Traumatic brain injury has been described as the signature injury of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflict partly because our understanding of this injury causes us to approach it differently, but also partly because this injury represents a higher proportion of battlefield injuries in these conflicts than in previous conflicts. This is due, in large part, to the changing nature of battlefield armor and medicine.
Armor in our asymmetrical warfare with forces in Iraq and Afghanistan means that our enemies have resorted to relatively low-lethality and poorly targeted improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which create potentially deadly blasts, but only under certain circumstances, with a wide zone of concussive force that can lead to brain trauma and other concussive injuries. As armor continues to evolve, what will be the signature injuries of future wars?