10. Armed Robots Take the Field in Iraq

Americans let robots vacuum their floors, mow their lawns, and build their cars. Now, they’re even letting them fight their wars. In June, with little fanfare, the U.S. Army deployed the first armed robots to Iraq, marking a new era in modern warfare.

Although militaries have used robots for everything from minesweeping to defusing bombs, the new “special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action system”—or SWORDS—is different. For one, it’s packing heat: an M249 machine gun, to be exact. It can fire on a target from more than 3,000 feet away. So far, three of these $250,000 robots have been deployed to Iraq to conduct dangerous ground operations that would otherwise put soldiers’ lives at risk. And reinforcements are coming: More than 100 SWORDS robots have either been built or requested, and the U.S. government has budgeted about $1.7 billion on ground-based military robots between 2006 and 2012.

However, the military isn’t quite ready to shelve their human counterparts just yet. The SWORDS robots now seeing action in Iraq are manned by soldiers who remotely control their every move. But this new development does raise serious ethical and technological issues about the future of intelligent machines in war. As Peter W. Singer, director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution, says, “If something goes wrong—and it always will—who is responsible? It’s a classic question from science fiction, and yet our laws are so far silent on it.”

Perhaps, though, after seeing more than 4,000 soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military is ready to try something different. Even if that means writing a new chapter in the story of man vs. machine.

In the first week of September, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer’s controversial book, The Israel Lobby, hit bookstores. In it, the authors argue that Israel supporters have excessive influence on U.S. foreign policy and consistently skew U.S. policies in favor of Israel. Coincidentally, in the same week, a little-noticed study found that young American Jews are less likely to support Israel than ever before. “Feelings of attachment may well be changing, as warmth gives way to indifference, and indifference may even give way to downright alienation,” the study’s coauthors, Steven Cohen of Hebrew Union College and Ari Y. Kelman of the University of California, Davis, wrote in their introduction.

Based on a written survey of 1,704 non-Orthodox American Jews, just 48 percent of respondents under the age of 35 would consider the destruction of Israel a “personal tragedy,” as opposed to 77 percent of those 65 and older. Only 54 percent of the younger group said they were even “comfortable with the idea of a Jewish State,” compared to 81 percent of the elderly respondents.

Political ideology has nothing to do with the lack of concern, according to the authors; intermarriage among faiths and the decline of a “collective view of being Jewish” explain the shift. For those who believe that U.S. foreign policy suffers for its pro-Israel positions, a wave of apathy may be on the way.

8. Dengue Fever Runs High

We all know that climate change can lead to unexpected hazards. Add one more to the list: the spread of dengue fever. Warmer climates may be putting millions of people around the world at risk for the disease, a virus that causes excruciating pain in people’s joints. This year is on track to be the worst year in nearly a decade for the mosquito-borne virus, also known as “bone-breaker disease.” In its milder form, dengue causes flu-like symptoms that last about a week. But about 5 percent of all cases develop into a potentially fatal form that can cause internal and external bleeding.

Trends in Latin America and Southeast Asia have epidemiologists especially worried. The number of dengue cases in Latin America exploded to an estimated 1 million in 2007, twice the amount in 2006. Paraguay declared a state of emergency in March, and even Puerto Rico was logging 500 cases a week at the height of its outbreak. By October, 183 people had died in the region. Southeast Asia was also hit hard. Indonesia clocked 123,500 cases by October, with more than 1,250 people dead. Significant outbreaks have flared up in Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Although there is no vaccine, it doesn’t have to be this way. Singapore got its dengue problem largely under control by running the world’s toughest war on mosquitoes. Others should follow its lead.

7. Thai Junta Gives Itself a Raise

After taking power in a bloodless coup in September 2006, Thailand’s generals understood their top priority: giving themselves a fat raise. The military budget has increased 66 percent since the overthrow of the civilian government, and it is expected to grow to nearly $5 billion in 2008. The junta’s leaders claim they’re simply replacing much-needed weaponry and invigorating the fight against Muslim separatists in the south. But the spending spree includes a Russian submarine, Chinese surface-to-surface missiles, and $1 billion for a dozen Swedish-made jet fighters—hardly the tools for quelling a domestic insurgency, say military analysts. And in a July editorial, the Bangkok Post noted “strong suspicion across the country that the generals are padding the military budget for no other reason than because they can.”

Although Thailand has long been an important U.S. ally, the Thai military brass are apparently happy to listen to anyone who will write a check. China was the first country to recognize the new post-coup government, and it quickly provided $40 million in military aid and training for Thai officers in China. Relations between Bangkok and Beijing have rarely been more cozy. And though the Thai generals said they were only taking over to safeguard democracy, their biggest accomplishment so far seems to be padding their own wallets.

6. The American Heartland Grows Crops—with Human Proteins

Farmers have long experimented with crops bred to produce better yields, with few ill effects. But with little public debate, something entirely new—rice engineered to produce human proteins—is coming to a grocery store near you. In May, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) authorized Ventria Bioscience to grow as many as 3,200 acres of special rice that produces proteins normally found in breast milk.

The California-based company hopes to market its rice as the key ingredient in a cheap formula to treat diarrhea, a condition that kills 3 million children worldwide each year. The company believes its special brand of rice may be of particular appeal to aid organizations. Yet Ventria maintains that pharmaceutical rice doesn't need the clinical testing required of new drugs because it's a food, not a drug. U.S. rice growers, however, fear a backlash from customers in Europe and Asia if medicine gets accidentally mixed in with the food supply. Anheuser-Busch, the largest rice buyer in the United States, used its considerable clout to keep Ventria's "pharming" techniques out of Missouri--and out of its beer. Mere paranoia? Only two months before it gave Ventria the green light, the USDA banned another company's variety of long-grain rice that may have been contaminated by mysterious genetic material.

Undeterred, Ventria is plowing ahead. This fall, the first batch of its breast-milk rice was harvested outside Junction City, Kansas. Ventria's rice is supposed to hit markets in 2008, and it will likely be just the first of many pharmaceutical crops. Aspirin corn, anyone?

5. The Cubans Are Coming

Most recent media attention on Cuba has focused on the health of long-time leader Fidel Castro. But while everyone has been reading the tea leaves in Havana, more Cubans have been quietly fleeing to the United States than ever before. According to a report by the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, nearly 77,000 Cubans crossed into the United States in 2006 and 2007. That’s more than twice the number of refugees who arrived on Florida’s shores during the summer of 1994, when more than 38,000 Cubans fled the island after Castro opened the ports to all who wished to leave. If the current trend holds, the United States will have received 267,000 Cuban immigrants this decade. That’s more than any other decade since Castro took power in 1959.

The current flow from Cuba is not due to political persecution, as in years past. Surprisingly, it’s the country’s surging economy. Although the country’s GDP grew at an impressive 11.1 percent last year, the boom hasn’t translated into real employment opportunities on the ground. Younger Cubans, in particular, are disillusioned by the prospect of economic change under Raúl Castro, Fidel’s brother and heir apparent. “These are, in many cases, professional Cubans—teachers, doctors, or young people who see no future on the island, and don’t see Raul Castro being able to deliver soon enough,” says Hans de Salas-del Valle, author of the report. Today, there are no television images of refugees desperately clinging to rafts in the Florida straits. Instead, refugees are paying thousands of dollars to smugglers who will get them out, a few people at a time.

4. Waiting on the Iraqi Navy

U.S. presidential candidates spent much of 2007 denouncing the prospect of any permanent American presence inside Iraq. But, in some respects, the question is moot. Because, whatever the politicians may say, the Pentagon is committing itself to guarding the country’s oil supply indefinitely.

In November, the U.S. Navy held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a military installation on top of Iraq’s Khor al Amaya oil terminal in the northern Persian Gulf. Along with its neighboring Basra terminal, the platform is crucial to the global economy; together, the two terminals are theoretically capable of holding nearly 10 percent of the world’s daily oil demand.

Pentagon officials insist that those fearing a permanent U.S. military presence needn’t worry. Not only will the facility house British and Australian sailors as well as Americans but the U.S. military will hand the base over to the marines of the Iraqi Navy as soon as they are ready. Nevermind that, as the Wall Street Journal reported, their patrol boats today consist of “rusting hulks,” and the Iraqis currently stationed on the terminal only recently trained with live ammunition for the first time. If a U.S. military withdrawal must wait for a seaworthy Iraqi Navy, the United States may be in Iraq longer than anyone has guessed.

3. Dear Osama: We’re Breaking Up

In the fall of 2004, just before U.S. Marines led a final assault on the Iraqi insurgent stronghold of Falluja, 26 top Saudi clerics issued a fatwa inciting attacks on U.S. troops as a “lawful duty.” Chief among them was Salman al-Awdah, a popular renegade cleric who once mentored Osama bin Laden.

In September, Awdah turned his back on his former pupil. Speaking on Saudi television to a large Ramadan audience, the cleric harshly rebuked bin Laden, asking, “How many innocents, old men, children are killed in the name of al Qaeda? . . . What have we gained from the destruction of a whole country such as Iraq and Afghanistan?” Arab News hailed the move as a “major blow to the ideology of Osama Bin Laden and his followers in the Kingdom.” Awdah’s apparent change of heart set off a furious debate in the Arab world over whether his message was long overdue or a betrayal of the Islamist cause.

Mainstream Muslims have been denouncing al Qaeda for years. Awdah’s turnaround suggests that even the most radical corners of Islam have their differences, too. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have clearly taken their toll on all sides. But if more extremists begin losing faith in the jihad, we may come to see Sheikh Salman’s breakup with Osama as a defining moment.

2. U.S.-Mexico Border Fence Gets Cut in Half

In the run-up to the 2006 U.S. midterm elections, conservative lawmakers—desperate to show supporters they were making progress on immigration and border security—easily passed the Secure Fence Act, authorizing the construction of 700 miles of double-layered, reinforced fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border. Lost in the shuffle was the fact that Congress had only earmarked enough money to build 370 miles’ worth of wall. Give it another budget year, the barrier’s strongest backers said, and the rest of the cash would surely make its way south.

But they might want to check with the chief of U.S. Border Patrol, David Aguilar. The military industry’s National Defense magazine reported that at an April press conference, Aguilar suggested that the physical fence will indeed stop at the 370-mile mark. Making up the remaining 330 miles will be a “virtual” wall of surveillance and radar equipment, hardly the kind of compromise that will satisfy those who, like Republican presidential candidate Duncan Hunter, want the entire 1,933-mile border double-fenced and topped with razor wire. A spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency says that hundreds of miles of vehicle barriers—concrete tubes set in the ground to prevent cars from crossing the border—are also due to be built by the end of 2008. But those who wanted a Fortress America are finding that Washington’s plan for their beloved fence is full of holes.

1. The Cyberwars Begin

The year 2007 will be remembered as the beginning of the cyberwars. In late April, Western experts were caught off guard when a barrage of cyberattacks emanating from Russia crippled the banking, police, and government offices of Estonia. Many called it the world’s first full-scale cyberinvasion. Then in June, Pentagon officials accused the Chinese military of hacking into a computer network used by top aides to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Near the end of the year, Britain’s MI5 intelligence service sent a confidential letter to the CEOs of major multinationals warning them that the Chinese army was probing the cyberdefenses of their companies.

This emerging threat may explain why in September the U.S. Air Force quietly decided to form a Cyberspace Command. The new Cyberspace Command, due to become fully operational by October 2009, will be charged with helping to guard against such threats. But officials are quick to point out that merely playing defense against hackers and hucksters will not be enough. Instead, the 500 or so cyberwarriors who will be assigned to the command will train for full-scale cyberwar against a host of potential enemies. (Read: China and Russia). This month, top-ranking U.S. military officers began work on a Cyberspace Warfare Doctrine. The Air Force has also just graduated its first class of cyberfighters, trained in network warfare. More than 20 years after the founding of the Internet, the next “revolution in military affairs” may be online.