Department of Defense policy defines non-lethal weapons (NLW) as "weapon systems that are explicitly designed and primarily employed so as to incapacitate personnel or materiel, while minimizing fatalities, permanent injury to personnel, and undesired damage to property and the environment."² As such, the positive aspects of non-lethal weapons provide for greater enhanced mission potential in effort to support the force-continuum while at the same time minimizing collateral damage of innocents and non-combatants. Keeping in mind the broad range of weaponry the nation has at its disposal when faced with conflict NLW serve to be an alternative line of defense to counteract aggressive activity proportionate with that perceived threat.

XADS contends that NLW provide effective solutions for consideration and restraint when entering into the variables of unknowns in combat situations and escalated civil disturbances. Thus, we are committed to the development of NLW in effort to offer options and alternatives that will secure the moral and political high ground in respect to life and restricting violence to a minimum. XADS believes that the development and deployment of NLW will fill the gap between verbal diplomacy and deadly force in this new era of warfare and conflict. Indeed, we concur with a variety of scholars, military leaders, and strategists that the introduction of non-lethal weapons to battle spectrums will be superior to conventional weapons as national security and diplomacy efforts are enhanced, collateral damage is minimized, and conflicts are extinguished before they can escalate to lethal means.³

To this end XADS is corporately committed to upholding the standards of civility in the deployment of NLW, most especially Non-lethal Directed Energy Weapons. Therefore we do not support and will work to quell the unintended use of NLW, especially in terms of the following:

Indiscriminate use
Maiming weapons
Excruciating pain
Torture devices

We concur with Steve Goose of Human rights Watch in saying that we oppose particular weapons that are indiscriminate, excessively injurious or cruel, or potentially inconsistent with existing international laws of war."

¹Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Thomas Cleary (Shambhala Publications, 1988).
²U.S. Defense Department, Policy for Nonlethal Weapons, Directive 3000.3, July 1996.
³Dr. Margaret-Anne Coppernoll, ?he Nonlethal Weapons Debate, (Margaret-Anne Coppernoll, 1998).