dangerroom – Worlding

At first the story was that the Syrian government has dropped hallucinogens on insurgents.

But now it seems that U.S. State Department official might have been the ones tripping, or at least imagining things. Countering a story appearing earlier this week in Foreign Policy about the

mysterious properties of a substance called “Agent 15,” American officials now say the whole thing was a bit of an exaggeration. Or put in more official language, the report ”did not accurately convey the anecdotal information that we had received from a third party regarding an alleged incident in Syria.” As DangerRoom quoted the State Department, Continue reading “The state department’s merry pranksters”

“Anti-mine warfare is a critical mission for the Navy, as nations like Iran can mess with the global economy just by threatening to plant mines in crucial commercial waterways,” reports DangerRoom today.

“Ashton, the Navy’s program manager for its seafaring robots, has a different idea:

Let the robots do the dirty work. By April, he tells Danger Room, he hopes to solicit defense contractors to build something called the Unmanned Influence Sweep System, or UISS, a robotic ship charged with speeding out into suspected minefields and essentially fooling them into detonating them before they come in contact with a ship full of sailors. If the UISS works as intended, it’ll be part of a fleet of near-future Navy robot ships and subs designed to neutralize some of the most immediate threats on the high seas. Continue reading “And now, the robot ship”