robots &machines for the Empire :: essays research papers

ROBOTS & MACHINES FOR THE EMPIRE THE GEORGE LUCAS NIGHTMARE! Coming very soon to a theater of war near you, your family and your home, will be the machines and robots which will greatly magnify and make more mobile the State’s deadly force for deployment against its eternal enemy: the people. Government Executive Magazine, traditionally pro-federal government, includes an article in its April 15th issue entitled "Future Combat Zone." Staff correspondent George Cahlink begins his article, "Six years ago, the Army decided to stake its future on an untested approach to acquiring futuristic weapons in support of a grand theory about the nature of 21st century warfare. The resulting program, known as Future Combat Systems, has turned out to be the most expensive and complex program procurement effort in Army history. According to current estimates, the service will spend well in excess of $100 billion by 2014 to develop the ‘system of systems,’ which includes manned and unmanned air and ground vehicles and sensors tied together by a wireless network." [Emphasis mine.] "Untested approach?" "Futuristic?" "Grand theory?" It doesn’t sound very supportive of our nation state’s latest high-tech investments consistently touted as absolutely necessary for our defense in an increasingly technologically hostile world. The Army’s Future Combat Systems program was recently examined against the backdrop of totally uncontrolled federal spending, which long ago has left the State’s fiscal launching pad roaring skywards both in defiance of gravity and any modicum of budgetary restraints. Tim Weiner in his NY Times article of March 28th offers, "The Army’s plan to transform itself into a futuristic high-technology force has become so expensive that some of the military’s strongest supporters in Congress are questioning the program’s costs and complexity." The article, "An Army Program to Build a High-Tech Force Hits Cost Snags," goes on, "Army officials said†¦that the first phase of the program†¦could run to $145 billion. Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman, said the ‘technological bridge to the future’ would equip 15 brigades of roughly 3,000 soldiers, or about one-third of the force the Army plans to field, over a 20-year span." The "grand theory" Cahlink explains, is "[t]he Army’s bid for unprecedented speed and killing power require[ing] double the amount of computer code than is contained in the Joint Strike Fighter’s systems, rely[ing] on 53 new technologies and require[ing] more than 100 network interfaces." The "wireless network" Cahlink mentions is described by Weiner as the "Joint Tactical Radio Systems," known as JTRS [pronounced ‘jitters’].