[yashgaroth]

Military vehicles can already drive at night without visible light. Except in the most extreme case (new moon and heavy cloud cover) - and then they can illuminate using infrared. Such a device costs <2,000 USD and is already wearable. More expensive and/or vehicle-mounted systems increase that capability to the point where you basically never even need the IR illumination, unless the vehicle is fighting inside a building (rare).

The technology in the article, aside from being heavily editorialized, will remain inferior to that for a long time. However, one possible application would be the use of higher-wavelength infrared for the active illumination, so that other militaries with night vision are unable to see your infrared headlights and then blow you up.

[leptons]

IR illumination (no matter the wavelength), or this laser-based night vision, would light up a military vehicle like a big bright target. For night vision to be viable in a military setting, it needs to be passive.

[riedel]

Is it possible to design ultra wide spread spectrum light pulses that are below the signal to noise ratio if you don't know the code? At least some RF signal sources are at least difficult to detect I guess.