The non-lethal weapons market, also often called the less lethal weapons market.

And that's the term I'll be using in this episode

for reasons I'll get into in a few minutes, is expected to be an $8.37 billion industry in 2020,

up from about $5.65 billion in 2015.

The logic of less lethal weapons is that it's often undesirable to escalate a conflict

if one can avoid doing so. This is true between international entities, a recent dust-up between China

and India in contested territory on the border, dividing the two countries, for instance,

involved physical conflict between military personnel from both countries, but they avoided escalating the confrontation

further by sticking to fists, rocks, and wooden clubs as weapons. Part of this confrontation

between these countries revolves around the installation of

artillery and the introduction of armored personnel carriers and other serious hardware and weaponry

into the supposedly peaceful neutral zone. But because they stuck with less lethal weapons,

a few soldiers had to be airlifted out to get medical treatment after this

brawl in the mountains, but the situation didn't extend any further beyond that. And as of the

day I'm recording this at least, the two countries have announced a series of meetings

during which they intend to defuse the situation before it can become something more serious.

Now, having to be airlifted out of the Himalayas because you were seriously injured during a rock

and club fight with soldiers from the neighboring military power is not nothing.

You can cause a lot of damage with professional military combat training alone,

and even simple bludgeoning weapons can increase that dangerousness many fold, but the scale,

potency, and casualness with which you can seriously injure and kill increases dramatically

when guns and explosives are used.

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