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Homeland Security & Defense Less Lethal Solutions I: As War on Terror Continues, Non-Lethal Weapons Find a Growing Battlefield Role
Oct 21, 2007 – By Barry Zellen

Long a popular tool for civilian law enforcement and riot control, non-lethal weapons (NLWs) are increasingly being used by military professionals who find themselves engaged in protracted counterinsurgency and post-conflict missions, where the use of deadly force can often clash with the political and diplomatic dimensions of their missions. Case in point: the September 16th incident involving Blackwater International that resulted in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians and the injury of 24 others while protecting a U.S. State Department convoy. A less lethal solution can help reduce diplomatic tensions as America’s warfighters struggle to pacify insurgencies that threaten to topple our new democratic allies from Afghanistan to Iraq, where leaders face rising domestic discontent with each new civilian casualty.
 
To help American forces develop and diversify its non-lethal arsenal, in July 1996 the U.S. Department of Defense issued a policy directive on NLWs, establishing DOD policies and responsibilities for the development and deployment of NLWs, and designating the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps (USMC) as the executive agent for DOD’s Non-Lethal Weapons Program. The Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD), based in Quantico, Virginia, was created to take charge of DOD’s identification, evaluation and development of NLWs, working with each of the armed services. Its motto is “Pax Custimus, Vita Custimus,” which in Latin means “Safeguarding Peace, Safeguarding Life.”
 
New NLW Technologies and the Post Cold War Era
The military utility of NLWs became increasingly clear during the chaotic days of the early post-Cold War era, when the word “Balkanization” described the crumbling international order, and ethnic cleansing and inter-ethnic violence dominated the international security landscape. Before the Cold War’s end, NLWs in the military arsenal were more traditional tools, like concertina wire, tear gas canisters, water cannons, and rubber bullets. 

But during the 1990s, a new crop of technologies entered the non-lethal arsenal. During the withdrawal of UN forces from Somalia in Operation United Shield in 1995, this new generation of NLW technology was deployed operationally for the first time, including such tools as sticky foam guns, anti-traction lubricants, and beanbag ammunition. NLWs were also deployed in Kosovo, and have found repeated use during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, providing American forces with an alternative to deadly force on the asymmetrical battlefields of the war on terror, such as Vehicle Lightweight Arresting Devices (VLADs), and Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs), which have been deployed at checkpoints to help protect soldiers from approaching vehicles, providing a less lethal substitute for deadly force. Flash-bang grenades were deployed during the battle of Fallujah, providing a less lethal alternative to fragmentation munitions, reducing collateral civilian deaths.  
 
In its 2003 Assessment of Non-Lethal Weapons Science and Technology, the Naval Studies Board (NSB) recommended that the JNLWD “focus its resources on stimulating and exploring new ideas, and on strengthening the DOD’s ability to characterize the effects and effectiveness” of NLWs. It also recommended that the JNLWD narrow its mission space to “speed transformation of NLWs from specialty status to that of fully integrated warfighting options through strong advocacy and to increase confidence in non-lethal weapons options by expanding DOD’s understanding of the effects of NLWs on human and materiel.” According to 2006 USMC Concepts + Programs report, The U.S. Marine Corps: Creating Stability in an Unstable World, “NLWs provide the warfighter and senior leadership with additional options for responding to irregular challenges,” and “given the desire of our enemies to strike in the United States, non-lethal weapon capabilities for National Guard, Reserves and active forces in homeland defense and civil support operations will be critical in site security, maritime interdiction, area denial and consequence management operations.”

Between Shout and Shoot
I spoke with Capt. Teresa Ovalle, Strategic Communications Officer at the JNLWD, who noted there “has been an increase in non-lethal weapons available to our warfighters. Technology, availability, and requirements are all factors in the development and fielding of non-lethal weapons.” Ovalle explained that “NLWs are designed and employed to achieve military objectives while minimizing human casualties or damage to property and equipment,” and that they’re “used as part of continuum of the escalation of force. They give the commander on the ground another opportunity to potentially de-escalate a situation. NLWs are often the difference between ‘shoot’ and ‘shout’.” She added that NLWs “are applicable to the entire range of military operations, from humanitarian efforts to the Global War on Terrorism,” and as such “they offer the warfighter an option to something other than lethal means, which can potentially de-escalate a situation.”
 
According to Ovalle, “the types of missions supported by non-lethal weapons include: checkpoint security, facility or infrastructure security, entry control points, humanitarian aid distribution security, maritime or port security, crowd or mob dispersal,” and “as research, development, testing, and evaluation continue to evolve, the Department of Defense is examining their future use in support of a variety of missions, such as temporarily disabling combatants, crowd or mob dispersal, disabling or disrupting logistics operations, perimeter security, checkpoints, and rendering enemy assets inoperable with little to no collateral damage. Non-lethal weapons do not replace the need for lethal force but enhance the capability of U.S. forces to accomplish mission objectives.”
 
Ovalle pointed out that NLWs offer “both high- and low-tech solutions to warfighter requirements,” and both these high- and low-tech capabilities “offer the commander on the ground another option in the escalation of force.” She noted there are a “wide range of NLW technologies. Blunt impact munitions are an example of kinetic technology. Electro-muscular incapacitation and Active Denial technologies are examples of other cutting edge NLW technologies.” The latter technology, which directs a millimeter-wave energy beam at crowds causing a burning sensation known as the “goodbye effect,” has been developed by Raytheon, and was recently demonstrated at Quantico on October 25. While well along in development, and sought by Marines to facilitate a less lethal approach to their pacification efforts in Iraq, the "pain ray" has yet to be deployed to the field.
 
Having a non-lethal option can make operating in a post-conflict environment go easier, Ovalle explained, since “through those efforts, local government and populace gain confidence of the warfighter’s ability to minimize casualties and collateral damage.” She explained that “non-lethal weapons can potentially play an important role in military operations across the spectrum of conflict from low intensity conflict through major theater operations,” and “can protect U.S. forces by providing troops with non-lethal counter-personnel and counter-materiel capabilities to engage targets at extended ranges and help to protect non-combatants in the escalation of force.”
 
Ovalle notesd that “various field reports have validated the successful employment of NLWs,” and recounted the following examples.
  • In southeastern Kosovo in April 2000, the U.S. Army’s Task Force Falcon was the first American unit to use NLWs in a tactical situation, and the military policemen serving as peacekeepers used stinger rounds, sponge grenades, and foam batons -- all 40mm rounds fired from M203 grenade launchers -- to move a crowd in defense of a landing zone.
  • In April 2003, at the Rasheed Military Base in Iraq, civilians were looting the quartermaster’s building inside the perimeter, and using a public address system, spotlights, non-lethal weapons, and riot batons in conjunction with lethal weapons, U.S. military personnel were able to clear approximately one thousand people from the area within 10 minutes.
  • Shortly after the capture of Baghdad in April 2003, U.S. Army MPs and Marine Corps units conducted searches for Baath Party members. Trained in the use of the NLCS (Non-Lethal Capabilities Sets), the units used these capabilities to suppress urban crowds that attempted to interfere with the operations, and NLCS were also provided to Quick Reaction Forces (QRFs) to use in the relief of small units that have been surrounded by hostile crowds.
  • In 2004, during Operation Secure Tomorrow in Haiti, the Vehicle Lightweight Arresting Device (VLAD) was used successfully to stop vehicles during nighttime curfew hours in Haiti, adding that the VLAD was also successfully used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Vehicle Lightweight Arresting Device stops a speeding car during training
at Fort Leonard Wood, MO. Photo by: Capt. Teresa Ovalle.
  • The Individual Serviceman Non-Lethal System (ISNLS) is being used as perimeter security weapon around several operating bases in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) to keep civilians from breaching base perimeters, prevent theft of the fencing around the perimeters and marking and tagging individuals for later apprehension.”
  • In February 2006, the U.S. Army procured non-lethal Optical Distractors to support OIF missions.


A soldier has a GBD-IIIC Optical Distractor mounted to his weapon during training at the Inter-service 
Non-lethal Individual Weapons Instructor Course in Fort Leonard Wood, MO. Photo by: Capt. Teresa Ovalle.
  • NLWs are also being utilized by the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), which is using the Running Gear Entanglement System (RGES) to intercept drug smugglers and illegal migrant boats in or near the coastal waters of the US, and which in its migrant and drug operations, is using both OC Aerosol and Pepperball Systems to enforce order and compliance during volatile close quarters encounters.


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