Rubber bullets—commonly used to disperse riotous crowds in this country and around the world—are the most notorious of the nonlethal weapons that can end up being all too lethal. It is time to recognize that these kinds of weapons have a fatality factor, and understand how to use them properly.
How "nonlethal" are nonlethal weapons? One electrical device seemingly paralyzes by scrambling signals from the motor cortex region of the brain. A low-frequency sound generator reportedly can vibrate internal organs and cause nausea. And a microwave gun may raise body temperature, provoking a debilitating fever. But how do you know they are nonlethal?
Many nonlethal weapons do not always work as intended or advertised, as a panel of medical experts is finding. Some may not incapacitate as claimed. Others could have lethal, or even worse than lethal, consequences. The issue is not about getting rid of nonlethal weapons, but about how to get them to work the way they should. That means making some changes in defense acquisition.
Big Demand-Higher Expectations
The demand for nonlethal weapons continues to grow. These weapons have been deployed to Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia. In 1999, U.S. aircraft employed nonlethal carbon filament bombs to short-circuit and shut down power supplies in Kosovo and Serbia. In the aftermath, NATO announced its nonlethal weapons policy, preparing for when its forces might use them as well. In addition, the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations has called on the U.S. government to accelerate research and development of these weapons.
Expectations for nonlethal weapons are high. Compare them to conventional weapons. Conventional weapons are expected to do mostly one thing—kill. To achieve this effect, these rely on blast, fragmentation, and penetration to interact violently with the body. Advances in these technologies progressively make this effect easier to achieve, and easier to measure.
Nonlethal weapons, on the other hand, are expected to achieve much different human effects. According to Department of Defense policy, they are "explicitly designed and primarily employed to incapacitate personnel or material, while minimizing fatalities." They also are intended to "have relatively reversible effects." This requires a controllable force that interacts with some capability of the body and disables it without causing permanent injury. That is much harder for a weapon to achieve than lethality—and far harder to measure.
Technologies are being advanced that claim to incapacitate, immobilize, or disable personnel without permanent injury. They range from rubber projectiles to high-power microwaves. As Dr. R. M. Coupland of the International Committee of the Red Cross writes, nonlethal weapons development "is dependent on knowledge of pathophysiological effects." The Defense Department is acquiring and fielding many of these nonlethal technologies. Most are low-end technologies such as blunt trauma weapons. The Army is distributing them to its divisions and retaining some for contingencies, the Air Force is providing them to its security forces, and the Marine Corps is distributing them to its expeditionary forces. More sophisticated weapons are coming. Today, there are some 14 nonlethal weapons used by the Defense Department.
The Reality—Falling Short?
Here is the danger: no one knows how these weapons will affect the general population. There is a limited database on personnel effects of nonlethal weapons. As a result, there likely will be a difference between the expectations of the users of these weapons and the reality of their use. Users could underestimate a weapon's effects, and cause greater injury and lethality than expected. Similarly, they could overestimate the effects and find that a weapon that is supposed to incapacitate does not.
Law enforcement already has encountered this problem. In the 1970s, the chemical spray mace was touted as a breakthrough in police weaponry. Its use, however, led to court cases initiated by individuals claiming permanent injury. The "Taser" is another example. This electrical device is supposed to "immediately incapacitate" even violent subjects under the influence of drugs. As we all watched with horror in 1991, however, repeated Taser applications did not subdue Rodney King.
It is not enough to say that these weapons might cause some deaths, because they will. What is needed is a greater understanding of the probability of death when these weapons are used. Is there a 1%, 5%, or 25% chance of death? If a weapon causes death only 30% of the time, does that make it nonlethal? What is an acceptable level of lethality?
Until these human effects are more precisely determined, nonlethal weapons use could have serious operational consequences. Incidents can trigger mob reactions, as was seen in the Los Angeles riots and at Tiananmen Square. Serious injuries or deaths caused by nonlethal weapons could provide such triggers. According to Irish activist groups, the deaths and injuries from the British forces' use of plastic bullets did more to alienate nationalists and prolong conflict in Northern Ireland than it did to further peace.
This lack of knowledge about the human effects of nonlethal weapons could cause serious political consequences. Human rights groups increasingly are watching nonlethal weapons use. In the United States, the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty USA monitor police use of pepper spray and Tasers. The same is occurring overseas. The Helsinki-based Human Rights Watch quickly claimed that the Sabre 203 laser could blind soon after the weapon was deployed to Somalia. The International Committee of the Red Cross also is watching nonlethal weapons. One British Red Cross official writes, "Non-lethal weapons . . . may in due course be an area meriting specific regulation."
Reality and Expectations—Assessing the Gap
The establishment of the Joint Non-lethal Weapons Directorate within the Department of Defense in 1997 was a big step for nonlethal weapons development. It has enabled greater synergy in what previously had been a disparate effort. The directorate is addressing the hard issues associated with these weapons, the most difficult being determining their human effects.
In 1998, the directorate took a seemingly unprecedented step for defense. It established an independent advisory group, called the Human Effects Advisory Panel, which is comprised of recognized experts in medical research. A common practice within the scientific community, these "peer reviews" scrutinize the research of contemporaries to ensure it is done correctly. Many of the panel members have previous military experience, but all come from outside the defense establishment. The unbiased nature of the panel ensures that the directorate gets impartial counsel.
Since its establishment, the Human Effects Advisory Panel has been asked to assess five nonlethal weapons, including one for the Justice Department. For each weapon, the panel brought in medical specialists (trauma surgeons, ophthalmologists, anesthesiologists, psychologists, physiologists, biostatisticians, and others) to assess the human effects.
Most weapons already have been evaluated within the system, with no real safety concerns noted. The panel reached different conclusions, however. For example, it evaluated a claymore-mine-like device that disperses rubber stingballs for use against hostile crowds. Although it has a very low probability of causing death, it has a high probability of causing eye injuries, including blindness. It also found that the Justice Department's nonlethal weapon, which fires a wireless projectile to deliver an electrical shock, could cause death from blunt impact.
The panel also found that some weapons were unlikely to meet user expectations. The claymore-mine-like device and a 40-mm cartridge, which also fires rubber stingballs, were required to "temporarily incapacitate." Although not defined, this implies that a targeted individual would be unable to perform threat-related tasks, like walking, running, and operating weapons. The panel found that these weapons would startle, disorient, and possibly deter individuals, but probably not temporarily incapacitate most.
The panel also reached some general conclusions regarding these weapons. It found that it is hard to make a weapon that is universally nonlethal. To some degree, non-lethality will depend on the circumstances of the attack. A vehicle stopper, which uses arresting gear to bring cars to a stop, may be nonlethal for occupants wearing seatbelts. It might, however, injure and possibly kill unrestrained occupants.
The biggest challenge in making a weapon nonlethal is the variability of the human population. Human reactions to a particular weapon can vary with size, gender, age, attitude, and health. What may be nonlethal for one population segment could be lethal for another. The Taser, again, is an example. While it did not subdue Rodney King, it reportedly contributed to the death of a 29-year-old woman.
This should not imply that these and other nonlethal weapons do not have operational value—because they do. A more thorough assessment of their human effects has provided users with a better idea of whom they can and cannot engage, and under what conditions. It also makes them aware of these weapons' risks and allows them to develop employment procedures to mitigate them.
Getting the Nonlethal Act Together
One thing is certain: the Defense Department cannot offord to guess what the human effects will be, particularly with more costly technologies on the horizon. It already has canceled one nonlethal laser program because it might blind and violate international law. It needs to determine what nonlethal weapons will do before development. This will require some big changes.
Making a nonlethal weapon begins with its users. They determine what the weapon is supposed to do, and they set the goalposts for weapons developers and the testing community. The problem with many operational requirements documents for nonlethal weapons, however, is that they are too vague; they raise more questions than they answer. Users have to break from the paradigm of conventional weapons and think anew.
For example, users are the only ones who can determine an acceptable level of nonlethality. Recognizing that a weapon will cause some lethality, does it have to be nonlethal 90% of the time, or more? In addition, users must determine the intended human effect. What do you want the target to do—or not do? For how long? According to a member of the defense test community, the FBI requires that incapacitation last for 30 seconds in some instances.
It gets harder from here. Rarely has the weapons development community gone beyond measuring the mass, velocity, and diameter of a weapon's projectile. Now it must determine how to cause a specific effect. It must measure energy transfer and how it affects organs and tissues. It also must assess the body's overall response. This will require extensive data collection, and ultimately the modeling of energy effects on tissues, organs, and the body. It means creating a process that today does not exist. In addition, human-effects specialists—physicians, physiologists, psychologists, and others—must be integrated into the process. They must have input from the creation to the post-operational assessment of nonlethal weapons. This expertise is almost wholly absent in today's nonlethal weapons development process.
Above all, one office must be in charge. Here lies the biggest problem with nonlethal weapons to date: many have been developed in isolation from each other. In fact, Congress emphasized this point in its Defense Authorization Conference Report for fiscal year 1999. Conferees expressed concern that the services still were conducting research and development on nonlethal weapons outside the Joint Nonlethal Weapons Program, and without oversight by the executive agent, the Marine Corps. Nonlethal weapons development is a multi-disciplined process that cuts across service lines and agencies. One office must oversee this process and ensure that it is coordinated and integrated. Nonlethal weapons represent the new frontier in weapons development. Conquering that frontier means exploring their human effects.
A retired naval officer and 1973 U.S. Naval Academy graduate, Dr. Kenny is a research engineer at Penn State’s Applied Research Laboratory and the principal investigator for the Human Effects Advisory Panel.