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For most of the history of robotics, contests between robots and humans have been entertaining precisely because they were so unequal. Humans could run, jump, balance,…

For more than three decades, Theodore Postol, a physicist and professor emeritus at MIT, has been an unusually persistent critic of U.S. missile-defense programs. A former…

Part the First: Another Promising Breakthrough in HIV Therapy.  For those of us who were following the HIV/AIDS epidemic more than forty years ago, advances in…

The recent war between Iran and the United States should have confirmed a clear imbalance of military power. The United States possessed overwhelming advantages in conventional…

Part the First: If You Stretch Biomedical Science Too Far It Breaks, Every Time.  Gene editing using CRISPR technology has made possible great leaps in biomedical…

One of the consistent themes of military history has been the reduction of decision latency. Engineers use this term to describe the interval between observation and…

A petard was a small explosive charge used in Medieval and Renaissance siege warfare to blast open fortified gates. Because it had to be placed by…

In 2022, as Russian forces advanced into Ukraine, the Starlink satellite communication system became an indispensable wartime asset. Thousands of Starlink terminals restored communications after conventional…

For more than half a century, arms control has been one of civilization’s principal safeguards against catastrophic war. Yet today that framework is visibly weakening. Major…

Modern warfare has produced a remarkable paradox. Never before have governments possessed such detailed knowledge of events unfolding across the globe. Military reconnaissance satellites can detect…