swarms

thedrive  | China looks to have launched an odd mini-aircraft carrier of sorts that is intended to launch and recover small aerial drones earlier this year. A model of this catamaran vessel appeared at this year's Zhuhai Airshow, where it was ostensibly described as a platform for mimicking enemy "electronic" systems during training exercises. This ship will be able to simulate hostile drone swarms, along with other kinds of threats, such as high-volume anti-ship missile strikes and distributed electronic warfare attacks. It also reflects the Chinese military's interest in operational swarming capabilities, and especially in the maritime domain.

Earlier this week, Twitter user @HenriKenhmann, who runs the website East Pendulum, was able to find a picture online of the ship during an apparent launch ceremony in May. The photograph shows an unusual cartoon shark motif painted on the outside of one of the ship's twin hulls, very similar to what was seen on the model at Zhuhai. This model has received more recent attention as it was displayed alongside one depicting a rail-based training aid that has also turned out to be in operational use, as you can read more about here.

There was a small sign next to the model at Zhuhai with descriptions of the ship in Chinese and English. Available pictures of the sign do not provide a clear view of all of the English text, but part of it reads "Multifunctional Integrated Electronic Blue Army System." In Chinese military parlance, mock opponents in training exercises are referred to as the "Blue Army." This is in direct contrast to how the U.S. military and other western armed forces describe generic simulated enemies as the "Red Force."

Based on this description, and from what we can see of the ship's design and that of the drones on its deck, it's not hard to imagine how it might be employed in maritime exercises both far out to sea and in littoral areas. For realistic training against swarms, it would be necessary to sortie lots of drones at once.

Beyond that, the unmanned helicopters could pump out signals reflecting the signatures of various kinds of missiles, or even just waves of manned or unmanned aircraft. The rotary-wing drones would be fitted with electronic warfare systems to carry out electronic attacks, as well. All of this would provide a relatively low-cost way to simulate swarms, along with other kinds of aerial threats during drills, and do so across a broad area. 

The large open decks on the ship in front of and behind the superstructure might provide room for the addition of other capabilities. Catapults or static launchers for fixed-wing drones, including those designed specifically as targets, as well as recovery systems, could be installed in those spaces to expand the kinds of threats the vessel would be to simulate.

While the Chinese military is often discussed as a source of these kinds of threats, as a result, it is certainly well aware of the operational risks that drone swarms, advanced anti-ship missiles, and electronic warfare capabilities pose to its own forces. China's rapid modernization of its armed forces has very much prompted the U.S. military, as well as those of other countries in the Pacific, to work to improve their own capabilities in these same functional areas, especially with respect to future high-end maritime conflicts.

Commercial Drones Center Stage In U.S. vs China Infowar

bloomberg  |  In video reviews of the latest drone models to his 80,000 YouTube subscribers, Indiana college student Carson Miller doesn’t seem like an unwitting tool of Chinese spies. 

Yet that’s how the U.S. is increasingly viewing him and thousands of other Americans who purchase drones built by Shenzhen-based SZ DJI Technology Co., the world’s top producer of unmanned aerial vehicles. Miller, who bought his first DJI model in 2016 for $500 and now owns six of them, shows why the company controls more than half of the U.S. drone market. 

“If tomorrow DJI were completely banned,” the 21-year-old said, “I would be pretty frightened.” 

Critics of DJI warn the dronemaker may be channeling reams of sensitive data to Chinese intelligence agencies on everything from critical infrastructure like bridges and dams to personal information such as heart rates and facial recognition. But to Miller, consumers face plenty of bigger threats to the privacy of their data. “There are apps that track you on your smartphone 24/7,” he said.

That attitude is a problem for American officials who are seeking to end DJI’s dominance in the U.S. On Thursday, the Biden administration blocked American investment in the company, a year after President Donald Trump prohibited it from sourcing U.S. parts. Now, lawmakers from both parties are weighing a bill that would ban federal purchases of DJI drones, while a member of the Federal Communications Commission wants its products taken off the market in the U.S. altogether. 

In many ways, DJI has become the poster child of a much wider national security threat: The Chinese government’s ability to obtain sensitive data on millions of Americans. In recent weeks, former top officials in both the Obama and Trump administrations have warned that Beijing could be scooping up personal information on the citizens of rival nations, while walling off data on China’s 1.4 billion people. 

“Each new piece of information, by itself, is relatively unimportant,” Oona Hathaway, a professor at Yale Law School who served in the Pentagon under President Barack Obama, wrote in Foreign Affairs, referring to surveillance and monitoring technologies. “But combined, the pieces can give foreign adversaries unprecedented insight into the personal lives of most Americans.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping has been far ahead of the West in realizing the importance of data in gaining both an economic and military advantage, according to Matt Pottinger, a former deputy national security adviser in the Trump Administration. “If Washington and its allies don’t organize a strong response, Mr. Xi will succeed in commanding the heights of future global power,” he wrote in a co-authored New York Times op-ed last month.  

The data battle strikes at the heart of the U.S.-China strategic competition, and has the potential to reshape the world economy over the coming decades — particularly as everything from cars to yoga mats to toilets are now transmitting data. Harnessing that information is both key to dominating technologies like artificial intelligence that will drive the modern economy, and crucial for exploiting weaknesses in strategic foes.

Drone Swarms Have Been Probing The Military And The Pentagram Pretends It's UFO's

thedrive |  Earlier this year The War Zone exclusively reported about a series of 2019 incidents that involved unidentified drones stalking US Navy vessels over several nights in the waters off of Southern California. Our initial report also covered the Navy’s investigation into the incidents, which appeared to struggle to identify either the aircraft or their operators. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday later clarified that the aircraft were never identified, and that there have been similar incidents across the service branches and allied militaries.

Newly released documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that the full scope of these drone incursions was greater than it initially appeared, and they persisted well after the Navy’s investigation was launched. Deck logs indicate that drone sightings continued throughout the month of July 2019 and included events where drone countermeasure teams were called into action. One notable event involved at least three ships observing multiple drones. Uncharacteristically for unclassified deck logs, the details on this event are almost entirely redacted.

It is also noteworthy that these events occurred well after Navy investigators sought to “correlate or rule out operations” with Fleet Area Control and Surveillance Facility (FACSFAC) based in San Diego. Indeed, an investigation began immediately after the initial events on July 16th, with information on the incidents being routed to the Chief of Naval Operations as early as July 18th. Given the progress of the investigation, more prosaic causes like errant US aircraft or civilian activity had already been examined. Whatever the outcome of the July 30th event, it was likely closely scrutinized by Navy leadership.

The lack of concrete identification of the aircraft involved also led to widespread public speculation earlier this year. Leaked photos and videos said to pertain to the July 15th and 16th incident were released this summer by filmmaker Jeremy Corbell. The materials consisted of footage of radar screens showing multiple unknown contacts, video of an object apparently falling into the ocean, and a brief video of a triangular-shaped light flying over the deck of a ship. The apparent triangular shape of the object has been strongly debated, as many have posited it was the result of a common optical artifact. 

The Department of Defense was quick to partially authenticate the material, acknowledging that the videos were taken by Navy personnel. However, to date, the Pentagon has not provided any details that corroborate the location or timeframe of the footage or any clarification on what the objects were. Corbell maintains that the videos depict extraordinarily complex vehicles capable of “transmedium” travel, or the ability to traverse both water and the atmosphere with ease. Chief of Naval Operations Michael Gilday explained in a press briefing earlier this year that while the Navy had not positively identified the aircraft, there were no indications they were extraterrestrial in nature.

There has been significant overlap in the discussion of the mounting threat from lower-end drones and resurgent interest in UFOs in recent years. That overlap is conspicuous in the recent National Defense Authorization Act language, which authorizes an expansive approach to the Pentagon’s study of UFOs. The language, introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, creates a requirement for conducting “field investigations,” as well as new mandates to scientifically examine UFO reports. An amended version of Gillibrand's proposal was ultimately adopted in the NDAA and awaits President Biden's signature. While many have focused on otherworldly explanations for UFO sightings, Senator Gillibrand told Politico that the rationale for her interest encompassed conventional and emerging technology and not only the “unknown.” She explained, “you're talking about drone technology, you're talking about balloon technology, you're talking about other aerial phenomena, and then you're talking about the unknown.”

The urgency surrounding the drone issue has been a growing focus among defense policymakers as encounters with both civilian and military aircraft have become widespread. In the last five years the Federal Aviation Administration has gathered approximately ten thousand drone incident reports. We have made many of these reports available in an interactive tool that maps the location and descriptions of the incident. 

Far from being only a domestic issue, drones have also become a matter of grave concern for military leaders. Earlier this year Marine General Kenneth McKenzie Jr. said in a speech to the Middle East Institute that “the growing threat posed by these systems coupled with our lack of dependable, networked capabilities to counter them is the most concerning tactical development since the rise of the improvised explosive device in Iraq.” McKenzie also explained that drones “provide adversaries the operational ability to surveil and target U.S. and partner facilities while affording plausible deniability and a disproportionate return on the investment, all in our adversaries’ favor.” 

In the case of the 2019 Southern California incidents, several of these factors appear to be at work. The newly released map clarifies just how closely drones were shadowing Navy ships, likely affording opportunities to gather a variety of valuable intelligence. The lack of positive attribution of the aircraft even today speaks to McKenzie’s comments about plausible deniability and disproportionate return.

 

Armed Drones And Drone Surveillance Turned The Tide In The Ethiopian Civil War

al-jazeera |  As fighting drags on, the government, with its tiny air force of 22 combat-capable aircraft, seems to have also realised that air power and timely intelligence can make all the difference in a conflict – especially one fought over vast and often mountainous areas like in Ethiopia’s north. Although there has been no official confirmation, analysts have pointed to credible reports saying Ahmed’s government has reached out in recent months to manufacturers of cheap and efficient armed drones hoping that air power will turn the tide in its way.

Photographic evidence has pointed to the presence of Chinese Wing Loong 2 Unarmed Aerial Vehicles or UAVs at Ethiopian military bases, while a Bellingcat investigation in August found strong indications that Iranian armed drones, along with their ground control stations, had been spotted at Semera Airport. The government has also reportedly reached out to Turkey and requested a number of Bayraktar TB2 drones. These are relatively cheap and combat-proven and have been decisively used over several battlefields in recent years.

Drones, or UAVs, bring several desirable capabilities together in one neat package.

They are principally security cameras in the sky and are able to beam high-definition real-time imagery back to the headquarters. Once a target has been identified, it can be destroyed on the spot by the guided munitions carried by the drones.

This potent mix of intelligence gathering, reconnaissance and strike capability can be decisive in a conflict, if the drones are used properly.

The country with the most operational experience in using drones in conventional military conflicts is Turkey.

Turkey’s Bayraktar TB2 armed UAV is the one drone that has stood out in recent conflicts. It does not carry many weapons, nor does it travel that fast or very far – but these can also be advantages.

The slow flight speed means the drones can loiter easily for hours, focusing on details reconnaissance jets would be hard-pressed to identify. Their short range means they can quickly return to base for refuelling and rearming, being back over the target area in just a matter of hours.

The TB2s’ low relative cost and reliability allow several to be flown at once and enables the maintenance of a near-constant presence over the battlespace, meaning that surprise tactics by one’s adversary will be spotted and much less likely to succeed. Turkish advisers and training staff bring a wealth of knowledge on how to successfully use these systems.

Turkey’s defence and aerospace exports to Ethiopia leapt in the first three months of 2021 to $51m, with further increases in August and September. The TB2s decisive use in three recent conflicts – western Libya, northern Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh – showcased their abilities and the move by drones from effective counterterrorism tools to potent weapons on the battlefield.

 

 

 

With VR Now Woke-And-Ruined Toyota Keeps Its Eye On Miniaturized Murder

techxplore |  The main objective of the recent study by Ozaki and his colleagues was to power an insect-size flying robot using no-contact, wireless charging technology. The robot created by the researchers is essentially comprised of a flapping, piezoelectric actuator that is powered through a 5 GHz dipole antenna.

"One of our robot's key features is a highly efficient flapping actuation, which is achieved using high-power single-crystal piezoelectric material and a low-loss layout with two wings facing each other, like clapping hands," Ozaki said. "This design enables a power-to-weight efficiency comparable to that of live insects."

A key challenge encountered by engineers who are trying to create miniature size robots is the thermal runaway caused by power losses. To overcome this challenge, Ozaki and his colleagues optimized their robot's circuit design, ensuring that components that generate heat were not placed closely together or next to each other.

In addition, the researchers used a radiofrequency power receiver with a power-to-weight density that is significantly higher than that of off-the-shelf lithium polymer batteries with a similar mass. This significantly improved the robot's efficiency and operating time.

"I think that our most important finding is that a sub-gram circuit can receive and handle high power of over 1 W at a distance via an RF wave," Ozaki said. "This suggests that not only flying robots but also various other applications that require large power in a small size can be realized without batteries."

To evaluate the effectiveness of their design, Ozaki and his colleagues carried out a series of experiments. In these tests, they were able to make the insect-size robot take off seamlessly and without the need for batteries or wires.

The robot created by this team of researchers weighs only 1.8g, thus it is over 25 times lighter than other radiofrequency-powered micro-sized vehicles developed in the past. In the future, it could thus prove to be highly valuable for conducting complex missions that entail entering cracks, pipes or other highly confined spaces.

"In this paper, we have successfully demonstrated takeoff," Ozaki said. "The next step is to combine this power supply technology with attitude control to make this robot hover and move freely in the air. We believe that this is technically possible, as we have already succeeded in controlling the robot's attitude with wired power."

The Jackpot Is Here Right Now, It's Just Not Evenly Distributed

thebulletin  |   Depending on specifications, drones can be cheap—some quite capable models cost no more than $100—and still theoretically useful in a crude attack on critical infrastructure. Of course, would-be terrorists could acquire much more capable and expensive drones, as well. Controlling the sale of popular and useful tools is difficult. What should the US government, or others, do to reign in the threat drone terror could pose to utilities or other critical infrastructure?

Within the United States, only federal authorities can operate counter-drone systems. The Department of Homeland Security’s 2019 Counter Unmanned Systems Technology Guide, a 33-page booklet about drones and ways to detect and disable them, contains four warnings, in case anyone mistakes the guide’s description of the counter-drone systems for permission to build or acquire them. Counter-drone systems create their own risk to surrounding systems. A drone-jammer does not just jam the signal to the drone, but any signal operating on the same frequency. That could include air traffic control radio, and other critical signals.

But a federal monopoly on these important defenses raises questions about how effective they can be in an emergency.

If a critical infrastructure owner or operator has to call the FBI when they fear a drone attack, any response will mean little, unless counter-drone operators are already on site. A racing drone flying over 100 miles per hour will outrun a federal SUV every time, especially when the drone has a significant head-start.

The Department of Homeland Security has legal authority to protect “covered” facilities and assets, though exactly what types of facilities are protected is unclear from open sources. (And realistically, that information should not be publicly available, because it would provide a clear guide for adversaries on what facilities are unprotected.) Unless the department protects every covered facility, there will be vulnerabilities, because correctly anticipating every terrorist target is impossible/

Growing technology may create opportunities to avoid making tough value trade-offs. The same technology that allows drones to operate remotely or autonomously may be applied to counter-drone systems. A network of remotely-operated or autonomous counter-drone systems stationed at critical infrastructure sites would allow federal authorities to maintain control, while also allowing far more rapid response to drone events. Authorities could manage numerous counter-drone systems dispersed over a whole region from a central location.

Critical infrastructure faces growing risks from drone terrorism. As the stories of Aum, ISIS, and other terror groups show, non-state actors have been using and experimenting with drones since the mid-1990s. At least back then, to obtain them they had to do more than a quick search on Amazon.

Why So Hard To Believe Super-Soldiers In The Age Of Disposable Robot Assassins?

lawfareblog |   Someone—almost certainly Israel—recently assassinated Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the leading scientist behind the Iranian nuclear program. The latest reporting from Iran suggests that the assassins employed a remotely controlled machine gun mounted on a pickup truck. If this reporting proves correct, the death of Fakhrizadeh will not be the first instance of successful or attempted assassination-by-robot: In 2018, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro survived a possible attempt on his life carried out by small drones armed with explosives. And the U.S., in targeting Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani with a drone strike, has made clear that it is not above the use of such tools in modern statecraft.

So how hard is it to build such a tool? How expensive? Unfortunately, the answer is “hard but doable” and “not much money”—with the further complication that in a few years, it will probably be possible to pick up the necessary equipment online from vendors like Banggood. I know, because this field is something of a hobby for me. For three years, I’ve been trying to build an autonomous computing package for drone-hunting drones, and this work has familiarized me with the relevant technology.

It doesn’t take much for a robot to kill an exposed person. 200 grams (seven ounces)—not that much more than a baseball—is enough explosive to kill anyone within five meters (15 feet). A small ground or air vehicle can easily carry that payload, creating a robotic assassin.

Currently, the remote control needed to maneuver such an assassin is easily defeated with broad-spectrum jamming, which interferes with the radio signals necessary for communication. This played out in 2017, when the Islamic State developed and deployed effective small drones until the U.S. and others employed jammers to disrupt the remote link. There is also reporting suggesting this is why the Maduro assassination attempt failed. In order to avoid this problem, successful robotic assassins will need to be autonomous, capable of identifying targets and attacking without any human intervention.

Likewise, a drone-hunting drone needs to be autonomous because it needs to deal with autonomous—and therefore fast-thinking—adversary drones. It also needs to be fast in order to engage its target while protecting a larger area from attack. And it needs to be cheap, because there are so many potential targets that need defending.

Basically, to fight autonomous robot assassins, I need to build autonomous robot assassins to assassinate the autonomous robot assassins.

Anti-Fauci NIH Covert "Troll" Gets Popped Like Q-Map Author Got Popped Last Week...,

thedailybeast |  The managing editor of the prominent conservative website RedState has spent months trashing U.S. officials tasked with combating COVID-19, dubbing White House coronavirus task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci a “mask nazi,” and intimating that government officials responsible for the pandemic response should be executed.

But that writer, who goes by the pseudonym “streiff,” isn’t just another political blogger. The Daily Beast has discovered that he actually works in the public affairs shop of the very agency that Fauci leads.

William B. Crews is, by day, a public affairs specialist for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. But for years he has been writing for RedState under the streiff pseudonym. And in that capacity he has been contributing to the very same disinformation campaign that his superiors at the NIAID say is a major challenge to widespread efforts to control a pandemic that has claimed roughly 200,000 U.S. lives.

Under his pseudonym, Crews has derided his own colleagues as part of a left-wing anti-Trump conspiracy and vehemently criticized the man who leads his agency, whom he described as the “attention-grubbing and media-whoring Anthony Fauci.” He has gone after other public health officials at the state and federal levels, as well—“the public health Karenwaffen,'' as he’s called them—over measures such as the closures of businesses and other public establishments and the promotion of social distancing and mask-wearing. Those policies, Crews insists, have no basis in science and are simply surreptitious efforts to usurp Americans’ rights, destroy the U.S. economy, and damage President Donald Trump’s reelection effort.

“I think we’re at the point where it is safe to say that the entire Wuhan virus scare was nothing more or less than a massive fraud perpetrated upon the American people by ‘experts’ who were determined to fundamentally change the way the country lives and is organized and governed,” Crews wrote in a June post on RedState.

“If there were justice,” he added, “we’d send and [sic] few dozen of these fascists to the gallows and gibbet their tarred bodies in chains until they fall apart.”

After The Daily Beast brought those and other quotes from Crews to NIAID’s attention, the agency said in an emailed statement that Crews would “retire” from his position. “NIAID first learned of this matter this morning, and Mr. Crews has informed us of his intention to retire,” the spokesperson, Kathy Stover, wrote. “We have no further comments on this as it is a personnel matter.”

Taking a Page Out of Project Blue Book "Move Along Folks, Nothing to See Over Here!"

vice | The Colorado Mystery Drones Weren’t Real\

The mysterious drone sightings that captured national attention were a classic case of mass hysteria. 

On the night of December 30, Sergeant Vince Iovinella of the Morgan County Sheriff's Department in rural Colorado was on patrol when the calls started coming in about drones.

“Residents began calling in reports of drones of unknown origin moving above houses and farms,” Iovinella wrote in a statement obtained by Motherboard via a public records request. “The numbers would range from 4 to 10 drones in an area at a time. Some were reported to be low and at least 6 ft. long.”

Iovinella further reported the drones had white and red flashing lights as he and other deputies made “several attempts” to follow the drones. The drones were moving “very fast at times” but could also “sustain a hover over an area for long periods of time.”

“There were many sighting’s [sic] coming in and at the same time,” Iovinella continued. “It is believed that there could have been up to 30 drones moving around the county if not more and appeared to be working in a search pattern across the county.”

This was yet another night on eastern Colorado’s new drone patrol, following a slate of reports on mysterious fixed-wing drones in the area. They’d come out at night between approximately 7 to 10 p.m. The story, which was first reported by the Denver Post, got international press attention.

Matters kicked into high gear after a medical helicopter reported on January 8 to have flown dangerously close to a drone in the same general area. More than 70 local, state, federal, and military officials jumped into action, convened in a small town called Brush, Colorado, and formed a joint drone task force of 10 to 15 different government agencies to solve the mystery.

“In all of these cases,” Iovinella wrote in this statement, “it is unknown who owns the drone or what their purpose is.”

That’s because the drones never existed.

Real Supremacy: When All You Peasants Got Is "We Know They Exist",

DenverPost |  Myers suspects the drones might be operated by a private company, although the machines haven’t targeted any obvious landmarks or features — sometimes they fly over towns, other times over empty fields.

“They do not seem to be malicious,” Elliott said. “They don’t seem to be doing anything that would indicate criminal activity.”

Vic Moss, a Denver-based commercial photographer, drone pilot and co-owner of an online drone school called Drone U, said Monday he’d bet either a company or a government agency is flying the aircraft.

“We have a number of drone companies here in Colorado, and they’re very innovative,” he said. “So maybe they’re testing something of theirs out in that area because it is very rural. But everyone that I know of, they coordinate all that stuff with local authorities to prevent this very situation. They all very much want people to understand drones and not cause this kind of hysteria.”

The grid pattern suggests the drone operators might be creating a map or carrying out a search, Moss said, although he added that some drone operators will fly at night in order to use infrared cameras, which are sometimes used in agriculture to examine crops.

He urged people not to try to shoot the drones down, both because their batteries can cause intense fires and also because shooting a drone is a federal crime.

“It becomes a self-generating fire that burns until it burns itself out,” he said. “If you shoot a drone down over your house and it lands on your house, you might not have a house in 45 minutes.”

Even if the sheriff’s office identified the pilot or pilots of the drones, they’re likely not breaking any laws, Myers said.

“The way Colorado law is written, none of the statutes fit for harassment or trespassing,” Myers said. “Colorado hasn’t gotten on board with identifying the airspace around your property as the actual premises, so we don’t have anything we could charge.”

Drones For Mapping And Exploring The Deep Blue Sea

sciencefriday |  Giant jellyfish and mussels. Pallid shrimp, fish, and sea cucumbers. Never-before-seen octopus species. All these and more dwell in the deep sea, 200 meters (over 650 feet) and deeper beneath the ocean surface. It’s the largest habitat on Earth, but it’s also one of the least understood. 

As mining companies eye the mineral resources of the deep sea—from oil and gas, to metal deposits—marine biologists like London’s Natural History Museum’s Diva Amon are working to discover and describe as much of the deep sea as they can. Amon has been on dozens of expeditions to sea, where she’s helped characterize ecosystems and discover new species all over the world. And she says we still don’t know enough about deep sea ecology to know how to protect these species, the ones we’ve found and the ones we haven’t yet, from mining. 

[This is not your ordinary pine cone.]

But accessing the deep ocean is expensive; it can cost anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 a day to run a research ship. So roboticists and artificial intelligence designers are developing underwater drones to map and sniff out the secrets of the deep with the help of sophisticated chemical sensors. These robotic explorers could someday hunt down sunken ships or planes, hydrothermal vents, and biological spectacles such as rare species or a whale fall, at a cost significantly cheaper than today. Nine teams of roboticists designing these underwater crafts are now in a race to win the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE.

[The science behind Kilauea’s 30-year eruption.]

In this segment, Amon and XPRIZE’s Jyotika Virmani join Ira to talk about the future of deep ocean exploration—and what we might find there. And Martin Brooke, team leader of Blue Devil Ocean Engineering at Duke University, will discuss his team’s plan for mapping the deep ocean: aerial drones that drop sonar-sounding pods into the seas, then reel them up and move them to the next target.

Pentagon Busy Making Up Excuses To Boost Warsocialist Welfare

tomdispatch |  For almost 20 years, U.S. drone warfare was largely one-sided. Unlike Afghans and Yemenis, Iraqis and Somalis, Americans never had to worry about lethal robots hovering overhead and raining down missiles. Until, that is, one appeared in the skies above Florida.

But that’s a story for later. For now, let’s focus on a 2017 executive order issued by President Trump, part of his second attempt at a travel ban directed primarily at citizens of Muslim-majority nations. It begins: “It is the policy of the United States to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks.”

That sentence would be repeated in a January report from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” Meant to strengthen the president’s case for the travel ban, it was panned for its methodological flaws, pilloried for its inaccuracies, and would even spur a lawsuit by the civil rights organization, Muslim Advocates, and the watchdog group, Democracy Forward Foundation. In their complaint, those groups contend that the report was “biased, misleading, and incomplete” and “manipulates information to support its anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim conclusions.”

To bolster the president’s arguments for restricting the entry of foreigners into the United States, the DOJ/DHS analysis contained a collection of case summaries. Examples included: the Sudanese national who, in 2016, “pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to ISIS”; the Uzbek who “posted a threat on an Uzbek-language website to kill President Obama in an act of martyrdom on behalf of ISIS”; the Syrian who, in a plea agreement, “admitted that he knew a member of ISIS and that while in Syria he participated in a battle against the Syrian regime, including shooting at others, in coordination with Al Nusrah,” an al-Qaeda offshoot.

Such cases cited in the report, hardly spectacular terror incidents, were evidently calculated to sow fears by offering a list of convicted suspects with Muslim-sounding names. But the authors of the report simply looked in the wrong places. They could have found startling summaries of truly audacious attacks against the homeland in a collection of U.S. military documents from 2016 obtained by TomDispatch via the Freedom of Information Act. Those files detail a plethora of shocking acts of terrorism across the United States including mass poisonings, the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and that “People’s Armed Liberation (PAL) attack on U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) headquarters in Tampa, Florida, [by] a drone-launched missile.”

That’s right! A drone-launched missile attack! On CENTCOM’s Florida headquarters! By a terrorist group known as PAL!

Wondering how you missed the resulting 24/7 media bonanza, the screaming front page headlines in the New York Times, the hysterics on Fox & Friends, the president’s hurricane of tweets?

Well, there’s a simple explanation. That attack doesn’t actually happen until May 2020. Or so says the summary of the 33rd annual Joint Land, Air, and Sea Strategic Special Program (JLASS-SP), an elaborate war game carried out in 2016 by students and faculty from the U.S. military’s war colleges, the training grounds for its future generals and admirals.

Afrikan Liberation Movement - Amazon Giving RealTime Facial Rekognition To Law Enforcement

WaPo |  Amazon has been essentially giving away facial recognition tools to law enforcement agencies in Oregon and Orlando, according to documents obtained by American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, paving the way for a rollout of technology that is causing concern among civil rights groups.

Amazon is providing the technology, known as Rekognition, as well as consulting services, according to the documents, which the ACLU obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

A coalition of civil rights groups, in a letter released Tuesday, called on Amazon to stop selling the program to law enforcement because it could lead to the expansion of surveillance of vulnerable communities.

“We demand that Amazon stop powering a government surveillance infrastructure that poses a grave threat to customers and communities across the country,” the groups wrote in the letter.

Amazon spokeswoman Nina Lindsey did not directly address the concerns of civil rights groups. “Amazon requires that customers comply with the law and be responsible when they use AWS services,” she said, referring to Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud software division that houses the facial recognition program. “When we find that AWS services are being abused by a customer, we suspend that customer’s right to use our services.”

She said that the technology has many useful purposes, including finding abducted people.  Amusement parks have used it to locate lost children. During the royal wedding this past weekend, clients used Rekognition to identify wedding attendees, she said. (Amazon founder Jeffrey P. Bezos is the owner of The Washington Post.)

The details about Amazon’s program illustrate the proliferation of cutting-edge technologies deep into American society — often without public vetting or debate. Axon, the maker of Taser electroshock weapons and the wearable body cameras for police, has voiced interest in pursuing face recognition for its body-worn cameras, prompting a similar backlash from civil rights groups.  Hundreds of Google employees protested last month to demand that the company stop providing artificial intelligence to the Pentagon to help analyze drone footage.