Defense Department leaders should pursue a suite of portable and "scalable" non-lethal weapons rather than heavy-handed weaponry like rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades or truck-mounted microwave emitters, according to a new RAND study. The document, released today, urges Pentagon officials to increase funding of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons directorate by $250 million between fiscal years 2009 and 2013. But the paper recommends a new focus on technologies capable of disorienting targets rather than harming them, even if temporarily, lead author and...
