  We discuss a new class of brane models (extending both p-brane and Dp-brane
cases) where the brane tension appears as an additional dynamical degree of
freedom instead of being put in by hand as an ad hoc dimensionfull scale.
Consistency of dynamics naturally involves the appearence of additional
higher-rank antisymmetric tensor gauge fields on the world-volume which can
couple to charged lower-dimensional branes living on the original Dp-brane
world-volume. The dynamical tension has the physical meaning of electric-type
field strength of the additional higher-rank world-volume gauge fields. It
obeys Maxwell (or Yang-Mills) equations of motion (in the string case p=1) or
their higher-rank gauge theory analogues (in the Dp-brane case). This in
particular triggers a simple classical mechanism of ("color") charge
confinement.
