DRONE WARS

Here we go.

The recent news cycle focusing on our military's use of remote controlled drones has prompted China to announce that they too will use drones to screw around with United States Navy carrier groups should a shooting war ever break out between China and the United States. China says it has everything from surveillance drones to drones that can fly in formation and drop bombs on enemy ships.

This is only the beginning of remote control wars  where unmanned aerial vehicles, known as UAV's, will do everything from gather intelligence to destroy enemy targets. Their utility is both cost effective and deadly.

It's so much like Star Wars I can't help but suffer the comparison. First there's the word. Drones. In this case unmanned aerial vehicles with all the versatility of Swiss army knives. Imagine thousands of them in the air, fitted for various tactical purposes. How do you defend against a swarm of remote controlled flying robots?

You don't. That's what the Chinese are counting on and frankly so are we. We're ramping up our drone technology and looking to produce more of them. The problem is the mandatory military budget cuts that went to effect March 1st. Those cuts could impact our drone program and put us behind China. Chinese research and development isn’t subject to budget cuts.

Drones are here to stay. They'll patrol the skies of the United States. They'll be used for investigations, intelligence gathering, or to take a peek inside your garage. They'll be deployed for both offense and defense. They'll be equipped with software that will allow them to operate independently of the remote controller if the software determines there’s a much more effective way to conduct the mission.

The Pentagon is worried about China's drone program. They have concerns that the technology will be sold to other nations as well as the drones themselves. This ups the ante dramatically in a world that will evolve into something you didn't expect. Something more deadly and dangerous than you imagined.