5 ms·

Here Come China's Drones

26 points by DanielBMarkham 14y ago

riggins 14y ago
its pretty interesting to think about the implications. A few thoughts. Air power has been a decisive advantage in recent wars (e.g. Desert Storm). Seems possible/probable that the victor of future wars will be determined by who has the better drone air-force.
- DanielBMarkham 14y ago
  There's an old saying that it always takes boots on the ground to win a war. Along the lines of your analysis, I wonder if we won't start seeing low-observable drone ground forces.
  - jdhuang 14y ago
    We already have automatic ground turrets that use heat signatures and computer vision http://singularityhub.com/2010/07/25/armed-robots-deployed-by-south-korea-in-demilitarized-zone-on-trial-basis/ http://singularityhub.com/2010/07/25/armed-robots-deployed-b... But at the end of the day, everything loses against a single nuclear bomb.
    - gaius 14y ago
      "The enemy cannot push a button, if you disable his hand" - Drill Sergeant Zim.
  - alaskamiller 14y ago
    Winning takes boots on the ground. But death comes from above.
- lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  Actually I seriously doubt air power will continue to win - Raytheon have now demonstrated a lorry sized 25KW laser, and chemical lasers can deliver 100kw (from a site the size of a car park so less useful) Anyway, line of sight medium range lasers are really here, and long distance (hundreds of KM) feasible. Stick one of these every 100km round your borders and try flying an aircraft overhead. Air power may soon be just another casualty of the march of progress - and the billions it costs to run an aircraft carrier may seem a little expensive.
  - gaius 14y ago
    Serious lasers + warships will be the game changer. A Destroyer's engines for power and the sea as a heat sink. A bottomless magazine and total domination of the airspace out to the horizon. Suddenly you don't need a carrier to provide topcover for amphibious operations, for example. You can put dozens of destroyers to sea for the cost of one carrier.
    - DanielBMarkham 14y ago
      Make this nuclear-powered, submersible, and robotic and you'd have one thorny strategic situation for a potential adversary to deal with -- dozens or hundreds of hidden air-supremacy devices able to redeploy at will. And impossible to take out. Let's say you wanted to protect the west coast of the U.S. You'd deploy 80 or 90 of these things (underwater, of course) along the shore. Every so often, one would surface, illuminate the skies with powerful radar, take out several targets, then disappear. Maybe it all happens inside of ten minutes. Then it relocates. Now picture that happening over a wide area with scores of ships. My numbers might be off, but you could get total coverage and not really present a target for counter-attack. And maintain that coverage for months or years without having to worry about refueling, port calls, a logistics train, or personnel issues. Lasers will change things in a big way, including creating completely new types of ships.
    - bdunbar 14y ago
      "Suddenly you don't need a carrier to provide topcover for amphibious operations," Airplanes do more than keep away other airplanes. They're also useful to blow up the enemy ashore, close air support for the grunts, deep tactical missions to isolate the battlefield. You're still going to need flying machines. Need some way to get them close to the battlefield. This might not Ford class super carrier but it's going to be _some_ kind of carrier.
    - popopje 14y ago
      as long as there's no fog or clouds, anyway.
  - omilu 14y ago
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  Actually the implication that most people seem focused on is that China has fewer restrictions on export (its even mentioned in the article). So if you have a stealthy UAV that can be bought, and you can arm it with a hellfire equivalent, then you can do much more damage to the "expensive" US infrastructure than the cost to acquire the drone + missile. Every additional strike you get out of it increases the ROI. Since it is already insanely expensive to run wars like the one in Afghanistan, if you can bump the cost up over the tipping point then you "win" by your opponent being unable to afford the cost. This was how the Afghans "beat" the Soviets, and how the US "won" the cold war. (scare quotes because in neither case did the Soviets surrender to an opposing force, they just stopped participating in the war effort. So if the US has to spend a couple billion dollars a month to make war against an enemy that is spending 100 million dollars a month, eventually the US loses.
speeder 14y ago
I wonder if someone will have courage to kill a terrorist in US soil, just to show US they can do like US do to another countries.
- lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  Drone strikes against "terrorists" are almost exclusively over territory that is actively supportive of the "freedom fighter". This is why there were so many bombings of weddings (if target X's niece is getting married you know he will turn up. So watch the uploads on Facebook or observe from the next hill. Bomb the whole place when target arrives. This was such bad PR it got stopped pretty fast) Anyway my point is assassination with drones is hard and always has collateral - but if the target is in an area that is not actively protecting him then the traditional methods of walking up and shooting him is much more viable. America has no such areas protecting terrorists (unless maybe some areas with the KKK but hardly. Oh and actual members of go ernment but that's playing with the definition of terrorist too much) I suspect it happens more than we hear about (Litveneko and the polonium being the obvious case)
  - coldtea 14y ago
    >Anyway my point is assassination with drones is hard and always has collateral - but if the target is in an area that is not actively protecting him then the traditional methods of walking up and shooting him is much more viable. So the "assassination" part doesn't annoy you much? Much more that the target can be anybody some dumbness in high offices in a single country declared "guilty".
    - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
      Thank you - good question. Firstly the easy answer: I would certainly prefer assassination over war. Secondly the comeback: Assassination is simply the extra-territorial equivalent of the death penalty - how you feel about the death penalty will influence how you feel about assassination Lastly - well the confusion - the above kind of says assassination is a Good Thing. But the Litvenunko affair shows just how hard this is as a problem - Russian government killed a man under the protection of the UK government and we could do little more than protest. In a world of assassination as an accepted action we would now be on our forth Prime Minister and Russia would be looking for their next president. I cannot say if that's a good or a bad thing. Certainly it would favour Saddam over Bush. In short, assassinating people is Wrong ! But assassinating the wrong people is more Wrong and usually counter-productive. As the old saw goes, "you want directions to Dublin? Well I wouldn't start from here if I are you"
rikacomet 14y ago
Well, if you look it from the perspective, that a Bipolar (2 sections) world against a Uni-Polar(US), its kinda good for the world as proven by history. 2 WW were enough to teach us the cost of worldwide war, the time has changed, the no of war-mongers have decreased considerably. Consider, how USSR and US were before 90's, yes, things were more delicate than today, at a time when communication was not that rampant, but it occasionally did put in check each one of them. Like USSR interfered towards the end of Veitnam War, no offence against US, but when you have power, the road becomes tough, and you need the occasional wake up call to see what is wrong and what is right. Russia holds that baton even today, but somehow people are only seeing the world being Bipolar between US-China, even though the current balance is something like Russia + China = US in terms of power. Power does not mean, any of them have to flaunt it, I will say it again, don't look at who is building which weapon, because all you gonna do is get anxious and build a better one. We as PEOPLE, must not give power to these war symbols, we should be anxious about ground realities. The growing unemployment in US, the need of reform of education in US, the need for liberty and freedom of speech in China, and much more. going into Space age, we the people should be concerned, and should push to make space free of boundaries, so the problem of today, stay on the earth only.

its pretty interesting to think about the implications. A few thoughts. Air power has been a decisive advantage in recent wars (e.g. Desert Storm). Seems possible/probable that the victor of future wars will be determined by who has the better drone air-force.

DanielBMarkham 14y ago
There's an old saying that it always takes boots on the ground to win a war. Along the lines of your analysis, I wonder if we won't start seeing low-observable drone ground forces.
- jdhuang 14y ago
  We already have automatic ground turrets that use heat signatures and computer vision http://singularityhub.com/2010/07/25/armed-robots-deployed-by-south-korea-in-demilitarized-zone-on-trial-basis/ http://singularityhub.com/2010/07/25/armed-robots-deployed-b... But at the end of the day, everything loses against a single nuclear bomb.
  - gaius 14y ago
    "The enemy cannot push a button, if you disable his hand" - Drill Sergeant Zim.
- alaskamiller 14y ago
  Winning takes boots on the ground. But death comes from above.
lifeisstillgood 14y ago
Actually I seriously doubt air power will continue to win - Raytheon have now demonstrated a lorry sized 25KW laser, and chemical lasers can deliver 100kw (from a site the size of a car park so less useful) Anyway, line of sight medium range lasers are really here, and long distance (hundreds of KM) feasible. Stick one of these every 100km round your borders and try flying an aircraft overhead. Air power may soon be just another casualty of the march of progress - and the billions it costs to run an aircraft carrier may seem a little expensive.
- gaius 14y ago
  Serious lasers + warships will be the game changer. A Destroyer's engines for power and the sea as a heat sink. A bottomless magazine and total domination of the airspace out to the horizon. Suddenly you don't need a carrier to provide topcover for amphibious operations, for example. You can put dozens of destroyers to sea for the cost of one carrier.
  - DanielBMarkham 14y ago
    Make this nuclear-powered, submersible, and robotic and you'd have one thorny strategic situation for a potential adversary to deal with -- dozens or hundreds of hidden air-supremacy devices able to redeploy at will. And impossible to take out. Let's say you wanted to protect the west coast of the U.S. You'd deploy 80 or 90 of these things (underwater, of course) along the shore. Every so often, one would surface, illuminate the skies with powerful radar, take out several targets, then disappear. Maybe it all happens inside of ten minutes. Then it relocates. Now picture that happening over a wide area with scores of ships. My numbers might be off, but you could get total coverage and not really present a target for counter-attack. And maintain that coverage for months or years without having to worry about refueling, port calls, a logistics train, or personnel issues. Lasers will change things in a big way, including creating completely new types of ships.
  - bdunbar 14y ago
    "Suddenly you don't need a carrier to provide topcover for amphibious operations," Airplanes do more than keep away other airplanes. They're also useful to blow up the enemy ashore, close air support for the grunts, deep tactical missions to isolate the battlefield. You're still going to need flying machines. Need some way to get them close to the battlefield. This might not Ford class super carrier but it's going to be _some_ kind of carrier.
  - popopje 14y ago
    as long as there's no fog or clouds, anyway.
- omilu 14y ago
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Actually the implication that most people seem focused on is that China has fewer restrictions on export (its even mentioned in the article). So if you have a stealthy UAV that can be bought, and you can arm it with a hellfire equivalent, then you can do much more damage to the "expensive" US infrastructure than the cost to acquire the drone + missile. Every additional strike you get out of it increases the ROI. Since it is already insanely expensive to run wars like the one in Afghanistan, if you can bump the cost up over the tipping point then you "win" by your opponent being unable to afford the cost. This was how the Afghans "beat" the Soviets, and how the US "won" the cold war. (scare quotes because in neither case did the Soviets surrender to an opposing force, they just stopped participating in the war effort. So if the US has to spend a couple billion dollars a month to make war against an enemy that is spending 100 million dollars a month, eventually the US loses.

speeder 14y ago

I wonder if someone will have courage to kill a terrorist in US soil, just to show US they can do like US do to another countries.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago
Drone strikes against "terrorists" are almost exclusively over territory that is actively supportive of the "freedom fighter". This is why there were so many bombings of weddings (if target X's niece is getting married you know he will turn up. So watch the uploads on Facebook or observe from the next hill. Bomb the whole place when target arrives. This was such bad PR it got stopped pretty fast) Anyway my point is assassination with drones is hard and always has collateral - but if the target is in an area that is not actively protecting him then the traditional methods of walking up and shooting him is much more viable. America has no such areas protecting terrorists (unless maybe some areas with the KKK but hardly. Oh and actual members of go ernment but that's playing with the definition of terrorist too much) I suspect it happens more than we hear about (Litveneko and the polonium being the obvious case)
- coldtea 14y ago
  >Anyway my point is assassination with drones is hard and always has collateral - but if the target is in an area that is not actively protecting him then the traditional methods of walking up and shooting him is much more viable. So the "assassination" part doesn't annoy you much? Much more that the target can be anybody some dumbness in high offices in a single country declared "guilty".
  - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
    Thank you - good question. Firstly the easy answer: I would certainly prefer assassination over war. Secondly the comeback: Assassination is simply the extra-territorial equivalent of the death penalty - how you feel about the death penalty will influence how you feel about assassination Lastly - well the confusion - the above kind of says assassination is a Good Thing. But the Litvenunko affair shows just how hard this is as a problem - Russian government killed a man under the protection of the UK government and we could do little more than protest. In a world of assassination as an accepted action we would now be on our forth Prime Minister and Russia would be looking for their next president. I cannot say if that's a good or a bad thing. Certainly it would favour Saddam over Bush. In short, assassinating people is Wrong ! But assassinating the wrong people is more Wrong and usually counter-productive. As the old saw goes, "you want directions to Dublin? Well I wouldn't start from here if I are you"

rikacomet 14y ago

Well, if you look it from the perspective, that a Bipolar (2 sections) world against a Uni-Polar(US), its kinda good for the world as proven by history. 2 WW were enough to teach us the cost of worldwide war, the time has changed, the no of war-mongers have decreased considerably. Consider, how USSR and US were before 90's, yes, things were more delicate than today, at a time when communication was not that rampant, but it occasionally did put in check each one of them. Like USSR interfered towards the end of Veitnam War, no offence against US, but when you have power, the road becomes tough, and you need the occasional wake up call to see what is wrong and what is right. Russia holds that baton even today, but somehow people are only seeing the world being Bipolar between US-China, even though the current balance is something like Russia + China = US in terms of power. Power does not mean, any of them have to flaunt it, I will say it again, don't look at who is building which weapon, because all you gonna do is get anxious and build a better one. We as PEOPLE, must not give power to these war symbols, we should be anxious about ground realities. The growing unemployment in US, the need of reform of education in US, the need for liberty and freedom of speech in China, and much more. going into Space age, we the people should be concerned, and should push to make space free of boundaries, so the problem of today, stay on the earth only.