War Is Boring

The Army’s next truck should be smart, flexible, user-friendly, partially autonomous and affordable. In other words, the automotive equivalent of a gadget from Apple. At a trade conference in Virginia on Tuesday, Brig. Gen. Stephen Farmen, the chief of U.S. Army transportation, held up an iPhone. “How do we put the kind of power and technology like this into a wheeled vehicle and hit the right price point?” Farmen asked, according to a report by National Defense.

The robot revolution now has its very own Industrial Light & Magic. Despite the current budget crunch, the Obama Administration got the Navy a brand-new lab. The Naval Research Laboratory’s Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research (LASR) officially opened for business March 16, 2012, and behind its tired acronym lies a facility Hollywood would kill for.

Same ships, different concept.

War ‘bots and robotic art are two ever-growing fields of technology, but they often breeze past each other. The purpose of robotics in warfare seems to be to make conflict more efficient, safer and smarter. Robotics in art, much like the purpose of a lot of simpler art, is more interested in exploring the limits of awareness — and perhaps using robots to reflect back on our own nature. If the future of war ‘bots is looking to incorporate empathy and greater self-awareness in its technology, perhaps artists and military ‘bot designers should work more closely together.

It was an ignominious start for a potentially profound technological revolution. On June 21, 2011, a U.S. Navy MQ-8 Fire Scout robotic reconnaissance helicopter was shot down near Tripoli by forces loyal to then-Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The 24-foot-long, gray-painted drone was one of two launched from the frigate USS Halyburton and remotely controlled by operators aboard the vessel. Carrying classified sensors, the Fire Scouts likely helped detect targets for NATO forces flying top cover for Libyan rebels.

On March 19, the guided-missile submarine Florida fired more than 90 of the roughly 120 Tomahawk cruise missiles that took down Libyan air defenses, clearing the way for NATO strike planes. It was the major-combat debut for America’s fleet of “SSGN” subs. Each of the four vessels packs up to 154 Tomahawks, making them some of the world’s most powerful warships.

For the third time this year, Iran is claiming it shot down an American robot warplane trying to snoop on Tehran’s nuclear facilities. “An unmanned U.S. spy plane flying over the holy city of Qom near the uranium enrichment Fordu site was shot down by the Revolutionary Guards’ air-defense units,” lawmaker Ali Aghazadeh Dafsari told Iranian state television.

The experimental four-legged, pack-hauling robots aren’t gonna be ready for duty at the front anytime soon. So the Army is considering a big step backward in front-line logistics.

It was a particularly promising bit of technology during an unusually optimistic era for space exploration. In the mid-1990s, Orbital Sciences’ X-34 reusable, robotic space plane — designed to boost into near-orbit by way of an organic, single-stage rocket engine then glide to a runway landing — promised to help make space access faster, cheaper and more flexible. It was just one of several U.S. military and NASA projects exploring single-stage-to-orbit technologies and reusable spacecraft.

America’s robots make deadly weapons. But there are countermeasures to even the most fearsome bot now in service. To avoid detection by aerial drones, Taliban fighters in Afghanistan have begun traveling in smaller groups. In his excellent book War, Sebastian Junger even describes Afghan fighters covering themselves with blankets on sun-warmed rocks to erase their infrared signatures, confounding the drones’ IR sensors.

Call it China’s ‘Christmas surprise.’ In a series of grainy photos given a pass by government Internet censors starting December 25, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force unveiled the country’s first stealth fighter prototype, the Chengdu J-20.

There are more than 2,000 ground robots fighting alongside flesh-and-blood forces in Afghanistan, according to Lt. Col. Dave Thompson, the Marine Corps top robot-handler. If his figures are right, it means one in 50 U.S. troops in Afghanistan isn’t even a human being. And America’s swelling ranks of ground-bot warriors are being used in new, unexpected, life-saving ways.