Description
The US Department of Defense has made improving ‘soldier lethality’ central to its future equipment, training and doctrine development. At stake is ensuring that US armed forces can defeat 21st century adversaries effectively and with minimum loss of life to American personnel. This may mean acquiring more precise weapons, autonomous systems or equipment that can outperform those used by an enemy force. Equally, it implies that American personnel must make use of technologies that improve survivability and neutralise enemy lethality so as to render them militarily ineffective. The centrality of this debate in US military circles has led to Britain’s armed forces showing an interest in lethality. In the British case, the Army seeks to use unmanned and autonomous systems
