New Technology May Cut Risk of Giving Syrian Rebels Stinger Missiles 279
Hugh Pickens writes "PBS reports on a proposal of arming Syrian rebels with a force equalizer to make a decisive blow against Bashar al-Assad's ruling regime — an idea that has so far failed to take hold inside the Obama administration because of serious concerns about flooding a troubled region with dangerous weapons that someday might fall into the wrong hands. Could sophisticated weapons, such as anti-aircraft missile systems, be outfitted with mechanisms that would disable them if they fell into the wrong hands? According to military analyst Anthony Cordesman the U.S. could modify Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and anti-tank weapons with batteries that cease functioning in a few weeks or months or the weapons could be built to require authentication codes before they are enabled to work. "I think it would be relatively decisive," says Cordesman. ... Another idea is to install GPS-disabling devices so that Stinger missiles only worked in a designated geographic area, such as only in Syria. Such weapons, it is believed, might tip the balance in favor of the rebels in the same way that Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, provided by the United States to the Afghan Mujahedeen, helped expel the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. Cordesman stressed that this type of weapon would have to be thoroughly tested to make sure the controls work and could not be undone. 'You could not transfer these types of weapons without these types of protections. You simply have no way to know where they would end up, how they would be transferred, what would happen to them.'"
Re:Good idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
This sounds great until you consider how innovative people in the middle east have been with weaponry during the recent wars there. I'm skeptical that the security on these things would survive the first set of batteries.
Re:US Military (Score:4, Interesting)
We have no business being in any of these rebellions from Libya all through the middle east.
On the contrary, we have BIG business in these 'rebellions'. Just remember, it's strictly business.
Syrian Rebels ARE the WRONG HANDS! (Score:2, Interesting)
Syrian Rebels ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Al Qaeda.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57531618/rebels-ally-with-al-qaeda-group-to-take-syrian-base/ [cbsnews.com]
But the Libyan "rebels" were Al Qaeda imports, too. Just the distortion field of western corporate media makes this "Arab Spring" bullshit.
Re:DRM for weapons? (Score:3, Interesting)
Big difference: Hard penalties are allowable in military devices. No consumer device will ever succeed in the market if it contains hard penalties as tamper responses.
As a result, consumer device DRM will ALWAYS be broken because an attacker can try repeatedly to defeat the protection. Hard penalties result in failures to attack a device causing permanent unrecoverable damage.
Re:Good idea... (Score:4, Interesting)
The Oneida after the Revolutionary War,
the Tuscarora after the War of 1812,
the Cossaks after WWII,
the Hukbalahaps after WWII,
the ARVN after Vietnam,
the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan,
the Shia and Kurds after the Gulf War,
the Sunni after the Iraq war,
and probably many more.
It's a wonder anyone's still dumb enough to play on Uncle Sam's team. Does anyone doubt what's going to happen to the Afghan government and military after the United States finally leaves?