SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Taliban Have Gone High-Tech. That Poses a Dilemma for the U.S.
Once described as an ill-equipped band of insurgents, the Taliban are increasingly attacking security forces across Afghanistan using night-vision goggles and lasers that United States military officials said were either stolen from Afghan and international troops or bought on the black market.
The devices allow the Taliban to maneuver on forces under the cover of darkness as they track the whirling blades of coalition helicopters, the infrared lasers on American rifles, or even the bedtime movements of local police officers.
With this new battlefield visibility, the Taliban more than doubled nighttime attacks from 2014 to 2017, according to one United States military official who described internal Pentagon data on the condition of anonymity. The number of Afghans who were wounded or killed during nighttime attacks during that period nearly tripled.
That has forced American commanders to rethink the limited access they give Afghan security forces to the night-vision devices. Commanders now worry that denying the expensive equipment to those forces puts them at a technological disadvantage, with potentially lethal consequences.
See also: Taliban ramps up attacks to send message that no one is safe
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @11:59AM (6 children)
Now the taliban fighters are prone to infrared flashing attacks at night. Better eqipped side can flood the environment with pseudorandom flashes, while their own combatants can have descramblers filtering the flash peaks out.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 02 2018, @12:32PM (5 children)
We should understand, by now, that the arms race never ends. The hoplites had some brilliant leader, who figured out that a block of spearmen were all but invincible, if they only maintained discipline. It didn't take terribly long for other armies to figure that thing out. Then came light cav, then heavy cav. Then archers. Heavy infantry. Light infantry. Firearms altered every aspect of warfare. Eventually, mechanized infantry and armor. Aviation was at least as disruptive as firearms. Always, the various opposing forces and potential opposing forces acquire the newest technology. In the American West, the Indians had no industry, as we think of it. They couldn't get guns - until the round eyes started trading guns to them. Someone is always willing to sell, if the price is right.
Today, we have night vision. Whoop-ti-do. The other side took a few years to get it, but they have it. Stolen? That is the nature of war. All armies have "appropriated" supplies, from garden vegetables, chickens, pigs, cattle, right on up to any state-of-the-art weaponry they could lay hands on.
Oh, wait - where did they ever get the money? Oh. Yeah, I remember reading several articles about the Taliban nearly eradicating the poppies. Then, the US entered the picture, and the poppies started proliferating again. Addicts right here in America are paying for some of that night vision gear!
Now you want to do flash attacks? Oh-kay. Don't be at all surprised when the savages find a way around that. Maybe a spy finds the codes to determine when the infrared should black out? Maybe they just hack the communications? I don't know, but they'll come up with some way to counter your seemingly random flashes. It's just another step in the arms race.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 02 2018, @02:04PM (3 children)
Or maybe they do it in turn, making all night enhancement devices useless.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 02 2018, @03:18PM (1 child)
Great idea, except for one thing. Anything that radiates energy can be targeted. So, for that idea to work very effectively, they need some kind of throwaway thingamabob. Maybe an ultracheap little laser pointer, mounted to some kind of spinning whirligig thing. Mount it, snap it on, and let the wind spin it round and round. No one within a couple miles will be able to see very well, using infrared. All you need do is be well clear of the device before a forward observer calls the position in to artillery. Not much worry about an airstrike, the laser pointer is likely to blind any pilots. Drones are probably a different story. Like artillery, feed in coordinates, and it launches a missile - no real "vision" involved, I suppose.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 02 2018, @03:57PM
Or fireworks and flares.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @04:58PM
Does Samsung make exploding batteries for these devices?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @02:19PM
I generally agree with most of your comments. However...
The Taliban only reduced poppy production and/or stockpiled product for the purpose of increasing its market price. (Source: Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid). Most of the product back in the 90s / 00s was going to Europe. Some of it may have made its way to the US, but it was primarily for European destinations.
I don't know to what extent that is still true in the 2010s, so my information may no longer be current.