We can argue hoarsely for what our ancestor, descending from a tree and standing on his hind limbs, took a stick in his hands: to bring down the fruits growing on palm trees, or in order to warm an uninvited guest. One way or another, but since then, the “man with a stick” posed a certain threat. That is why one of the “humane” doctrines of the wars of the future is aimed at disarming the enemy.
The main thing is to tune to the frequency
Not long ago, the Institute for Defense Research (Agency for Defense Development) of South Korea informed members of the country’s parliament that it plans to create weapons by 2016, the damaging effect of which is based on the use of a powerful electromagnetic pulse. The prototype, as planned, will see the light in a couple of years. It is reported that non-lethal (which, you must admit, does not mean safe), electromagnetic bombs for a person will turn all electrical and electronic equipment into unnecessary rubbish. The strongest field that arose during the explosion, causing short-term overvoltages of thousands of volts, in fact, will deprive the enemy of computers, communications, radar receivers – in a word,
However, Koreans are unlikely to be able to take any leading positions in this niche. The world first learned about a new type of weapon in the early 90s of the last century, when the English newspaper Daily Telegraph revealed that the development of a charge in England, the explosion of which is detrimental to computer equipment and other electronics, is being completed because it generates a high-frequency directed electromagnetic wave and gigantic power. But in reality, work on this project has been going on at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico, since the 1980s under the auspices of the Directed Energy Directorate.
Already today, at least the USA, Russia, Great Britain, France and China possess microwave weapons, or electromagnetic weapons. A partial confirmation of this is the publication that was not refuted by Washington, which circumvented, it seems, all online publications that American troops used the electromagnetic bomb in Baghdad’s bombing for the first time (possibly more than once), dropping it on a state broadcasting station and paralyzing several hours of work last.
The public has been repeatedly informed that in the first two weeks of hostilities in Yugoslavia more than four hundred super-heavy JDAM planning air bombs were dropped onto its territory, the effect of which is based on such a damaging factor as EMR. As a result, the air defense radar system, to put it mildly, ceased to be a system. And already at the final stage, another bomb was tested in Yugoslavia – this time a controlled cluster W-CMD, which quite effectively deprived power of some parts of the country.
However, according to experts, one should not so unconditionally accept the reports of the military on harmlessness to homo sapiens electromagnetic weapons. This seems to be another myth. It is believed that, depending on the frequency and strength, EMR can introduce such a discord in the functioning of the higher nervous system and human mental activity, which not every body can cope with. Scientists delicately stipulate that far from all the consequences of using electromagnetic weapons have been studied. There is reason to believe that today the United States has already tested and accepted at least four types of electromagnetic munitions for artillery barrel and salvo systems. Little of,
Nevertheless, it is worth recognizing: the main goal of electromagnetic weapons is not a person. Moreover, unlike electronic suppression means created back in the 20th century, promising new developments are capable of “sentencing” enemy equipment completely or partially disconnected from the network within a radius of about 200 meters from the epicenter. And they will be applied both on land and at sea. Thus, sources say that in the next decade the US Navy will “take on board” electromagnetic guns, shells to which, in particular, due to the powerful potential of kinetic energy, will have much more penetrating power than modern ones. Tests have shown
Americans plan to launch approximately the same guns into space. It is assumed that the kinetic energy of the shells attached to them weighing 1 kg and a flight speed of 10 km / s is adequate to an explosion energy of more than 10 kg of TNT. Such, in fact, an ordinary metal blank, it is not difficult to knock off a ballistic missile from the trajectory or destroy its warhead.
By the way, a reasonable question: if the weapon is ready, why not equip the US Navy with it now? The answer is simple: current ships are not able to provide electromagnetic guns with the necessary amount of energy. Therefore, we need new floating facilities, which are developed by experts of the Pentagon research institutes.
And recently, a Russian-made electronic bomb was tested in Sweden. In a split second, all electronic and computer systems that were within the radius of the Russian bomb were out of order. Including the one intended for installation on the Jas-39 Gripen multipurpose fighter. “Russians today are some of the best manufacturers of this type of weapon in the world,” admitted A. Cullens, an expert at the Swedish Military Research Institute.
Basically, electromagnetic bombs are nothing more than a common term for high-power microwave (HPM) weapons.
Speaking about its merits, James Benford, president of Microwave Sciences, said: “The general public may not know about the use of HPM, because its main advantage is unexpectedness. The fact of using electromagnetic bombs can be completely denied. It will not even occur to the victims that it’s there was an attack. They will just think that there was another failure in their computer network. ” Today, the Air Force experts are developing and “bringing to mind” electromagnetic bombs, the carriers of which will be cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and even helicopters.
There are also miniature options that fit in an ordinary portfolio, but are able to give out a very powerful pulse of microwave radiation with the help of accumulated energy. Moreover, at present, there are no restrictive measures preventing the proliferation of electronic weapons. But even if they are agreed by the international community, this is unlikely to solve the problem due to the difficulties of “diagnosing” the use of electromagnetic weapons. Scientists see salvation elsewhere, being confident that electronics will not always be so vulnerable to him, since work is already underway in some laboratories to create powerful screens that cover military equipment. But the main,
Front Without front line
is clear: anyone who underestimates the importance of means and methods of information attack, could not consider myself an expert on the future of warfare. In principle, such battles have been going on for centuries and continue to this day. Unless their nature and scale are gradually changing, improving from year to year. For example, during the last war in the Persian Gulf, the Americans used an unprecedented number of wave ranges for the reception and transmission of certain information – about 50 thousand! But this is not the limit.
By themselves, the techniques of information battles are not a special secret. This electronic warfare, and computer viruses, and crypto protection, and cracking codes, and psychological operations with the massive use of misinformation and propaganda in electronic and other media. To the forefront in the ongoing and, all the more so – in the upcoming battles, it is not the sudden delivery of this or that information blow that is put forward, but the integrated use of the entire arsenal. Although individual actions, such as carefully planned attacks by hackers or “dropping” “logically thinking” bombs, are able to paralyze entire countries, taking control of many strategically important objects out of control.
According to some analysts, a well-organized “electronic Pearl Harbor” is able to demoralize the enemy so much that the need for direct military action can lose all relevance. Realizing this, the Pentagon even more than ten years ago initiated the adoption of a special directive that defined the concept of information warfare. It is characteristic that billions of dollars are spent annually on the implementation of the items of this carefully developed document. And the farther – the more that once again emphasizes the severity of the problem. The CIA does not hide that it is well known to it: today the departments of computer crackers have intelligence services in China, India, Russia, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Israel and several other countries. Not without reason, General Kenneth Monihan, director of the US National Security Agency, said: “Information attacks can have the most catastrophic consequences, especially if they are conducted in an organized manner, at the state level. I believe that such actions should be equated to the use of weapons of mass destruction.”
And this is by no means a hyperbole; otherwise, should the Americans have formed special units in the FBI to protect the country’s information networks and in the armed forces for active information offensive operations? For example, to disable the systems for controlling the types and sorts of enemy troops and violating the structure of energy supply and life support in general. It is for these purposes that a complex of computer weapons systems has been developed, code-named “Blitzkrieg”, whose chief designer Larry Wood not without pride remarked: “Our viruses infect even computers that are disconnected from the network.” Recent tests conducted not so long ago proved the correctness of the words “viral dad”: life in a certain simulated country literally stopped. One of the leaders of the exercise, General Thomas Murman, said: “Blitzkrieg” simply crushed the enemy; with it, we will be able to stop the war before it begins. ”
Moreover, it is this type of war, for which the United States has been preparing cyber-soldiers for more than a year, now many experts call it civilized, since it will allow to do without victims. In any case, at some stage. Of course, one such cyber warrior, who threw himself with a viral fragmentation grenade under an entire tank enemy division, will turn formidable armored monsters into motionless statues as effectively as the mythical Gorgon Medusa. In addition, the assets of this virtual army have weapons that can erase any information from the face of the earth, regardless of its importance, or bring people to mental distress, striking the mind and destroying the methods and forms of personal identification in relation to fixed communities, transform the individual’s memory matrix and even inspire him, to put it mildly, loyalty to the aggressor. That, you see, it’s not getting into any gates.
Another advantage of the information war is its permanence. In fact, it is not declared and does not end with a truce or the final rout of one side or the other – it is constantly in the process of its development. It continues today, and it represents a very global informational, cultural, and ideological expansion carried out through world telecommunication networks and through the media. So serious that many countries are forced to take special measures to “defend” their culture, traditions and spiritual values from alien informational influence. And if you add to this the universality, secrecy, multivariance and radical impact,
The main target is the information infrastructure of society, which includes the armed forces, enterprises of the defense complex, government agencies responsible for the external and internal security of the country. A massive impact on various parts of this system can have disastrous consequences. Especially taking into account the fact that the rate of improvement of information weapons, as experts say, significantly outstrips the pace of development of defense technologies. What, in principle, is not surprising: the means of attack always qualitatively dominated the capabilities of defense, otherwise any gains would be very problematic.
Naturally, information resources are mutually vulnerable. That’s why the report of the Joint Security Commission, established by order of the Secretary of Defense and the CIA Director in the USA, says: “Data networks are turning into the battlefield of the future. Information weapons, the strategy and tactics of which have yet to be carefully developed, will be used with electronic speeds “during defense and attack. Information technologies will ensure the resolution of geopolitical crises without a single shot.”
