Hollywood’s “The Terminator (1984)” could be a reality decades later –Schwarzenegger was then playing the role of a typical “foot soldier” –global boots on ground in the future –by 2030!
“Cool”, says a video gamer. “But it’s no joke”, says an analyst south of the Tropic of Cancer.
Report says the United Kingdom has its eyes set on possessing a robot army for potential conflicts of the future.
Having already invested a fair share of resources and time for the development of the next-generation advanced fighter jet, which is commonly known by the name of the Tempest Fighter Jet, Britain is already looking to invest in robot warfare.
According to Chief of the Defense Staff of the British Army, General Sir Nick Carter, around one-quarter of the United Kingdom’s army could be robots in the next 10 years or in the 2030s. Carter while speaking to Sky News in an interview said:
“I mean I suspect we can have an army of 120,000, of which 30,000 might be robots, who knows, but the answer is we need to open our minds to perhaps not determining what we should be doing but rather the effect that we can achieve is really what we should be looking for.”
Carter stated that the British Armed Forces do need “to think about how we measure effects in a different way”. Robot warfare is therefore set to be a central agenda in terms of defense investment as part of the planned integrated five-year defense review.
A host of nations –led by the United States, have been reported to have increased their military investment in robotic technology, with robots likely to become a key part of any country’s military arsenal of the future. “And China is not behind…it may well be ahead of the curve”, a China observer tells DesPardes.
According to an analyst based in Asia-Pacific specializing in US-China relations and South Asia affairs, “many modern forces, including the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), are increasing investments in unmanned systems and automation”…But the USA is the farthest ahead along that trajectory, he says, and several EU/NATO states too, are moving in that direction.
“In South Asia, I have seen reports on Indian initiatives,” he adds. However, in his opinion, given the demographic, sci-tech and economic imbalances across post-colonial countries in South Asia, as well as the general level of comfort with the familiar, “things are likely to change only slowly.”
Alan S. Brown, writing for The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, says several countries including the US, Israel, and South Korea deploy soldiers to gather intelligence, take part in strike missions, and even patrol borders.
“The U.S. fields more than 5,300 unmanned aerial vehicles and more than 12,000 ground robots to reduce risk to soldiers, gather intelligence and strike stealthily at remote enemies,”
Israel and South Korea use armed robots to patrol their borders. Operators in cubicles in the U.S. routinely fly drone aircraft via remote control, monitoring, and attacking potential targets,” said Brown.
Countries are already working on “terminators” in light of shortages of human soldiers and advancement in warfare technology takes quantum leap.
Imagine a war-like scenario where the skies are flooded with an array of stealthy modern fighters and drones performing aerial maneuvers while launching missiles at enemy fighters and amid that smoke, dust, and absolute chaos, you see an army of soldiers charging at enemy camps — soldiers unafraid of being attacked— soldiers who don’t eat, drink, sleep, or even bleed— welcome to Robot Warfare.
