These are the newest weapons of war. And for a good 40 years the U.S. military has quietly been pursuing weapons of this sort. But now that the cold war has ended and the United States is engaged in more humanitarian and peacekeeping missions, the search for weapons that could incapacitate people without inflicting lethal injuries has intensified. Police, too, are keenly interested. Recent advancements in miniaturized electronics, power generation, and beam aiming may finally have put such pulse and beam weapons on the cusp of practicality, some experts say.
Weapons already exist that use lasers, which can temporarily or permanently blind enemy soldiers.
Prototypes of such weapons were recently considered for tryout when U.S. troops intervened in Somalia. Other, stranger effects also have been explored, such as using electromagnetic waves to put human targets to sleep or to heat them up, on the microwave-oven principle. Scientists are also trying to make a sonic cannon that throws a shock wave with enough force to knock down a man. That's because the human body is essentially an electrochemical system, and devices that disrupt the electrical impulses of the nervous system can affect behavior and body functions. People just do not want to talk about this.