The best weapon in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan isn't any armored truck, flying robot or radio jammer. It's the squishiest, most amazing technology of them all: the human brain. I return to blogger Jason Sigger's recent assertion:
The guys in the field always want more gear to execute the mission. In the words of Colonel John Boyd, the military needs to invest in people, ideas and equipment -- in that order. It's our tendency to flip that into reverse, not because it's correct but because it's easier. Maybe we ought to be smarter and develop better concepts before defaulting to overly expensive technological solutions.
The #2 spot in my series on the 
Five years ago, tactical air power was in danger of becoming irrelevant, unbeknownst to the tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel who fly and maintain the Pentagon's roughly 4,000 attack jets, fighters and bombers. While the Air Force -- and the air components of the Navy and Marine Corps, too -- were still mostly equipping to bomb fixed, pre-determined targets deep behind enemy lines with big formations of mutually supporting airplanes, the bad guys were up to 
Roadside bombs have killed around 2,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it could have been much much worse. Thanks to better training, better tactics and some choice pieces of new tech, U.S. forces evade, block or destroy 90 percent of Improvised Explosive Devices. One of the most important bomb-defeating techs is the 
I'll let Danger Room pal Robot Economist handle the latest nominee in our 
