Vernor Vinge was my networking teacher at SDSU... He mentioned an idea in passing similar to this (around 1997ish), except that in his vision, the network would be explosively formed. Imagine that you could get these nodes down to the size of a quarter. maybe it had a solar cell + battery combo. You could fire off a missle or a shell over a field of battle, a low yield explosive would disperse these nodes over some area, and would automatically create a mesh network. I still think that the idea has merit, maybe somehow install Byzantium into a tiny embedded controllers, etc...

Are we inventing enemies? China couldn't even keep its roads open this winter, and they're the big military threat we're worried about? Russia today couldn't even compete militarily with USA from the 80's. I don't want it to sound like I don't value progress, but there are betting things to spend our money on that hyper advanced (ie. hyper-expensive) military hardware. Isn't that what lead to the fall of the soviet union? unsustainable military overspending.