robots &machines for the Empire :: essays research papers

ROBOTS & MACHINES FOR THE EMPIRETHE GEORGE LUCAS NIGHTMAREComing very presently to a theater of war near you, your family and your home, impart be the machines and robots which will greatly magnify and make more mobile the States 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 struggle Zone." Staff correspondent George Cahlink begins his article, "Six years ago, the troops decided to support its future on an untested approach to acquiring futurist weapons in support of a grand theory ab come forward the nature of twenty-first century warfare. The resulting program, cognise as Future Combat Systems, has turned out to be the most expensive and complex program procurement swither in Army history. According to current estimates, the service will glide by well in excess of $100 billion by 2014 to make grow the system of systems, which includes manned and unmanned air and ground vehicles and sensors tied unneurotic by a wireless cyberspace." Emphasis mine."Untested approach?" "Futuristic?" " guanine theory?" It doesnt sound very supportive of our nation advances latest high-tech investments consistently touted as absolutely undeniable for our defense in an increasingly technologically hostile world.The Armys Future Combat Systems program was recently examined against the backdrop of totally uncontrollable federal spending, which long ago has left the States monetary launching pad roaring skywards both in defiance of gravity and any modicum of budgetary restraints. Tim Weiner in his NY Times article of swear out 28th offers, "The Armys plan to transform itself into a futuristic high-technology force has become so expensive that some of the militarys strongest supporters in Congress are questioning the programs cost and complexity."The article, "An Army Program to Build a High-Tech Force Hits equal Snags," goes on, "Army officials saidthat the first phase of the programcould run to $ cxlv billion. Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman, said the technological bridge to the future would furnish 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 "the Armys call up for unprecedented speed and killing power requireing double the amount of reckoner code than is contained in the Joint Strike Fighters systems, relying on 53 new technologies and requireing 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.