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One thing that's always bothered me about our country's military strategy is its utter dependence on weapons that kill. Yep, you read right. Here's some alternatives:
Sleep Weapons: It wouldn't take much of a technological leap for us to create "bombs" (maybe something like fancy water balloons) and "bullets" (darts) that do nothing more than put people to sleep for a few hours. Our troops (wearing masks to protect them from inhaling the sleep agent) could take this opportunity to easily distinguish "the enemy" from innocent civilians and to safely take them into custody.
Joy Weapons: Creating a gas that has similar "love drug" affects to Ecstasy could cause an enemy to lay down their arms, or at the very least, become much more relaxed and friendly about the whole "war thing". See above for dispersal ideas.
Intelligence Assets: One thing I hear repeatedly from various military, intelligence, terrorism and national security experts is that we desperately need more intelligence operatives on the ground worldwide. They say that this "preventative" approach would make us more secure (and therefore save more lives) than all the weapons our tax dollars could buy. It makes sense to me.
Then I hear why it can't be done. One example commonly cited is that we could have placed operatives inside Al Qaeda terrorist cells, but that they would have been required to assassinate someone to prove their loyalty. Look, if the A Team can install a hidden camera by pretending to be plumbers, surely the CIA can do the same. No cell is an island.
Sleep and joy weapons could easily be refitted to work for intelligence operatives. For example, once pierced, a bullet proof vest could shoot out a focused stream of sleep agent at the warm body nearest to the point from which the bullet came. We already have the technology necessary for the various components: body heat detectors, trajectory computation software, pressurized sprayers and wired vests.
A peaceful solutions software system: For more information,
see my brief proposal.