2018-12-31, 00:54 | Link #161 |
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A Hazardous Form of Peace:
"Of the five conflicts he examines -- North Korea's "frozen" stalemate, Beijing's expansion in the South China Sea, Russia's "hybrid" invasion of Ukraine, the proxy and tribal battles in Yemen and the anarchy in the Congo -- none resemble the stereotype of conventional war. The greatest trick modern despots ever pulled was to convince the world that war has ceased to exist by disguising it as other things. In 1999, nine years after Bay's anecdote and 7 years after Francis Fukuyama's book The End of History and the Last Man appeared, two Chinese air force colonels wrote a paper to contrive just that. It laid out how China could defeat America without a conventional confrontation. Their book, Unrestricted Warfare, proposed an ancient yet largely forgotten strategy to achieve this: by spreading out offensive activity over so many domains no one component would individually cross a red line. Then people like the woman who buttonholed Austin Bay would think nothing was happening until it was too late. The thesis of Colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui was neatly summarized by War on the Rocks:" See: https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez...form-of-peace/ |
2019-04-14, 19:20 | Link #162 |
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Air Force prepares to test pod-mounted laser weapons for fighters:
"As the United States attempts to close the capability gap presented by Russian and Chinese hypersonic missiles, another (even faster) weapon is quickly making its way toward operational service on American fighter jets: lasers. It may sound like science fiction, but with weapon systems like the AN/SEQ-3 Laser Weapon System (also known as the XN-1 LaWS) already completing successful tests aboard U.S. Navy vessels and the Navy investing another $150 million into Lockheed Martin’s high energy laser system for deployment on Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers in the coming years, it seems the world may soon be entering into an era of directed-energy weapons finding increasing relevance in ordinary combat operations. “Laser weapons offer war-fighters opportunities for quick and precise target engagement, flexibility and lighter and more responsive support logistics,” Eva Blaylock, spokeswoman for the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), told Warrior Maven. The laboratory has been leading the way in the effort to miniaturize laser weapon technology sufficiently to make it both small enough and light enough to be carried aboard military aircraft. Unlike the now defunct Boeing YAL-1, which used a large chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) housed inside a 747 airliner to shoot down ballistic missiles, these new weapons will be compact enough to be carried by aircraft like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, though admittedly, they anticipate testing these weapons aboard C-130 and C-17 airframes first, before moving on to smaller platforms." See: https://thenewsrep.com/116229/air-fo...-for-fighters/ |
2019-06-16, 22:55 | Link #163 |
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Chronic Conflict in the Global World: Right at Your
Doorstep or on Your Computer: "Modern warfare as practiced less resembles WWII than the rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel or the shooting up of "Easter worshippers" in Sri Lanka. The goal isn't the capture of geographical features but to gain media column inches, invitations to talk shows, followers on Twitter and the like. The objective is not the conquest of a state but its takeover by means of assisting to power the domestic political force most congenial to the attacker. "Collusion" and political effects are not the exception but the entire point of modern hostile operations. The 2020 election, not Sugarloaf Hill, is the new high ground. In fairness, this is exactly the game America is playing against Iran. The U.S. doesn't want to conquer territory but ensure that a "moderate" or "reformist" faction comes to power in Tehran. It would be silly to think China and Russia are not trying the same stunt on Washington. That's why the cry "sappers are in the wire" is still valid even though it's a different kind of sapper and a different kind of wire: the Internet and 5G. Our conception of international conflict, molded by the events of the 20th century, may now be obsolete. Conflict is now "always on" in our brave new global world, occurring right at your doorstep or on your computer. The universal liberty briefly promised by the fall of the Soviet Union has vanished, replaced by a chronic unease hidden just beneath the surface like a fire kept in check but never quite extinguished." See: https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez...ies-of-shadow/ |
2019-08-15, 22:16 | Link #164 |
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Animated Rendering of Space Battles With Nuclear Orion Spaceships:
"Animations of nuclear battleship Orions fighting in space. It was created by Rhysy who has made some of the best Project Orion related animations. In George Dyson’s book, he mentioned an Orion battleship model that was shown to President Kennedy. President Kennedy chose not to develop the project. Kennedy made this choice because he did not want the arms race to go that extreme. This was not a cancellation based upon technical problems. Russia is now building superweapon concepts that were conceived in the 1960s that were never built. A technically feasible superweapon is the Project Orion Nuclear Battleships. Russia’s President Putin seems to making different choices in regards to using nuclear weapons into feasible superweapons. This video shows where this ends up with fleets of nuclear Orion Battleships fighting in our solar system." See: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/0...paceships.html |
2020-06-04, 23:20 | Link #165 |
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Manned Fighter To Face Autonomous Drone Next Year In Sci-Fi
Movie-Like Showdown: "The Air Force is hoping to pit an autonomous drone equipped with an artificial intelligence-driven flight control system against a fighter jet with a human pilot in a little over a year. The service has described this effort in the past as a "big moonshot" that could revolutionize air-to-air combat in ways that have so far been limited to the realm of fiction - at least as far as we know. Air Force Lieutenant General Jack Shanahan, head of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), revealed that the Air Force had set the goal of holding the faceoff in July 2021 during a remote event that the Air Force Association's Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies held on June 4, 2020. The Pentagon established the JAIC in 2018 to serve as a central point of focus for AI developments and related activities across the U.S. military. Shanahan did not offer any details about the design of the unmanned aircraft that is supposed to take part in this in this future aerial duel or specifics about its planned capabilities. He did say that Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL) Autonomy Capability Team 3 (ACT3), led by Steve Rogers, was still in charge of the effort, which Inside Defense first reported the existence of in May 2018. AFRL created ACT3 that year to focus on AI developments. Regardless, the general concept of a fully-autonomous unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) capable of air-to-air combat, as well as air-to-ground strikes, hold great potential to fundamentally change the character of aerial warfare, something The War Zone has explored in great depth in the past. At its most basic, a UCAV would be able to perform many of the same functions as manned aircraft, but would be able to make key decisions faster and more accurately, taking into account much more information in a shorter period of time, without any concern about being distracted or confused by the general chaos of combat. They can also be networked into swarms that work cooperatively to maximize their combat effectiveness at any given time far beyond what a human-piloted formation could." See: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...-like-showdown |
2023-04-22, 18:29 | Link #166 |
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'It Is Skynet': Pentagon Envisions Robot Armies
in a Decade "“Over the next ten to fifteen years, you’ll see large portions of advanced countries’ militaries become robotic,” Milley said. “If you add robotics with artificial intelligence and precision munitions and the ability to see at range, you’ve got the mix of a real fundamental change.” “That’s coming. Those changes, that technology … we are looking at inside of 10 years.”" See: https://www.theepochtimes.com/in-dep...e_5207504.html |
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