First of *many* directed-energy weapons...

The millimeter-wave "pain ray" ADS may or may not be a breakthrough during [this particular] Iraq war but it *is* seminal in being the first real directed-energy weapon. I personally think its developers HAVE made a tactical error, especially in the war against radical Islam: when you have thousands (or millions) of people anxious and happy to die fighting you and destroying the world's [Western] culture, a non-lethal weapon is just plain stupid. It will become clear, once the terrorists have gotten their hands on enough fissile material to bomb New York, or Washington, or Las Vegas or wherever, that they will eventually push us to the use of nuclear weapons to win this, the early stages of the Third World War.