Invisible Death and Pain: Welcome to Your Future

If you go to war, if you die in war, the chances are you will be killed by an invisible force. By a rocket fired from miles above, by invisible energy beams, by invisible tanks and ships. Death is easy. Living is hard, and getting harder for combatants.

The “stealthiest” ship that currently exists is Sweden’s Visby Corvette. Apart from being painted in grey dazzle camouflage and made of low-radar reflectivity materials, it also does not use propellers, which are the noisiest part of a ship. The vessel also has the lowest “magnetic signature” of any current warship.

But the next generation of warships could be truly invisible by exploiting “metamaterials” – artificially engineered structures first dreamt up by physicist John Pendry at Imperial College, London. Metamaterials are tailored to have specific electromagnetic properties not found in nature. In particular, they can bend light around an object, making it appear to an observer as though the waves have passed through empty space.___Source

The US Pentagon is developing futuristic energy weapons, of course. High power lasers, microwaves, sound waves...

It's a gun that doesn't look anything like a gun: it's that flat dish antenna which shoots out a 100,000-watt beam at the speed of light, hitting any thing in its path with an intense blast of heat.

An operator uses a joystick to zero in on a target. Visible only with an infrared camera, the gun, when fired emits a flash of white hot energy -- an electromagnetic beam made up of very high frequency radio waves. ___CBS

The Active Denial System causes exquisite pain, but does not kill. But a slight modification to the system could change that. Current sentimental non-lethality is not likely to survive the next large scale terror attack on a western homeland.

It is not just the Pentagon that is getting into the high-tech energy weapons. China is doing its best to keep up, and possibly get ahead here and there.

"China is developing a multi-dimensional program to limit or prevent the use of space-based assets by its potential adversaries during times of crisis or conflict," the report said.

The report said the Chinese People's Liberation Army had developed a range of weapons and jammers to prevent an enemy from using space-based systems such as satellites.

"The PLA is also exploring satellite jammers, kinetic energy weapons, high-powered lasers, high-powered microwave weapons, particle beam weapons, and electromagnetic pulse weapons for counterspace application," it said.___Source

China is still dependent on the US and the west for its economic and industrial well-being. Consider the way Asian and Chinese stock markets get pneumonia when the US markets catch cold. Still, when the time is right, and Chinese leaders feel they are ready economically to act against the US, they intend to be ready militarily.

Consider it an arms race to the singularity. Eventually satellites will be armed with energy beam weapons as well. But the truly dangerous weapons are those that are invisible because they are so small. Nano-bio weapons. You will not be relieved to know that the US and China are racing for superiority on that front as well.

Meanwhile, back in the current capital of western civilisation, the US public is consumed by the political spectacle of the 2008 presidential election campaign. Of the candidates likely to win--either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton--both lack a firm grasp of the larger reality they will be expected to face in the real world outside US politics. Psychological neotenates in oblivion, living in a dream world on borrowed time.

My suggestion to readers. Think about what is likely to happen. Where do you want to be when it does? Who do you want to be with, and what sort of environment do you want to create for yourself? Do not count on affirmative action. Do not count on political correctness. Do not count on society or relief agencies.