Today's soldiers are invisible. They can't be harmed by bullets or chemical weapons. They can see through walls and distinguish enemy from civilian with a simple glance.
At least, that was the vision outlined in a 2001 Pentagon-funded report, "Objective Force Warrior: Another Look," (.pdf) written by a smattering of military officers, academics, magazine editors ... and the original Man Who Stared at Goats.
At the dawn of the War on Terror, the 68-person panel convened over six days at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Their assignment: Come up with a report that'd outline what the soldier of 2011 should look like.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Jim Channon drew up the artwork that accompanies the report. His name should sound familiar: Channon is the singular mind behind 1979's "First Earth Battalion," the project that helped inspire The Men Who Stare at Goats.
Channon's previous tome -- complete with his own illustrations -- recommended that soldiers carry baby goats and greet enemies with "an automatic hug." He wanted military brass to embrace psychic powers, aspire to global pacifism and train soldiers to be yoga-loving "Monk Warriors."**
To their credit, the Oak Ridge panel issued a report far less zany than Channon's previous work. (Goats merit nary a mention.) Still, the document -- unearthed by Danger Room -- offers a glimpse into the ultra-ambitious aspirations of a military amped on techno-centrism, and brimming with the unlimited budget of the newly minted War on Terror.
'Wouldn't It Be Cool If...?'
Some of the report's ideas for "the Warrior of the Future" seem straight out of a sci-fi flick. Partially, that's because they Oak Ridge panel took a decidedly Hollywood approach to conceptualizing tomorrow's soldier. Rather than go through what might be possible, given the constraints of technology and time, they instead asked themselves: "Wouldn't it be cool if ...?"
One example, "Wouldn’t it be cool if the Objective Force Warrior could destroy any target, and bring resources to bear within seconds?" They quickly developed a list of about twenty "Wouldn’t it be cool if's," including one about invisibility.
The report wants soldiers to be "invisible at all spectrums of light," and have helmets imbued with "through the wall" vision. Combined, the panelists wrote, those abilities would allow American forces to "engage the target in any terrain [and] always know where the enemy is."
Of course, every army ever assembled has prayed for perfect knowledge of their enemies' position and for perfect camouflage to keep those enemies from finding them. But the tech necessary for such battlefield perks was -- and remains -- a ways off. Yes, scientists earlier this year actually managed to cloak an event, but only for an iota of a single second. And while cutting-edge handheld scanners can detect people behind concrete walls, they're not exactly Superman's x-ray vision.
The report also wanted helmets to operate as all-seeing, all-knowing, artificially-intelligent allies for American troops. In 2011, the panel predicted, helmets would offer soldiers whatever they needed -- maps, drone feeds, language translation -- and even give them advice during a mission.
"Remember how you used to tell me that playing all those videogames wouldn't get me anywhere in life?" Bobby, a fictional soldier whose "letter home" is used by the report to show how the tech would be incorporated in combat, wrote to his parents. "You have to see my helmet to believe it, it's like an IMAX movie right before my eyes."
One of the panel's four brainstorming groups -- "The Mystics" -- anticipated helmets with built-in 360-degree vision, the ability to see through any barrier, detect the presence of weapons or chemical agents, and quickly distinguish enemy from civilian.
The helmets would also incorporate an artificially intelligent "decision aide" that could analyze Bobby's surroundings, and then offer rapid advice.
"I just ask my helmet, 'What is the probability that the person in my sights wants to kill me?'," Bobby marveled. Basically: Siri goes to war.
Virtual War and Starlight Eyes
But the panel's ideas weren't entirely sci-fi. Some of 'em have, over the past decade, actually been implemented.
Combat helmets have yet to make war indistinguishable from a videogame. But much of a soldier's training has been virtualized, and it's a realm of research the Pentagon continues to encourage.
Already, the military's invested in helmets that double as virtual reality training hubs. They've got virtual worlds to prep everyone from new enlistees to top brass for the rigors of war. Now, the Army's even looking into virtual reality that'd leave a mark, using "an impulse force" to mimic bullets and explosions.
Then there's wireless networking. The report pushed hard for an ultra-networked Army -- one where soldiers, drones, satellites, command stations and weapons stayed in constant, real-time contact. That should sound familiar: The concept informed Future Combat Systems, the $200 billion boondoggle that was largely scrapped in 2009 by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The idea was that an ultra-connected fighting force would have perfect knowledge of the battlefield -- and therefore wouldn't need a whole lot of heavy armor. Iraq pretty much disproved that notion.
But Iraq and Afghanistan also showed that better-connected troops are more lethal troops. And so the push to improve wireless communications and expand combat networks continues, however unevenly. The next step may be to outfit troops with smartphones.
The report also recommended cutting-edge night-vision, so that soldiers could "see by starlight just as well as if it was mid-day" and use "infrared detectors" linked to analysis programs. So a soldier could spot anything that emitted heat, and the program would determine what it was.
The current technology's not there yet. But it's not too far away either. Today's see-in-the-dark gear includes thermal sensors and unprecedented detection and identification abilities. And Darpa-funded scientists have made amazing progress on software that can teach itself to identify objects.
Robot Mules and Bullet-Proof G.I.s
For the most part, the report's authors just got ahead of themselves. Plenty of their ideas are feasible, and probably beneficial. They're just five, 10, or even 20 years off.
Take robotic mules, for example. The report noted "an immediate need" for a robotic follower that'd carry most of a soldier's gear and be able to filter walter and recharge batteries. Once developed, the 'bots would be refined until they attained humanoid status. The report even had a specific human in mind: "KATO, the sidekick to Green Hornet on the TV show." Based on "artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, path planning ... the [robot] could perform a number of functions by itself," and "share in the accomplishment of the mission."
The report estimated it'd be two to three years before robots were trailing soldiers in the field. A decade later, "load carrying" robots are still a few years off -- although Robo Pack-Mules have even marched alongside troops during exercises at Fort Benning.
The report's authors also imagined a soldier whose uniform rendered him nearly invincible. Soldiers were expected to have "Full Spectrum Protection from Ballistic [and] Chem/Bio Threats," along with vital sign monitoring and instant hemorrhage control following an injury. All incorporated, by 2018, into an exoskeleton that'd also help them move faster and carry a ton of gear.
Body armor is better these days. But in no way will it make a soldier bulletproof. Pentagon-funded scientists have made progress toward uniforms that double as chemical threat-detectors, though. And a ton of military-funded programs are investigating better gadgetry to detect myriad chemical and biological hazards.
As for vital signs and hemorrhage control? Not actually as wild they sound. Georgetown researchers have designed a "smart shirt" with tracking sensors, though it's yet to be fielded, and the military's recently rolled out simple, ready-to-use tourniquets.
And exoskeletons, freaky as they seem, are being tested by the Army. Will they be ready by 2018? It's hard to predict.
Keep Trying
Combined, the panel's ideas -- immersive networking, artificial intelligence, superhero uniforms -- would have turned American soldiers into lethal killers of the kind only before seen in Vin Diesel movies.
For the most part, they haven't happened. And while some of the ideas still strike as outright sci-fi, the military's acquisition process probably slowed down a few of the feasible ones. "The current deployment process of technologies is too slow to take advantage of rapidly evolving technology," the report warned. "With a 10-15 year acquisition cycle time, by the time troops get systems, they are already outdated."
And those lags haven't gotten much better, much to the disapproval of some top experts.
So the Pentagon hasn't quite turned soldiers into Objective Force Warriors. But there's plenty of time for them to keep trying: As Danger Room reminds you, each and every day, the U.S. military's got a lot of battlespace left to master.
Illustrations: Oak Ridge National Laboratory/Jim Channon
