The Defense Science Board’s good rep faces a keen challenge with a 2006 summer study tasking—identify new ways the military can “counter or negate [non-state actor] safe havens and provide more effective capability in the new mission areas [of stability operations and domestic civil support].” There are six other pieces to this tasking, which the Pentagon has called “The 2006 Summer Study on 21st Century Strategic Technology Vectors.” The tasks range from a review of previous attempts to identify critical technologies covering these missions to identification of “mechanisms to accelerate and assure” technology transition into military capabilities. Whew!
U.S. Southern Command recently announced its first lethal strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in two months, and the first under a newly formed permanent counter-cartel task force. The U.S. is also reportedly planning to transfer MQ-9 drones to Colombia to bolster its counter-cartel efforts.