dChan
Anonymous ID: 923536 May 5, 2018, 6:11 p.m. No.1313292   🗄️.is đź”—kun

https:// m.sfgate.com/world/article/Global-powers-vie-for-sway-in-Djibouti-12818613.php

 

Remember Sudan is a Rogue nuclear state

 

https:// www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-sudan/ethiopia-to-take-a-stake-in-sudans-main-sea-gateway-port-idUSKBN1I41R1

Anonymous ID: 923536 May 5, 2018, 6:17 p.m. No.1313349   🗄️.is đź”—kun

Lasers.. cats

 

So, what was the actual barbarity in question? McCall cites an instance in the 1982 Falklands War between the United Kingdom and Argentina where it’s possible a British laser dazzler caused three Argentinian aircraft to fatally crash. McCall also notes a possible earlier use of laser rangefinders on Soviet tanks as a blinding weapon against Chinese troops in the 1970s, and the possible use of laser rangefinders as a blinding tool by Iraqi forces against Iranian forces in the mid 1980s. And in the late 1980s, Pentagon reported incidents of Navy planes harassed by Russian lasers. Beyond adapting lasers built for other purposes into weapons, at the time of the Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons, the United States and China both had some development into lasers specifically for this purpose, though the extent of the research varied.

 

As for the treaty itself, it has two rather large exceptions written into it on the use of lasers for war. The first that, while it prohibits weapons “specifically designed, as their sole combat function or as one of their combat functions, to cause permanent blindness to unenhanced vision,” it does not appear to rule out the use of lasers designed for other purposes that may be used circumstantially as a weapon. That’s the weaker exception, though one that may have played into the development of some laser-based weapons billed as less-lethal.

 

The greater exception is Article 4, which states “Blinding as an incidental or collateral effect of the legitimate military employment of laser systems, including laser systems used against optical equipment, is not covered by the prohibition of this Protocol.” If the laser is designed to work against camera pods, it’s a legitimate military use, and if the laser targets uninhabited vehicles (like drones), there’s nothing in the protocol against it. A focus on non-human targets has meant that lasers can be developed to blind satellites, creating a much less explodey option for anti-satellite warfare. It’s possible that high-powered lasers reported in the notice-to-airmen are designed at sensors, but also operating in the visible light spectrum, where it’d be irrelevant for infrared or other wavelengths commonly captured by cameras.

 

Is there a laser war happening off the coast of Djibouti? Unlikely, but there’s reason to suspect someone might be testing a laser as a weapon.

 

https:// www.c4isrnet.com/electronic-warfare/2018/04/27/whos-testing-a-laser-in-djibouti/