I do not disagree with that hypothesis, but said capabilities are not currently widespread nor “cheap”, nor could those who launched said vehicles easily escape retaliation (currently).
As I said before, technology advances and what has been posited will be possibly, but at this time, it is not as easily said as done.
Now, for the real question, how long will it be until such tech is common and able to be used against us in such a manner? I’m thinking in a decade or less, so it will likely be coming, but I’m not of the opinion that the capability is there at this time.
Intelligence is paramount, and perhaps that is the arena in which we are truly falling behind.
We are in agreement on those points. I am sure that anything I can generally imagine has already been prototyped by the military. Cruise missiles carrying digital images of the terrain have been around for decades now. Now software can recognize vehicles and faces. It is only a matter of time before the technology trickles down and the costs come down as they always do in consumer electronics. I was guessing five years and you think it might be ten or less. The “future” isn’t far off! I recently read about new neural computer chips that mimic the brain and promise a breakthrough in image-recognition speeds. No, drones certainly can’t destroy the nation, but they could carry out limited objectives.