Slashdot Mirror
When Looks Can Kill
Ben Sullivan writes "From the Los Angeles Times: "Test pilots here are flying with sophisticated helmets, resembling a bug's eye, that allow them to aim their weapons and sensors simply by looking at potential targets on the ground or in the air. The helmets, when coupled with a highly maneuverable new missile that is close to deployment, would enable fighter pilots to look over their shoulders and fire instantly at targets, a feat that until now has been matched only in science fiction movies."
Development was done by San Jose-based Vision Systems International, a joint venture of defense electronics maker Rockwell Collins Inc. and Israeli's Elbit. Raytheon makes the sharp-turning AIM-9X missile."
I'm half-way through putting one of these in my car - leaves my hands free to drink coffee, tune the radio etc.
Come Monday morning, if you're driving in Portland, OR, you might want to take extra care at junctions until I've got the bugs ironed out.
0xB
The Russians have had helmet mounted sights and versions of the Archer AAM that can come off the launch rail at absurd angles for versions of the Mig-29 and Su-27 for some time now. Coupled with an infrared search and track sensor, they can mount a passive attack, no radar warning at all.
This isn't anything too ground-breaking, the Russian MiG-29 has had a similar system in operation for years now.
The future, as predicted by the visionary movie Firefox is coming true! Next thing you know we'll have to think at our computers in Russian...
echo Prpv a\'rfg cnf har cvcr | tr Pacfghnrvp Cnpstuaeic
How will the (no doubt) massive investment of government money involved in developing instruments of war like this improve human society? Even if you believe that wars and military power can improve the world, you must concede that the United States already has by far the most technologically advanced military in the world, and even without devices like this no other country can seriously challenge the United States in a conventional war (and no amount of technological superiority can ultimately stop fanatics armed with box cutters). And every cent that funds new high-tech killing instruments is one cent that doesn't go to fight very serious problems of disease, starvation, and poverty.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
This time lets not sell the tech to the Israelis so they stop kicking our pilots asses so bad in mock dogfights. This could be like their handicap.
Sigs are awesome huh?
This has been on the Apache for some time now.
Joe Carnes
While this would definitely be faster, maybe more accurate...if all you have to do is LOOK at something to blow it up, might not the chances for friendly fire or other accidents be increased? What else does a pilot have to do to mark and/or fire at their target?
Didn't Discovery Channel do a documentary on wives who reduced their husbands to cinders merely by giving them the evil eye?
you take a quick look at your wingman and utter the words "shoot, he's too far away" then you hear... "target locked...firing..."
technology is beginning to get big enough to cause som really big mishaps...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Seeing as 'jets' cruise at 400+ MPH, I doubt they'll see anything. Besides, they wouldn't fly that low in the first place.
Thirdly, R&D, while more expensive for the military than for any other enterprise, is still a better deal than buying enough old-tech hardware and manpower to do what we expect out military to do: win quickly (preferably within weeks) and suffer no losses.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
With Americans track record of hitting alies by mistake, I can see this is going to cause even more.
Co pilot "Is that a uk tank?"
BOOM!!!
Pilot " U mean that burning thing on the ground?"
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire
"The coordinates of the target are transmitted instantly to the missile, which upon launch uses its own infrared and optic sensors to make the kill." This isn't flamebait, but wouldn't this just make our pilots more accoutable for what they fire at? With the fog of war and all, this wouldn't be good...
... When can I get one?
Another question I'd like to see answered: how accurate is human eyesight anyway? Sure, to us it seems pretty accurate, but how accurately can you pick up on the eye's positioning? What if you've got a gimp-eye that keeps straying off to the corner? What about picking up on depth-of-field? With ground targets this shouldn't be as much of a problem, but in the air, especially with an air target between you and the ground, depth-of-field becomes critical. It seems like the biggest "bugs" in this system are the foibles of the human eye.
No problem with this, as far as the missile launch being done by a trigger, not by thoughts.
Imagine a stupid lietunent (just like Band of Brothers) starring at the pilot in front of a plane equiped with this device. It would be interesting to see stupid sargents being killed!
But, what can I do? What can I say? I'm not military. :o)
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
I'm afraid its not on my version of Apache, but I believe the new 2.0 version of Apache may have it.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
Could the US do more? Sure. If someone defeats the US with superior firepower, will they do better? Not a chance. Power acquired though violent means is rarely employed for the good of the majority.
I would prefer to see the US retain its abililty to defend itself against aggressors. If the US is defeated in war, the victor is not likely to be someone who does a better job fighting the "very serious problems of disease, starvation, and poverty." If that matters to you, you should be glad for the United States' military superiority.
We have superiority today, but if we stop developing bigger, better, badder weapons, that will change. Superiority is a process, not a result.
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
I recall reading recently that research was being done on a helmet like this that would be combined with external sensors so the pilot could "see" things that were not visible to him in the cockpit. For instance, he could look down by his feet and see an aircraft below him. They could couple this with a quick method of changing "views," like those flight simulator games that allow you to toggle between forward/left/right/aft view, to make a formidable fighting system.
By the way, for the whiners complaining that this will facilitate blue-on-blue kills: it's just a targeting system. The pilot still has to aim and pull the trigger.
Evil is the money of root.
you can just use the force!
Read the article, people. This is about aiming missiles, not firing them. No speech recognition involved.
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
Not having to aim a plane at a target can save time when engaging enemies at high-speed. However, the article didn't address just how much of the aircraft's information would be displayed in the HUD. If there is too much going on, it could cause undue distraction or confusion while the pilot coordinates the data. On the other hand, if it only puts immediately pertinent information on the display while locking onto a target, then the look-and-shoot technique may help to change how airborne combat works. I know that pilots are specially trained to fight the way they do, but I wonder how much time and money will be needed to retrain the air pilots. On top of that, just how many planes will this system installed on it? As long as some of the fundamentals remain the same, the reteaching of pilots could be streamlined significantly. Hopefully, the system will be sophisticated enough to reduce the possbility of friendly fire or miscalculated targets. If not, one bad news story about bad targeting can bring the AIM-9X project down in short order. If it works out, great.
This
Look, I'm not a military pacifist, but I think there's danger in glorifying military technology and placing it here next to other stories about video games, operating systems, and cool tech stuff.
I know that most of the readers here are young, male, interested in technology and its applications. I'm one of them. But when it comes to military hardware, I think that many of us are too easily charmed into the "coolness" of the applications, the "coolness" of the implementation, and forget what military hardware is designed to do, namely to commit aggression and kill people. Maybe this is a little *too* blunt, but in the end, it does seem always to have that purpose, right?
Now you may say that it's important to have a strong defense, and I agree to some extent. But too often this is used as an incidental explanation to commit some pretty shitty stuff. Like hurting civilians who happen to be in the way of your target. Or like deceiving a population about what the military really does, or why we need to send hundreds of billions of hard-earned dollars per year, plus our sons and daughters to military purposes.
I think that it's up to all of us to question more vigorously the way we think about things like this. When you admire this technology, is it because you forget about what its real purpose is? When you work on code that guides missiles to their targets, is it because you feel proud of getting the job done right -- rather than thinking about what your code is really helping the US military (and others around the world) to do to all of us? I'm just suggesting that we be more deliberate in what we admire and place value on, and perhaps think in an ethical way about our actions.
You may call this flamebait, but I'm not someone who posts this stuff every day to champion a cause. I just saw this story, and felt strange about it. I mean, it's not like GTA3. This is real life stuff. I would be glad to know what you think.
As the US Army puts it:
The modern HMD is not a new concept. Its invention has been attributed to Gordon Nash, a British researcher, who explored alternative methods of providing additional information to the aviator in the 1950's (Adam, 1995). Marshall (1989) traces the concept of using the helmet as a platform for a fire control (weapon aiming) back to 1916, when Albert Bacon Pratt developed and received patents for an integrated gun helmet, perhaps the very first helmet-mounted sight (HMS). This concept was revisited in the Helmet Sight System (HSS) used in the U.S. Army's AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter in the 1970's. Task and Kocian (1995) cite the U.S. Navy's Visual Target Acquisition System (VTAS), developed in the 1960's, as the first fully operational visually coupled sighting system. [However, the system was abandoned due to lack of sufficient missile fire control technology.] For Army aviation, the AN/PVS-5 NVG was the first pilotage imagery HMD (first tested in 1973), and the IHADSS was the first integrated HMD (fielded since 1985).
Simply, an HMD projects head-directed sensor imagery and/or fire control symbology onto the eye, usually superimposed over a see-through view of the outside world.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
So what if there is an error in the system, and you wink at a pretty girl, and blow her to smithereens? I think the rest of them would stay pretty clear of you from then on.
but when is the AIM-2k version going to come out? XP? are we expecting them to apply all the latests security patches and such?
imgaine: "target locked...firing...3y3 h4x0r3d j00...incoming missle..."
needless microsoft bash i suppose.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
Two wee flies in the ointment here. First off, it is not useful to be able to target your weapons on an unidentified foe, especially if they turn out not to be foe.
:v)
Second, while all this close-range dogfight stuff is all very well, most modern AAM-type weapons are designed to be fired with a stand-off distance that renders the target virtually invisible to the naked eye. So you might have trouble aiming by looking at it.
Vik
Gives a whole new meaning to giving someone the evil eye. :o)
that allow them to aim their weapons and sensors simply by looking at potential targets on the ground or in the air.
So this begs the question, where the hell can I get this stuff for my car? I'm sure it would help immensly for getting the attention of the idiot driver infront of me putzing along in the passing/fast lane.
We're now just one step closer to having that same, really ultra bizzare targetting system that was depected in Babylon 5 - Legend of the Rangers! But humans can only look in one direction - what about all the other directions?
'nuff said.
>
HOLY CRAP! Is that Elvis?!?!
LA loses a skyscraper.
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
ENEMY CONTROL TOWER: Attention, American fighter pilot, you have some ice on your wing.
AMERICAN FIGHTER PILOT (looking): No, I don't . . . [BOOM!] Mayday, mayday, my wing's exploded.
ENEMY CONTROL TOWER: Heh. Works every time.
Russian airforce has had helmet targetting system like that for nearly 10 years. Americans are playing catch-up again.
Raytheon makes the sharp-turning AIM-9X missile.
.)
Please note that the AIM-9x != AOL Instant Messenger for Windows 95/98. (Although the destructive effects on the lives of those who come into contact with them are striking similar . .
Ah well, it sounded better in my head. Honestly.
can we say been there done that? this system type has been in use ever since the AH-64 apache helicopter was made... many, many years ago
Quite a few other countries have had this as standard equipment on their fighters for quite a while now. Some stories:
1. Russian fighters since the Mig-29 and the Su-27 have had this. In addition the Su-33 and onwards have a rearward looking radar between the engines in order to fire missiles "over the shoulder".
2.The Eurofighter has this as standard as does the Saab Griffen and the Dassault Rafael.
3.Obviously, the Israelis have had this for a long time. Probably the same one that is now being advertised as being from the US. It's probably the other way around: that the missile is from the US and the helmet from Israel. The US and Israel do quite a lot of military technology exchange. They have also jointly developed a tactical anti-missile laser.
4.Funnily enough, the apartheid regime in South Africa, where I come from, dveloped a helmet mounted site for IR missiles in the 80's. I remember them bragging about it on TV. After the government changed to a more democratic one in the 90's the US government tried to blackmail the South African into handing over the technology, which means that the US didn't have their own up until then.
One does tend to ask oneself why the world's largest military machine was incapable of developing something like this itself until recently.
The AIM-9X missile is still heat seeking, and requires a predetermined, concentrated heat level. Early versions of the sidewinder missile had problems with "tracking" the sun or hot jungle floors. Now, the missile will only lock onto targets that are hotter than the jungle floor, but not as hot as the sun (i.e. enemy fighters). The electronics are fairly sophisticated. Also, the helmet mounted sight cannot override the missile's tracking system. It can only designate where the missile should start looking for heat signatures. So all those hopes that some pilot notices your ex and winks at her, thus ensuring her death are pretty much mute (unless your ex is really hot...)
Fatum Iustum Stultorum
The oldest news release I see on Boeing's site on this is dated Nov. 5, 1998. It looks like this is just when it went public. At this point it was starting flight test. This would indicate years of prior work had been completed. Search for JHMCS through Google and you'll find lots of info. I've heard rumor that development of this started in earnest after our pilots first flew exercises against German Mig 29s in the early '90s. Apparently, we had greatly underestimated the effectiveness of the system and found out the hard way. But, to develop such a system for a fighter is much more difficult than for the Apache. If you think about it, you should realize that the issue here isn't how to accurately figure out where the head is pointing, but how to avoid giving the pilot a stiff neck or worse when pulling Gs or ejecting. Weight and the ability of the system to break away from the aircraft reliably during ejection are major issues. The fact that it has taken this long shows how much we sometimes underestimate our enemies capabilities.
If frowning is used as trigger, then Grampa Simpson's phrase "to give somebody the frowning of their life" will get a new meaning.
Who the "bad people" are depends on which perspective you are looking from.
F/A-18's have had the ability of multi-source targeting for about two decades now. The Fire Control FLIR system mounted just below the starboard jet can accept inputs from any IR/Laser source operating within it's wavelegnth ...you guessed it "laser pointer"...the pilot needn't even twitch his eyelash for any of this to take place...just fire away...
eg:special ops w/ "laser pointer", satellite w/ "laser pointer" or, the FLIR pod itself w/ a
Multi-target-tracking has also been handled quite well by this same aircraft for over the past decade and a half. By using vectoring techniques, the fire-control radar on an F/A-18 can track well over 20+ targets simultaneously and the tracking info is fed,live, into the targeting systems of the on-board armament...so..what's new?
High end cameras have had this for at least a year. The autofocus is driven by "watching" the photographers eye, working out what part of the image they are looking at. In use it's uncanny - initially you've got to learn to be careful where you are looking, or the picture is ruined. Needless to say, the Canon I played with was megabucks, and I don't have one....
My wife can do that with just a side glance. Beware if she looks at you full on!
The AIM9X is late, and it is not state of the art. A true tribute to the royally fscked up air force procurement process. I seem to recall that lockmart and elbit both set some speed records during the python 4 integration on the F-16. It was supposed to have been (rumored anyway) a real model fast track development effort.
Also, one of the reason the Israelis have done so well in joint exercises is that they CAN take HOBS shots. The US deployment of such a system would just level the playing field a bit rather than give American pilots an advantage.
"There's no secret. You just press the accelerator to the floor and keep turning left." -- Bill Vukovich
Pretty soon it will be shoulder launched nukes which you can aim just by looking.
Absolute statements are never true
then I am sure they have had this technology since the early 90's. There are weapons systems used in the persian gulf war that are still classified...
Save money! Vote Republican
Pardonez-moi did I hear you right? Can Soviet planes kick American ass when they get in close? Let's see if the Mig-29 or SU-27 Flanker can
Sure I'm sure? Let's see
And there's Tom Cruise sitting there in Top Gun with his targetting computer going beep-beep-beep and the Mig-29 instead locks him up in - what was that, 1 second? Nice.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
Great, more efficient tech for the Israelis to use against underarmed Palestinians. Fucking Nazis.
When Looks Can Kill: The True Andover Story of Cowboy Neal's meteoric rise and tragic, drug-induced fall...
Looks don't kill people. Heat-seeking missiles kill people.
FreeBSD - the power to serve.
I completely agree with this. Look at the number of people who have inadequate eyesight. All these people going about their business, and they have to correct their vision with eye glasses or contact lenses. We should sterilise the lot of them, otherwise we're polluting the gene pool with bad eyesight.
And now that we know fatness has a genetic link, fat people shouldn't be allowed to breed, either.
Well, there goes most of the population of the US, and a good chunk of the UK while we're at it.
Theorem: If life doesn't confuse you, then you're missing 90% of it.
for those of you that have played C&C Renegade with lock-camera-to-turret this will come second nature.
retrain my ass
the only fact is that everything is an opinion
Its amazingly simple to write...
:)
:)
Just database some 3d helicopter and airplane images. You can get these by filming planes overhead
Then apply some masks and filters for edge detection.
You can then "lock on". Next have the computer program try and center the camera by controlling the missle thrust.(maybe have some extra cameras for more range of vision and a 3d modeling program to try and find the target again - And Some electronic counter measure for not shooting yourself down LOL)
I'm more into writing the likes of Hal and C3PO now(a million extra geniuses on the planet should help medical research out some)
www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~sager/ai
God spoke to me
Or the seat of your pants?
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
The Firefox still has this technology beat ;-)
Suspending for a second the value judgement about whether war is bad, you cannot deny that war has been one of the primary advancers of human technology. Over the last 50 years, many of the high tech inventions we use today have some basis in something designed for war. IC's had their first real usage in missles; the wonderfully decentralized internet began as a communication system that could route around nuclear blasts; Nylon fabric was invented in WWII for parachutes (the Japanese seemed to have some weird problem giving us silk back then); I would not be surprised if many of the optical storage technologies have had serious contributions from technologies developed from the Star Wars program. War technology is therefore extremely relevant to any discussion of emergent technologies.
That being said, I must admit I am equally horrified by the possibility of helmets that aim weapon systems by the act of looking at something--the carnage of a nude beach near a naval airstation would be unthinkable.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Ok, i just watched this movie on tv, but I'll be damned if I remeber the title :)
:)
:)
It was about an advanced prototype helicopter, which featured a tracking system, allowing the pilot to just look at whatever he wanted to minigun to small chunks
He demonstrated this in a excercize by taking out a highjacker-dude in the middle of a full schoolbus, without hurting the kids offcourse.
The helicopter also did a inside loop later, in a dogfight sequence in the middle of the city.
Hope someone knows what movie I'm talking about
Do NOT goto the bathroom.
The AIM-9X / look-n-shoot is a direct response to the Cold War developments by the Soviets that was above and beyond any technology we had. The system used in the MIG-29 and SU-27, comprised of slaving the targeting computer to the helmet display and using FLIR as well, similar to the Apaches'. But the neat thing about the Soviet's system is that it was completely passive, with use of a variety of missles IR or radar: AA-10b/d "Alamo" or AA-11 "Archer". Also, the field of view of the IR seekers and the maneuverability of their missles had much wider envelopes than ours (US). The AA-11 uses thrust-vectoring to maneuver in such a way as to be able to pull over 12 Gs and has a range of 40 km, compared to our AIM-9M max range of about 15-20 km and maneuverability of about 9-10 Gs.
(link to Soviet missles)
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
... is not advised.
Since the US supplies most of the arms to Israel,
now all an IDF trooper has to do is look at a
doctor or a policeman or a mother holding her
child, and *bang*, they've been ethnically
cleansed! Ain't technology great? Ain't George
just a paragon of virtue and moral strength?
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Slashdot is a place to discuss technology, not politics, so I'll try not to get drawn into a big political argument. The Palestinians cannot feed themselves. Whose fault exactly is that? They get millions of dollars in UN aid and so on, and all that seems to happen is that Arafat's senior executives get their pensions raised. And these people who presumably can't feed themselves somehow find the money to make bombs and blow them up in shopping malls and restaurants. Wouldn't that money be better spent on food? Wouldn't those lives be better spent on trying to improve their quality of life from the inside, where they can actually make a difference?
----
Bryan Samis
http://www.thesamis.net
Another F/A-18 pilot sucessfully blew up his altimeter.
But really, if you looked in the wrong place (instrument panel), civilian casualties could get quite nasty.
-twb
In such a small country almost nothing is beyond visual range.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
People seem to be trying to develop more and more ways to kill each other, and these methods are getting faster, easier, and more brutal all the time. Rather than a helmet that will shoot a missile at something just by looking, wouldn't money be better spent developing a helmet that, when pointed at someone, encouraged peace? If more time and money were spent on diplomacy, and less on new ways to kill people, peace would be easier to come by in the world.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
hmm... US$3B for 10k super rockets, makes $300k per rocket.
now, it would be easy to add some cynical comment to this. but what i really want to know is what's the point of spending so much money on tools of destruction?
do they better the world? no.
do they prevent terrorist attacks? no.
do they solve conflicts (example palestine)? no.
do they save lives (american or other)? no.
so, then... what's the point? if we spent that money [which is a tiny little portion of the USs gigantic mil budget] on a marshall plan for afghanistan and other "evil" states we would do more for american security than with any military gadgets.
nik
I think I read somewhere that this technology was first developed for use in the Comanche helicopter.
The cannon and missiles were supposed to follow where your eyes looked, or something.
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
They certainly did take their time.
The ASRAAM for Eurofighter was supposed to be transatlantic project, but US decided to go with new generation of sidewinder instead. So now it's ready. Like everyone has already said, this really isn't anything truly new. USAAF is simply deploying tried & tested technology that's proven to work for everybody else. I don't doubt the Raytheon's system will prove to be the most user-friendly and effective as they can utilize the lessons from other manufacturers' platforms.
Probably one big motivation for this comes way back in -89 when Germany was re-unified. Luftwaffe suddenly had a bunch of Mig-29s in working condition and the logistics to support them. Turns out that Mig definitely had an edge over F-16 as the Vympel thrust-vectored missile could be shot "across the gap". Germans did decide to keep those Migs around..
Ivan's out of the game now, so US is the bully in the playground. EU would have the technology and the economic power.. I can just imagine what would happen to a motion to increase military spending of each member country to, say, 8% of annual budget. The national armies would have to be unified as well. Not going to happen in a hurry. That sort of leaves China. And they're way behind the technology curve.
Pilot watching cute girl go by gets too excited and presses trigger ...
A million lemmings cant be wrong!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
See
here for details.
A friend of mine worked on the spec for this.. quite a nice little gadget, now just gotta get the thought controls working and we'll have firefox sorted!
hehe
Hi,
Not many of you might know it or believe it, but
the South Afican arms industry has been using this
in their planes since about mid-1980. Although the system was excellent and worked well in the war in Angola, the only weak link was probably the missiles called the Kukri missile. The US missiles of now and that time are probably superior to the Kukri.
In the early 90's they also moved this technology to their Rooivalk helicopters.
You probably don't believe this. As a South African Electronic engineer I find it interesting that people believe nothing good comes from Africa. Personally I prefer being under than over estimated...
Imagining the next generation air decoy system consisting of a large banner of really pretty naked lady trailing behind an airplane, or large picture of hot naked chicks on the ground where you want your enemys to drop thier bombs, or a large holoprojector of .. oh wait you probly get the idea by now :)
DD
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose."
Helmet directed target tracking/acquisition has been used on MIG29's & SU-27's since the mid-90's. The U.S. has been behind in making a helmet unit light enough to not break your neck when pulling G's.
Just a foreign military factoid.
Setite
While this is the first I've heard of such a system being used on a airplane, helicopter gunships have had look-aim systems in use for several years now. Take a look at later versions of the Apache and Super Cobra.
Somebody commented to me that there was a system in development that would actually read the movement of the pilot's eyeballs to determine more precisely where he was looking -- anybody know anything about this?
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
I think they need to modify the firing interface so that when the pilot looks at a target, he must view it through the space between his first finger and thumb, such that it will fire when he "crushes" the target!! I see you, I crush you! CrUsH! cRuSh!
geeks are cats who dig a certain kind of cool
If you're really concerned about the unfair killing of civilians then I suggest you take a closer look at your logic. Which side actually targets civilans? Which side actually takes precautions to minimize civilian casualties?
You probably don't believe that Israelis avoid civilian casualities, but that's because you are blinded by your instinctive support of the underdog.
Hey, I see a 747 on the horizon...oops!
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I agree, the Tom Clancy-esque worship of military technology seems to have steadily risen since the Reagan years. One never saw this during Vietnam or Korea. Seems that extended peacetime creates a fascination with all things military in a civilian population naive as to the realities of war. The DOD likes to keep it that way by limiting press access and only engaging in proxy wars or remote attacks (i.e. send in the B-52s and let the Northern Alliance do the dirty work).
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Ever consider if those bad people can sometimes be us? I have a fairy-tale, one where the world's most powerful nation still acts as if it's existence is jeopardized by even the smallest nation (i.e. North Korea) that can barely feed it's population.
You mention China as a major threat but it is only now reaching a technical level we reached in the 1950s. Who exactly is the big threat to the US? Mexico? Canada? The last time the US borders were threatened was during the War of 1812. All of our engagements have been over exerting our power overseas. If China rattles a saber remember we are the ones with military units posed near them, not the other way around. We would never stand for a foreign nation to treat us the way we treat other nations such as Cuba (Guatanamo) or Japan (Okinawa).
We have long ago left the point of self-defense and have wandered into the realm of domination. Our goal isn't to protect ourselves anymore but to mold the world to match our desires.
To say "It is only by military power that this world is as safe as it is now." is asinine, it is the existence of large militaries that justify their own existence, not unlike a bureaucracy that has ceased to serve it's original purpose and now exists just to exist. History is an endless series of nations who worshipped militarism (Nazis, Stalin, Great Britain, etc) and, surprise, ended up in countless wars. If you obsess over something you can control it will eventually come to pass. Our unrealistic obsession with war will drive us to it.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning