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Infowar weapons may be even more exotic than computer viruses. Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has developed a suitcase-size device that generates a high-powered electromagnetic pulse. Commandos could sneak into a foreign capital, place the EMP suitcase next to a bank and set it off. The resulting pulse would burn out all electronic components in the building. Other proposals combine biology with electronics. For instance, Pentagon officials believe microbes can be bred to eat the electronics and insulating material inside computers just as microorganisms consume trash and oil slicks.
Infowar will aggressively foster new intelligence-gathering techniques. The Pentagon already has satellites, spy planes and unmanned aircraft with cameras aboard to watch the enemy on the ground. In the future, thousands of tiny sensors may be sent airborne or covertly planted on land. M.I.T.'s Lincoln Laboratory is trying to build an unmanned aerial vehicle about the size of a cigarette pack that can take pictures. Miniature aerial sensors might even smell out the enemy. For example, aerosols would be sprayed over enemy troops, or chemicals would be clandestinely introduced into their food supply. Then biosensors flying overhead, says Thomas Baines at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, would "track their movement from their breath or sweat," so they could be targeted for attack.
While infowar may precede fighting or prevent it, the techniques and the technology can also enhance the management of an actual hot war, and make up for shortfalls in the conventional armed forces. With the Pentagon budget shrinking and the total U.S. ground Army of 1.1 million soldiers now only the eighth largest in the world, senior military officers believe they will have to harness America's technological lead in information processing and communications in order to fight future battles. During a simulated war game last May at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, a 20,000-man infantry division, outfitted with sophisticated information-processing equipment and smart weapons the Army hopes to have fully deployed by the year 2010, was pitted against a North Korean army corps three times its size. With computers that pass combat orders quickly and sensors that see the enemy better on the battlefield, the high-tech division "just clobbered them," says Brigadier General Keith Kellogg of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command.
Scientists at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory are testing a virtually omniscient computer system called Force Threat Evaluation and Weapon Assignment. It takes a Navy battle group's radar signals and converts them into a three-dimensional picture that the admiral watches on a monitor. Instead of confusing symbols, he sees graphics of enemy and friendly planes. Using a mouse, he can manipulate the video to look at the threat from any angle. The computer recommends the targets he should attack and even keeps watch on the skies when he's away from the screen. If the computer detects a threat, an "alert banner" that looks like a stock ticker above the screen flashes and tells the aide on duty, CALL THE ADMIRAL NOW!!