Yesterday I covered an urgent request that was placed by the United States Air Force to obtain drone killing technology that could be used against ISIS’ newly formed “Unmanned Aircraft of the Mujahideen.” The result of this urgency was a $15.6 million no-bid contract with an Israeli company to develop portable systems to combat small drones that are alleged to be in use and under rapid development by ISIS and other terror groups in the region.
Although it’s merely one day later, the “urgency” has become nearly breathless, as today the Pentagon’s counterterrorism chief, Lt. Gen. Michael Nagata, is warning that since terrorists have demonstrated a clear intention to use drones, the next step would be to launch drone swarms.
As reported by Defense One:
“What could you do with a swarm of weaponized unmanned aerial systems?” asked Nagata. “We need to remember that aerial vehicles are not the only rapidly growing capability when it comes to robotics. Ask yourself what could a robot the size of a penny that can cut through computer cables do to a command control room?”
Good questions, and (if legitimate) probably should have been asked when the U.S. launched the global drone arms race to begin with and started killing people with them.
“I believe that is only a harbinger of what is coming as this technology grows in both capability, availability and costs continue to drop,” he said. “The question is no longer will somebody be able to do such things some day? Or how do we stop this from happening in the future? I would argue this is something we need to be asking ourselves right now.”
The warning comes in tandem with “Hard Kill” – a three-phase challenge for defense contractors to demonstrate their wares – which, as Defense One states, is “a bit like American Idol for drone killing.”
Nice.
In reality, we are witnessing the real-time feedback loop of problem-reaction-solution that ensures war without end. And it doesn’t even have to make sense. We are being told to believe that drones like the one pictured below are a threat to the highest-tech military in the world and that somehow this thing will progress through phases of development to become what you will see in the video below the image.
Credit: Associated Press/Khalid Mohammed
I expect to see a flurry of more stories like these about urgent exotic weapons projects as Trump announces a historic 9% increase in the military’s budget.
According to Reuters:
President Donald Trump is seeking what he called a “historic” 9 percent increase in military spending, even as the United States has wound down major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and remains the world’s strongest military power.Trump will ask Congress to boost Pentagon spending in the next fiscal year by $54 billion in his first budget proposal and slash the same amount from non-defense spending, including a large reduction in foreign aid, a White House budget official said on Monday.
There’s really not much more to say, other than to hope this is just a wishful thinking money grab during the reign of a new American president who continues to publicly commit to massive military expansion. Because if people at the highest level of counter-terrorism truly believe this is an imminent threat to humanity, then we might be in more trouble than we can imagine.
Nicholas West writes for ActivistPost.com and where this article first appeared.
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