Current and former Pakistani intelligence agents say residents of the area who are helping the United States have access to what locals call "pathris," literally "small things" -- referred to by one agent as a "gadget" -- that can be thrown into homes and used as targeting signals. Military officials declined to comment further on whether the devices map Global Positioning System coordinates, provide an RF signal or use some combination of these or other targeting technologies.
This is really interesting as it applies to the Taliban War in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. And it is significant in its own right.
But this is exactly the type of device that I've worried about for about three years in relation to Chinese efforts to nullify our forward-deployed carriers in the Western Pacific should it come to a war over Taiwan. China needs to target our carriers, but they lack the satellites and aircraft to precisely locate our ships. Is there an alternative to duplicating our surveillance methods? I thought there might be:
Let me offer a non-Manhattan Project-style and unconventional solution to China's targeting problem. What if Chinese agents placed a signalling device on the keel of an American aircraft carrier while in port? Or a homing device in the galley's coffee machine before it is installed? Or buried in the storage bins of some bulk product? What if the Chinese maneuvering ballistic missiles were designed to home in on the signal of such a device and the Chinese had a means to turn on the device when needed?
Simple. Low tech. And utterly devastating if the Chinese actually get homing ballistic missiles before we get missile defenses at sea capable of shooting down ballistic missiles.
I don't know if planting homing devices on our carriers is possible, but as long as we are looking at asymmetrical means of fighting our forces, let's think outside our technological frame of mind for how China might create such an assassin's mace.
I'd say that the concept is far more possible than I feared. Small things are not harmless things.
