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S. Korea Considers Using Armed Robots Along DMZ
Slicker writes "S. Korea and N. Korea (aka the ROK and DPRK, respectively) share the most heavily fortified border that has ever existed. Now the ROK is considering deployment of armed robots." Not expected until sometime in the 2010s. From the article: "Robots with weapons mounted on their frames are each expected to be able to observe from 2 and 1 kilometers during the day and night, respectively, and will have the capability to record voices and take pictures in a 180-degree circle."
Maybe they'll have robots in place by then, but it's more likely that Kim Jong Il will be dead or missing and the south won't have to worry about the north... Then again, who knows...
All the torrents you could want.
Does anyone REALLY think we are going to let N. Korea to continue to exist in it's current regime. By 2010, it will be loaded with nuclear weapons and we might even have a few American cities brought to ground zero from these weapons sold on the black market.
Please. N Korea is not going to last no more then another year or so. This whole article is a moot point
Life is not for the lazy.
I wonder how the 'social ethics' warfare will be effected by using autonomous robotic soldiers.
On one hand the people of a country using such robots could become less apposed to using military force against another country. That is, no longer will your son/daughter/friends be put in harms way.
However, for the people in the country being attacked, such machines would probably be seen as monstrous cold killing machines. Something that accidentally below away your 6 year old since it confused him/her for an enemy combatant.
From what I've heard about the DMZ in Korea, there aren't any civilians. Most S. Koreans don't want to live that close to where the invasion will come from (if/when it comes) and the N. Koreans aren't allowed to live that close to anywhere where they could escape. National Georaphic actually did a report about how this made the DMZ in Korea one of the worlds most impressive wildlife reserves...
Eletric fences may work great against crime etc, but as a military option... a fence isn't going to stop a tank, or even a really determined group of foot soldiers. The Atomic Bomb was unproven, scary, risky and sci-fi, but it saved the lives of an estimated 1 Million Marines/U.S. Army, and an untold number of Japanese.
(Yes, I would argue that it saved Japanese lives, based on Iwo Jimi, Okinawa, etc, Japanese soilders would have fought for every inch of Japan, and likely would have destroyed the country in the process, but this is an arguement for another post...)
The point is, that this would take soldiers (some of them American, as we have promised to protect S. Korea, and have troops stationed there.) out of harms way. Automated defences are replacable, but our military men and women are not.
(And because I know someone will mention it, war is not chess, and cannot be solved by brute force a la Deep Blue.)
I would have thought that war is perhaps the only thing that is always solved by brute force.
Don't you hate meta-sigs?
You know that Berlin Wall had remote-controlled and/or automated machine guns? This development has deeper roots than one would think.
Both countries are somewhat equal in their technology, and so is the rest of the world.
If you're referring to North and South Korea, the technology gap is actually enormous. North Korea makes up in numbers what it cannot do in technology. For example, the best fighters that the North can muster is about 20 or so MiG-29s. There are perhaps 350 or so other fighters, but those are largely MiG-17, -19, and -21, with a few -23s thrown in for good measure. These would face off against a couple dozen F-15K and about 150 KF-15 fighters, which would probably wipe most of the NK air force out of the skies. The same thing happens with their tanks and artillery (which will probably be wiped out in counter-battery fire within minutes of any opening salvo).
It is this disparity that pushes Pyongyang to pursue nuclear weapons. They know they can't win a conventional war, so they have to make it suicidal to attack (not that anyone actually does want to). The robots just make it so that many fewer South Korean soldiers would go down in the opening of any attack from the North.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hi roshima_and_Nagasaki
Others contend that Japan had been trying to surrender for at least two months, but the US refused by insisting on an unconditional surrender--which they did not get even after the bombing, the bone of contention being retention of the Emperor.[13] (http://www.nuclearfiles.org/hitimeline/1945.html) In fact, while several diplomats favored surrender, the leaders of the Japanese military were committed to fighting a 'Decisive Battle' on Kyushu, hoping that they could negotiate better terms for an armistice afterward--all of which the Americans knew from reading decrypted Japanese communications. The Japanese government never did decide what terms, beyond preservation of an imperial system, they would have accepted to end the war; as late as August 9, the Supreme Council was still split, with the hardliners insisting Japan should demobilize its own forces, no war crimes trials, and no occupation. Only the direct intervention of the Emperor ended the dispute, and even after that a military coup was attempted to prevent the surrender (although it was easily suppressed).
Actually if I were the South Korean's I would do this. You have a buit in test site. You have a incredible industry. You have a business opportunity! You now get the 5 tigers into the arms business and further diferenterate yourself from the Chinese. And who in North Korea (or for that matter South Korea) can complain!
Honda, Sony look out!
Vista, the single biggest argument for Desktop Linux! It doesn't "Just Work"(TM).