For centuries man has sought the ability to predict and control weather patterns, though the ability to do so has remained elusive. Besides lacking the technology, ethical concerns have held back development of what could be the ultimate weapon.

However a research paper written by officers in the U.S. Air Force concludes that weather-modification is inevitable and that to prevent other nations from developing this technology into a weapon they can employ against the United States, the U.S. should do so first.

In about 30 years, the report said, the United States should have the ability not only to control local and regional weather patterns but to apply that technology in a number of military scenarios. Authors of the report believe it is in the best interests of the U.S. military and, specifically, the Air Force, to be able to control or create weather elements such as precipitation fog, and full-blown storms for military uses.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael E. Ryan commissioned the report called "Weather as A Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather In 2025." It was first presented on June 17, 1996.

Military planners have often bemoaned the fact that during critical operations weather has been a mitigating factor. Though the U.S. military is generally considered superior to the forces of other nations and can wage war in most kinds of weather, Air Force operations traditionally have suffered the most from inclement weather like rain, fog, and other low-visibility conditions.

For example, the report said that a significant number of air sorties into the city of Tuzla during the initial deployment supporting the Bosnian peace operation were aborted due to poor weather. And during Operation Desert Storm, Gen. Buster C. Glosson once asked his weather officer to tell him which targets would be clear in 48 hours for inclusion in the initial bombing campaign over Iraq and Kuwait.

The report also said that "over 50 percent of the F-117 sorties (were) weather aborted over their targets and A-10s only flew 75 of 200 scheduled close air support (CAS) missions due to low cloud cover during the first two days of the campaign.

For the purpose of this report the Air Force defined weather-modification as "the alteration of weather phenomena over a limited area for a limited period of time." The authors predicted that within the next three decades the concept of weather-modification could expand to include the ability to shape weather patterns by "influencing their determining factors."

For example, when faced with an enemy which may have technological or numerical superiority in terms of air power in any given area of the world, quite simply the U.S. is hoping to develop the technology to alter the weather patterns over that specific theater of operations. The military says it is imperative because it believes other countries -- some of which are potentially hostile to the U.S. -- are attempting to develop their own weather-modification capability.

"Achieving such a highly accurate and reasonably precise weather-modification capability in the next 30 years will require overcoming some challenging but not insurmountable technological and legal hurdles," the report said. The authors believe that altering weather patterns will eventually become an "integral part of U.S. national security policy with both domestic and international applications."

The U.S. currently has a limited number of weather-modification technologies available. But the report said that "technology advancements in five major areas are necessary for an integrated weather modification capability," which include "advanced nonlinear modeling techniques, computational capability, information gathering and transmission, a global sensor array, and weather intervention techniques." Even though "some intervention tools exist today," new technologies "may be developed and refined in the future."

The Air Force said that by 2025 it fully expects to be able to influence the weather "on a mesoscale (<200 sq km) or microscale (immediate local area) to achieve operational capabilities." They plan to implement this technology by using highly trained "weather force specialists (WFS)," as well as access ports to the "global weather network, a dense, highly accurate local area weather sensing and communication system," and "proven" weather-modification technologies.

While more accurate weather forecasting has been an objective for a number of years in the private sector, clearly this report signals a shift in government policy from developing a primarily civilian-oriented forecast technology to a military technology designed to alter weather activity and patterns.

"Efforts are already under way to create more comprehensive weather models primarily to improve forecasts, but researchers are also trying to influence the results of these models by adding small amounts of energy at just the right time and space," the report said. "These programs are extremely limited at the moment and are not yet validated, but there is great potential to improve them in the next 30 years."

Currently other countries, such as China, are developing laser technology so they can employ beams against U.S. spy satellites, thus disabling them, rather than spend money on research to alter weather activity in the upper atmospheres. That option, say experts, is limited in scope and cumbersome, though they did not offer any information about whether or not such laser technology could be effectively miniaturized in 30 years so satellite lasers could be more easily deployed, like a missile battery or an artillery piece.

"It sounds like they (the military) want a system they can employ globally from fixed locations, without having to move it (the weather-modification system) around," said one source who requested anonymity.

"Modification of the near-space environment is crucial to battlespace dominance," the report continued. "General Charles Horner, former commander in chief, United States space command, described his worst nightmare as 'seeing an entire Marine battalion wiped out on some foreign landing zone because he was unable to deny the enemy intelligence and imagery generated from space.'"

To accomplish this, Air Force officials believe they can successfully modify the ionosphere as well, thus enabling commanders on the ground to achieve air and intelligence superiority over vast expanses of land -- perhaps even an entire military theater of operations or an entire continent. "There is a strong motivation for this research, because induced ionospheric modifications may influence, or even disrupt" an enemy's entire radio communications capability.

The report continued, "As more countries pursue, develop, and exploit increasing types and degrees of weather-modification technologies, we must be able to detect their efforts and counter their activities when necessary. As depicted, the technologies and capabilities associated with such a counter weather role will become increasingly important."

"The lessons of history indicate a real weather-modification capability will eventually exist despite the risk (because) the drive exists. People have always wanted to control the weather and their desire will compel them to collectively and continuously pursue their goal," the report concluded.

Children are increasingly the innocent victims of war: Two million have been killed since 1987, six million have been seriously injured or permanently disabled, and 300,000 are currently fighting in government or rebel armies, according to a new UN report.

"Not only are millions of children still the victims of war, far too often they are its principal targets and even its instruments," the UN envoy for children and armed conflict, Olara Otunnu, said in his first annual report.

Children are suffering from the effects of armed conflict in approximately 50 countries, and fighting is still continuing in about 30 of these countries, he said in a news conference.

"From Sierra Leone to Tajikistan, from Liberia to Cambodia, from the Sudan to Kosovo, from Sri Lanka to Afghanistan, millions of children are being robbed of their childhood and left with mangled lives," Otunnu said.

An alarming trend is the growing use of child soldiers. The number of children under the age of 18 serving as combatants in government armed forces or armed opposition groups in ongoing conflicts is estimated to have increased from 250,000 about 2 1/2 years ago to 300,000 today, Otunnu said.

"Many more are being used in indirect ways that are more difficult to measure, such as cooks, messengers and porters. Children have also been used for mine clearance, spying and suicide bombing," he said.

Otunnu said he is working to mobilize public opinion and political pressure "against this terrible trend."

North Korea has accused the US and South Korea of preparing for nuclear war, and said it will turn both countries into a sea of fire if it is attacked. The South Korean president, Kim Dae-Jung has meanwhile warned his country to be ready for a surprise attack by the North. The BBC Seoul correspondent says that these are some of the strongest exchanges for sometime between the two countries, and that they're probably a bargaining ploy as talks continue in Geneva. The negotiations, involving the two Koreas, the US and China are aimed at reaching a peace settlement to replace the armistice that ended the Korean War in the 1950s.

MOSCOW--The president is old, tired, and very possibly senile. Hyperinflation is making the currency worthless. Once a great power, the country feels beaten down, and its weak democracy may soon be crushed by a hybrid of nationalism and socialism. Is this Russia in the 1990s? Or Germany on the eve of Hitler taking power?

It could be either. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, several prominent historians have called attention to the frightening parallels between contemporary Russia and Germany's Weimar Republic, which lasted from 1918 to 1933. But never has the comparison seemed as apt as it does today, with the Russian economy in shambles and President Boris Yeltsin surrendering daily control over government affairs to Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov.

In the aftermath of World War I, Germany had to swallow the punishing terms of the Versailles Treaty, giving up territory and stifling its arms industry. "It was a country that lost a war, lost its dignity, and tried to become a democracy under the worst possible conditions," says Alexander Konovalov, a historian and political analyst at Russia's ORT television network. Similarly, he argues, Russia today is reeling from a tacit defeat in the cold war and has "lost huge amounts of territory, one half of its gross domestic product, and 10 years of male life expectancy."

Yeltsin's 1930s counterpart was Paul von Hindenburg, the German president and former general who was considered the guarantor of the German Constitution. Yet it was an exhausted, befuddled Hindenburg in his second term of office who opened the door of power to Adolf Hitler in 1933.

Like Berliners in the early 1930s, Muscovites openly mock their president's mental capacity: In recent months, Yeltsin mistakenly identified Japan and Germany as nuclear powers, failed to recognize one of his own ministers during a public appearance, and blabbered incoherently at a press conference.

Konovalov believes that the chaos and corruption that have accompanied democracy have made many Russians long for the totalitarian past: "The desire for security, for law and order, probably outweighs the desire for freedom." And demonstrators are resorting again to rhetoric that would have been perfectly familiar to Germans 50 years ago, blaming a conspiracy of scheming Jews and vengeful Westerners for Russia's problems.

The Marine Corps is gearing up for a high-tech military experiment designed to prepare Marines to fight in what some experts are calling the battlefields of the future -- the world's urban areas.

Dubbed Urban Warrior, the Marine Corps' advanced war-fighting experiment will take place in March throughout the streets, sewers and buildings of San Francisco. Marine Corps officials met in San Diego last month with their Navy counterparts to iron out details of the experiment, which will focus on developing technology to help Marines fight battles in a dense urban landscape.

The Marines' challenge stems from the inability of standard command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (C4I) systems to overcome interference caused by concrete walls, phone lines, electronic devices and urban structures. To meet these challenges, the Marines will experiment with technologies that include wireless communications devices, high-bandwidth satellite links, remotely piloted reconnaissance aircraft, visualization applications and global positioning system links.

The centerpiece of the Marines' integrated C4I capability will be the Experimental Combat Operations Center (ECOC). Initially operated aboard ship, ECOC workstations can be moved ashore when a command post is established and will provide Marines fighting throughout the city with computer-based modeling, simulation and visualization tools that will enhance the ability of commanders to "see" the urban battlefield.

An array of sensors and data feeds, including unmanned aerial vehicles and palmtop computers, will feed workstations and large-screen displays in the ECOC with real-time information on enemy and friendly forces.

Urban Warrior focused heavily on developing and maintaining databases that are accessible to individual unit leaders operating in a maze of buildings, stairways, alleys and subterranean passageways. For example, for Marines to know where they are in a city and the fastest and easiest routes to take, they must have instant access to digital maps, photos and building floor plans.

SAN DIEGO -- The Defense Department last week revealed its plan for how the military services will carry out offensive and defensive information operations in future wars -- a move that holds wide-ranging implications for information systems.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff formally codified in October an Information Operations (IO) doctrine when it endorsed a guidance document called "Joint Publication 3-13," according to Daniel Kuehl, chairman of the Information Operations Department, School of Information Warfare and Strategy at the National Defense University.

Kuehl said the new doctrine treats cyberspace as "a critical environment [and] moves information operations from an ad hoc process and institutionalizes it."

Although doctrinal publications are rarely visionary in nature, " 'Joint Pub 3-13' was clearly written with Joint Vision 2010 in mind," Kuehl said. Joint Vision 2010 is a DOD effort to create seamless battlefield communications across the services. "This [new document] institutionalizes a process for looking at IO as a strategy and makes it part of the planning process for all joint [military] plans."

Offensive IO will include such existing military operations as psychological operations, electronic warfare, physical attacks or destruction of enemy information systems, special information operations "and may include computer network attack," Shelton said. The doctrine foresees offensive IO conducted "at all levels of war -- strategic, operational and tactical -- throughout the battlespace," he said.

The doctrine broadens the definition of an adversary, including not only attacks by a known enemy state but also any IO threat "that is organized, resourced and politically sponsored [and] motivated to affect decision-makers," including hackers, criminals and organized crime, industrial and economic espionage, and in some cases, terrorism, Shelton said.

The National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Defense Information Systems Agency will support IO for the combatant commands and the Joint Staff. The DIA will be given the responsibility of selecting key offensive IO targets, help combat commanders develop a
command intelligence architecture to support IO and detect IO attacks in cooperation with DISA.

DISA will be charged with protecting the Defense Information Infrastructure, and the NSA will provide information security and operational security products as well as analyze the vulnerability and threats to U.S. and allied information systems. On the operational side, the Special Forces Command was directed to begin IO training and "organize forces with capabilities to conduct IO...across the range of military operations,"

A Pentagon source said the Joint Chiefs have put an "intense" effort behind the newly established Joint Task Force for Computer Network Defense, which is located in DISA's Global Security Operations Center. In addition, the newly prescribed doctrine may pave the way for use of the reserves in a homeland cyberdefense role, the source said.

Lt. Col. Kathleen Harrison, director of the Command and Control Branch of the Doctrine Division at the Marine Corps' Combat Development Command, Quantico, Va., said no great policy changes have taken place yet in light of the new doctrine guidance. However, Harrison said the Navy and Marine Corps plan to issue in the summer a Naval Command and Control Warfare Doctrine publication, which will consider the new guidance published by the JCS.