Posted on 01/05/2009 9:10:25 AM PST by BGHater
Armed robotic aircraft soar in the skies above Pakistan, hurling death down on America's enemies in the war on terrorism. Soon -years, not decades,from now - American armed robots will patrol on the ground as well, fundamentally transforming the face of battle. Conventional war, even genocide,may be abolished by a robotic American Peace.
The detachment with which the United States can inflict death upon our enemies is surely one reason why U.S. military involvement around the world has expanded over the past two decades.The excellence of American military technology makes it possible for U.S. forces to inflict vast damage upon the enemy while suffering comparatively modest harm in return.
War is about the sacrifice of blood and treasure, and the American style of war is to substitute treasure for blood. From the early days of the republic,when Eli Whitney is said to have used interchangeable parts to manufacture superior muskets,to the invention of Gatling guns and Kevlar armor,American ingenuity has been devoted to devising ever more efficient ways of killing the enemy and preventing the enemy from killing us.
One common factor in much of American military prowess is the surprisingly obscure fact of modern life known as Moore's Law. Gordon Moore,a co-founder of Intel,noticed nearly half a century ago that computing power seemed to be doubling about every two years. Laptops,cellphones, the Internet -they're simply commentaries on Moore's Law.
The rapid emergence of the armed unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) that roam over Pakistan is a sequel to Moore's Law. Onboard computers became far more powerful,so automatic pilots became far more competent. Signal processors became more sophisticated, facilitating collection and processing of more interesting intelligence. Global Positioning System receivers shrank and could be economically employed on small robotic aircraft. Precision-guided munitions could deliver lethal firepower. And so forth.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
HANG THE PROGRAMMERS ALERT!!!!!!
Skynet and/or the cylons are coming.
Actually, the day may be coming when the computers can out dog fight a pilot.
This little problem can be easily handled. Military budget cuts of 25% will go a long way toward crippling this capability.
Somebody clear a space beside the "electricity will be too cheap to meter" plaque.
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.
There is already one in the California Governors Mansion. Maintenance has been shoddy however and errors have crept in to its programming.
These high flying drone aircraft are hard to see and hard to hear. They are out there 24X7, and the Al Quida leadership are afraid do much of anything for fear of a Hell Fire missile coming right down their throats.
...and Hell Fire is an apt name for the destruction that is hunting them.
I’m disappointed that Israel doesn’t have a major robotic component online in support of its current ground offensive.
How do you know they don't?
L
Only a few troops, perhaps 1 percent, will actually direct aimed fire at the enemy with the intent to kill. These troops are treasured, and set apart, and called snipers.What BS.
Maybe only 1% are good enough to be snipers... that doesn't mean only 1% "actually direct aimed fire at the enemy".
What total BS.
I guess I’m assuming that a “major component” wouldn’t be very secret.
But you’re right.
I don’t have any inside information.
So, I think the advice to kids should be that if they want to be soldiers in the future, they need to stay indoors and play more videogames, rather than going outside and getting in shape, learning how to shoot etc.
I doubt we’ll ever truly go to a system where the the robot vehicles are making trigger-pulling decisions. More likely, there’ll be some guys in a bunker in Nevada who each control a dozen or so robot aircraft or ground vehicles. Like in real-time strategic video game, they’ll direct their vehicles to perform certain missions, using as many vehicles as they may need at any given time.
From our enemies’ point of view, this will be incredibly demoralizing. If you don’t even have a chance to kill Americans, the whole Jihad thing becomes a bit of a bummer.
No They'll just kill us financially as I'm sure these robots will cost $50 million a piece and they'll blow them up all day long. Our country is already bankrupt. Illusions of Grandeur and unlimited supplies of money should not be a fantasy that we should be entertaining in these economic times.
We still have checks left.
Old joke, but that's how the fed thinks, so we'll be getting our drones aplenty.
I know, but it doesn’t take a financial genius to know that if our enemies are capable of taking out our $50 million robot with an RPG that cost $50 bucks in the weapons bazaar, that that equation can not go on forever. I really hate to sound like an isolationist, but when you’re broke, you’re broke, and maybe we should rethink our foreign engagements until we replenish the piggy bank.
They say we'll prolly have a 10 to 1 revalue down the road.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.