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America's Next Bomber: Unmanned, Unlimited Range, Aimed At China
An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. military is developing its next generation bomber with Chinese anti-access strategy — the ability to stop any enemy force from coming to fight with things like carrier killer missiles — in mind. The new bomber will replace older platforms like the 1950's B-52, the 1970's B-1, and 1990's B-2 stealth bomber. The new bomber will sport some unique qualities. It will have an option to be unmanned, will act similar to a UAV, have better stealth capabilities, will be connected to U.S. intelligence networks to create a 'smart' battlefield environment, and have near unlimited range thanks to in-air refueling."
It will also be a great way to take out some hacker's ex-girlfriend's house in Nevada. Damn bitch left him for a cop.
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
Just like the B52...
I wonder how easy it would be to turn a B52 into a UAV? I mean, they can still send Slim Pickens along to get the bombs un-stuck, but otherwise unmanned.
Who the hell lets this shit through? The new bomber is designed to counter new strategies. That doesn't mean it's "aimed at China". That's a needlessly belligerent phrase -- either warmongering or scaremongering over the prospects of war. If England develops bullets that can pierce American body armor, will we hear about new "British Guns Aimed at America!"?
Sorry chickenhawks, but America and China won't go to war. Our economies are far too interdependent.
"The U.S. military is developing its next generation bomber with Chinese anti-access strategy"
That can only be achieved if there's ZERO electronic components made in China in the aircraft....Good luck with that.
Nov 2011 Article: US weapons 'full of fake Chinese parts'
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8876656/US-weapons-full-of-fake-Chinese-parts.html
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
We give them all our money and jobs, and then spend a fortune to arm ourselves against them. Something.....is.....wrong.....here.
Table-ized A.I.
Let's waste more money trying to kill one another. Our debt isn't high enough yet.
If you modded the parent as "funny", I assume that you mean in an ironic sort of way. Because, the parent is right on target - so to speak. As a matter of fact, my Taiwanese friends are under the impression that if China decides to assert her ownership of Taiwan, the US would huff and puff and wouldn't do shit about it; hence why the Taiwanese diaspora here in the US.
If you ever wanted to know what it was like to live in Rome during its decline, come to the US- we know.
What about if the Chinese get our codes and hack our defenses like the Cylons from BSG?
Then in an ironic twist, the political powers that be get a number of things they would dearly love - at the price of innocent lives. They have a "credible" threat to pursue - clearly hacking bombers is a clear act of war, they have a population that is deathly scared and willing to give up all manner of personal freedoms in exchange for perceived safety and they have an attack on their soverign soil which will motivate and infuriate the local population. They then get to enact just about every rule, law and practise that they want - all for the mere cost of innocent lives.
"You can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs..." is a lovely expression. The real challenge here is working out whether the eggs are worth the omlette in the end. I dare say that in global politics, there are folks that think it is, and folks that think it isn't.
The US knows that it is getting a lot of bad press worldwide, that a lot of staunch supporters and backing away and that its economy is in some trouble. Historically, one of the ways it sorts some of these problems out is by going to war (whether genuinly or under pretext) but the latest few in the middle east are quickly draining public support and also the coffers. From a propaganda point of view, nothing would be better than having a ligitimate case to present to the public, and be able to cry foul in the UN against the baddies. It is much easier to sell a country as being the "good guys" if they are the ones being attacked by someone else - pushing a "We are doing this for democracy/good/their benefit" is a song that many US citizens are getting very sick of hearing when they keep seeing body bags coming back and their pensions and savings just aren't worth what they should be.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Anybody who thinks China isn't 'the enemy' is smoking something good (come on, share it, dude). The next set of wars will be resource wars (just like the last ones). Likely by proxy and likely 'low intensity' but they will be wars nonetheless. The chance of the US and China going full out turn-the-the-guy-into-molten-glass is pretty low (but non zero).
There will be too much competition for oil (and possibly water) in the next 50 years. We're not doing anything to mitigate growth - our economy requires growth to survive - and so does China's.
That said, the idea that we need half billion dollar UAV bombers to pound somebody's jungle into a parking lot seems a tad over the top. TFA was really just an exercise in Pentagon babble, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The F-22 kickbacks have been paid off for a weapon that will likely never see service.
The F-35's on their way to suck at the budget teat in Canada and the US both. Planes which just happen to be ill-suited to patrolling the arctic, which is the main reason Canada wanted them in the first place, effectively making them as useless as the F-22s are for the US.
How many BILLIONS are they planning to spend on bombers to attack an "enemy" that shows no signs of military buildup or aggression THIS time?
Just how long is it going to take the world to stop feeding the military-industrial pigs that design this overpriced crap? When are our governments going to realize that you reach a point where no matter how much you've spent to date, you have to CANCEL a project because it will NEVER pay for itself nor deliver what it promised?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
... hold fire and land at an enemy military base?
Before then, it'll be destroyed by itself, at this rate.
Like that's going to be really good for our economy or like, anyone.
I cannot fathom that there are people actually walking around with squirrel-cage driven brains that came up with this depressingly evil idea. They envision another Cold War and MAD as if it's a good thing. People like this are traitors to the US and to the entire human race.
Take your Pax Americana, chickenhawk neocons, and shove it up your collective ass.
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BMO
It would take the concerted effort of the majority of the world to "destroy" the USA militarily, leaving aside nukes or really good sneakiness. They have the strongest military in the world and very good logistics, and have adequate food, water, and oil supplies to sustain any war. Although industrial capacity has diminished in recent decades, a combination the military industrial complex and the U.S. auto industry means that it is still capable of the industry necessary for war. In terms of underwear bombs, the United States is so huge that while a proliferation of bombs would of course radically change life in the country, they would not destroy it.
Destruction is more likely to be wrought from poor incentive structures in U.S. government, which makes effective and necessary change very difficult.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
U.S. loves to kill things. Why else would they build this thing to fight an enemy that doesn't even exist.
Because it lets them spend money on what are essentially make-work jobs. Nothing gets a congressman reelected quite like opening up a new factory in his district.
This plan is just a way to spend $TRILLIONS on US military/intel crony capitalists.
If the US just spent $1T on an industrial policy, and put China's neighbors in charge of their own military defense (but shared our intel), we'd have security, peace, and $TRILLIONS more. Not to mention the increased GDP and taxes from it, with a better functioning industrial system.
But that wouldn't dedicate all our money and effort to the war business. Which is the business that controls America.
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make install -not war
Next-Generation Bomber: just $550 million per copy for up to 100 copies, with production beginning in the early 2020s.
At these dollar amounts, it's cheaper to purchase one bomber, then make 99 copies yourself and just pay the fine for copyright infringement.
On the other hand, the hysteria over Muslim terrorists is preventing the US from investing its time and money in competing with China (and EU, and BRIC, and the rest of our global competitors). The underwear bomb isn't going to destroy America. But forcing every traveller through the underwear bomb detectors that don't work is surely destroying America. Along with all the other colossal wastes inspired by Muslim terrorists in our insane backlash.
A few hundred $billion invested in intel and assassinations, under a new legal regime that allows legitimate, Constitutional US courts to determine that certain specific people and militias are legitimate targets, would destroy the Muslim terrorist threat. Combined with a few hundred $billion more invested in education, trade and counter propaganda in the cesspools where these terrorists fester.
But instead, we're playing head-pong over "CHINA!" "TERRORISM!", responding badly to each. Because we insist on rage and paranoid overreactions, instead of careful strategy that uses force only as a last resort, not the first and only method.
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make install -not war
Step 1. USA develops it Step 2. Steal it Step 3. Rename it 'Almighty Hapiness Warrior Dragon Plan' I am sure China appreciates the US doing the R&D for them on this project.
Users... the only thing keeping 1st level support from being the bottom feeders.
Ayup. We collapsed the USSR by forcing them to compete with our military spending, and now we're letting guerrillas "force" us to spend money we haven't got on our military.
Bin Laden was a bastard, but you have to admire a professionally done job.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Wrong. No one uses uranium to make weapons. No one. Uranium can only be used in gun-type designs which are 1) inherently unsafe and 2) extremely inefficient. When India and Pakistan developed nukes, they were full Teller-Ulam designs. If you think Iran would waste perfectly good uranium in a weapon, you're wrong. They wouldn't. They would use that uranium to breed Plutonium-239 and use *that* in a weapon. Uranium is very common, but not common enough to waste it in weapons when you can create vast amounts of Pu-239 with it.
Meanwhile, yes, the world's medical isotope supply is VERY DEPENDENT upon HEU targets. LEU is very inefficient, doesn't work for shit. So-called "anti proliferation" efforts have resulted in a near inability to generate medical isotopes to the point where if a reactor goes offline people die. And there are only FOUR REACTORS in the entire world producing medical isotopes. All are past their lifespan and running when a power-generating reactor wouldn't be allowed to. Every year they save more lives than nuclear weapons and accidents have ever killed.
I hope one of those four reactors doesn't go down when you or your family require cancer treatment or diagnostic imaging. Not like moly cows last too long.
"Well yes, we'd love to give you the best treatment for your rapidly growing cancer we can and find out where it is in your body with some nice Tc-99m, but well, a reactor went offline and due to political lobbying by anti-nuclear activists and the US state department, it will be at least 25 years until a replacement can be built. Although one probably never will be. But the chapel is down the hall and to the left..."
ICBMs are NOT stealthy, have limited range, can not be refueled and are limited to 1 payload.
Also, they were used for nukes, not conventional ordinance.
I like the idea of a UAV bomber. However, I think it should be a scaled up Predator that can be refueled and rearmed by flying into a specially equipped C-17 instead of this hybrid style of bomber they have proposed.
His passion was to destroy the USA.
He succeeded beyond his wildest imagination.
So I guess this means my grandkids are going to live in a world that is every bit as fucked up as this one.
Just out of curiosity: Have we any indication at all that China is looking to conquer the world and subjugate all of the West? Or is just a matter of making sure that the military contractors that already have the no-bid contract in their back pocket for this new "unmanned, unlimited range bomber aimed at China" can announce very nice projected earnings at their next shareholders meeting at Sanctuare? What kind of pieces of shit are our ruling class that they can look out over a country with eroding middle class incomes and say, "We really need to spend more on new weapons systems to fight the Chinese. Oh, and tax cuts for the rich! What the fuck is the matter with them?
Sometimes, I read a story like this, and the kid in my that used to love to play Army completely disappears, and is replaced by an adult that wishes the US would have an economic downturn sufficient to prevent its next wave of ridiculous military spending. I wonder if maybe getting a dose of what the rest of the world has been getting for the past forever might not be a good thing for America. Just enough of a taste to stop being so obsessed with having the biggest dick.
Honestly, I can't decide if our rulers are murderous sociopaths or just purely corrupted by corporate money. I don't believe it can be both. Murderous sociopaths tend to not be good for profits, and the purely corrupt tend to not have time for reveling in bloodshed because it gets in the way of their yachting and dressage time.
I don't look forward to the next election and the prospect of having to tell people I'm Canadian when I travel abroad, as I found myself doing during the past decade. The old Bowie song, "I'm Afraid of Americans" wasn't supposed to apply to Americans, I don't think.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Not just oil and water but also food. China already has over a billion mouths to feed and spends a tremendous amount of effort trying to feed most of them. But the rural agriculture towns are increasingly looking at the modernizing cities with envy and looking at farm fields with scorn. Besides everybody knows Foxconn is hiring.
The population will soar, paired up with an increasing social divide. Farmers won't want to farm and food shortages will get worse. Water shortages will get worse. Nobody is protecting the resources from getting fouled. Eventually it will hurt them.
To solve all of these problems, China will look to where there is plenty of food, a decent supply of water and a lot of land. Of course other countries want these things too, but we don't owe them a lot of money as we do with China. Suppose China uses that debt to buy most of the Dakotahs or Montana. Or Idaho. They don't need the state outright. Just town after town. Become the biggest landholders, run the elections, run the local politics, run the regionals, become the biggest local employers, then you own the state level without having to own it. Bring in your own people to ensure you pack the population with loyal votes.
Eventually you expand this to the nation. If needed. Grand plans? Sure. But if there's one thing history has taught us is that you need to HAVE grand plans in order to achieve the small plans. Hit enough small steps and you make the big ones. North American politics is bogged down with people who can't see past the next election much less come up with a 10-year/50-year/100-year plan. It doesn't matter anyway when somebody new comes along every election and spends the first third of their term wrecking whatever plan was going on, and the remaining two thirds trying to launch their agenda and get reelected.
This country is not capable of fielding people who can think and act and followthrough on the century plans it will take to solve some of our biggest problems.
Sig for hire.
Yeah...there are arguments to be made that we don't need it,,,and it does have that nasty habit of suffocating it's pilots....but calling it a debacle is a bit strong. It does exactly what it was designed to do.
In wargames, it's always the raptors on blue and everyone else on red. And the raptors mop the floor up with the red team. Apparently some pilots of other planes feel that it is quite an accomplishment to even see/get a lock on a Raptor. Most of the time, you just get informed that you are dead and you never see anything.
As an air superiority fighter, it is nowhere near a "debacle". Do we need it? Is it worth what we spent on it? I guess there is plenty of room for argument there...
First the Soviets, now the Chinese. Give the witch-hunt a rest.
The Chinese-Americans, might I add and before we begin tromping out the POW camps, are more than happy to be out from under their homeland government, and will remain so up and until you or people like you, decide to start treating Americans as something lesser than citizens. Lastly, and for the record, no one gets to choose where they are born, but given enough freedom, they can choose where they live.
If the US government wants the Chinese Americans to dislike it, to make them hunger for their old homeland's government, all it has to do is treat them as it treated the Japanese Americans during WWII.
I am John Hurt.
To the mods:
I don't think I intended this to be funny. It was a few hours ago, so I admit my perspective may be skewed, but I think I was highlighting the fact that "unhackable" had the same veracity as "unsinkable" w.r.t. the Titanic. It's only a matter of time before someone figures out how to take control with a hack.
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
This weapon system will integrate high value sub-assemblies from undecided congressional districts, thus ensuring total funding-superiority in any budget battle.
Once again, assumptions on who "they" are when referring to conservatives in general make for patently outlandish slander, just as someone saying "all liberals are (communists||socialists||whatever) who want to purge the earth of anyone who doesn't think as they do" would be. The hyperbole makes for non-meaningful discussions.
What percentage of self-described conservatives even know what PNAC is? The letter you were referring to, if I got it right, has 41 signatories? Yet from Gallup 41% of all Americans consider themselves conservative , a number that has been fairly steady since 1990. Last I checked, not only did I not think that what 41 people's opine defines what 41% of Americans think, I didn't have to have the debating skills of a prepubescent teenager to make my points. Thank you for making mine.
Uh huh...you DO know we spend upwards of 100 million on a triple A rated game and are damned lucky if the "AI" doesn't run into walls or parks its moronic ass right in the middle of a field with zero cover to get picked off while it stands there with a thumb up its ass, yes?
While I'm sure you are just trying to make a long winded skynet joke frankly we are so far away from AI that is as smart as a drunk rat it ain't even funny, much less being able to build something that was smart enough not to drool on its circuits. When these bunches talk about "AI" they are talking about the boring "fly in a straight line for 20 hours" kinda thing, maybe if you are lucky you program in enough to avoid bad weather.
So sorry friend, but we are about a billion times more likely to be wiped out by a "My God says to spread this virus in the name of Holy war Ai ai ai e!" than to actually make something smart enough to actually hurt us in more than an ED209 "Oh shit everybody duck because its fried a circuit again!" kinda way. Sorry I can't find the link but I heard they actually lost a couple at a test range in South Africa thanks to an ED209 style fuckup.
Hell if the contractors in other nations are like ours they'll piss trillions away only to be given in return a half assed barely functional technotoy that will be lucky if it can fly to the left without having its CPU lock when it cross a time zone. We have blown a trillion and can't get the F35 into production, you think these same bunch of bozos in the MIC could give us a T-101? If they managed to get even a T-1 that went more than 15 minutes without having a breakdown or shooting itself (or everybody around it including itself) they would consider it mission accomplished and ask for bonuses.
We better hope like hell there ain't a war with China because i have a feeling it'd be WWII all over again, only we'd be Germany with these contractors cranking out beautiful but PITA aircraft that's a bitch to keep in the air while the Chinese will just crank out MiG knockoffs like a Henry Ford assembly line.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Actually China owns about 10% of the USA's debt. Same amount as Japan.
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From Wikipedia about 47% of the debt is owned by foreign investors, the top 7 being
China, Japan, Brazil, Taiwan, Switzerland, Russia, and the United Kingdom holding respectively approximately $1.16 trillion, $1.08 trillion, $230 billion, $178 billion, $145 billion, $143 billion, and $142 billion as of January 2012.
Nah, the underwear bomb is quite probably completely real, a completely real attack by a real enemy.
The beauty of the US military/intel industry is that it can only get more money and power, regardless of its success or failure, so long as Americans have an enemy to fear (regardless of any reality). The US doesn't need to synthesize the Qaeda, but it does need the Qaeda to exist and keep attacking, even impotently and very occasionally. Why spend any of your military budget creating the Qaeda, when the Qaeda does that itself, leaving that budget to the crony capitalists?
Nothing else changes. It was enough for the US to get the Qaeda started (Afghanistan 1979-80s), and then leave it perpetually angry and alive, failing to destroy it when the chance occurs (no drone strike on Binladen 1998, invade Iraq instead of infiltrate Afghanistan 2001-2007, Tora Bora, etc). The entire Qaeda phase of the predator/prey cycle is shoestring, outsourced, and reliable marketing for the main business. And totally authentic.
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make install -not war
Wow, step away from the team red / team blue blinders. He didn't say anything about paranoid warmongering. He's talking about a Federal government freed from the bounds placed on it by its founding documents. This flag was planted firmly with the New Deal and the court-packing threats used to get approval from the Supreme Court for powers which clearly required constitutional amendments before laws could be enacted.
Fast forward to 2001 and you've got Bush pushing through the "Patriot Act", a law that wipes its tush with the constitution. A few years later you've got supposedly "liberal" president Obama doubling down on the "Patriot Act". We've got the Kelo decision saying that local governments can take your home and give it to shopping mall developers because shopping malls raise more tax revenue. Nice! We've got Gonzales v. Raich which says that the federal government can outlaw growing a plant in your own home under the commerce clause, because you theoretically could have bought or sold the plant across state lines. Of course, this decision relied on the WWII Wickard v. Filburn case that said the government can prevent you from growing food for yourself on your own land (under the theory that you would otherwise have to buy the food on the open market, which distorts interstate commerce).
Our current leadership doesn't seem to have much regard for constitutional restrictions in the area of war powers either, having attacked several countries without authorization from congress. Not that congress had enough of a sack to do anything about it. Well, other than Kucinich, who filed suit against the Libya attacks... love him or hate him, at least he stands up for what he believes in regardless of who's in power. Other than a couple of fringe cases like Kucinich and the Paul duo, Team Red and Team Blue are on the same page with regard to the irrelevance of the constitution, regardless of their rhetoric. They also seem to be on the same page with regard to your civil liberties and the war machine, regardless of their rhetoric. Oh sure, one guy over here will make a speech about gun rights, and another guy over there will make a speech about gay marriage, but when it comes down to it they all support the unfettered expansion of the powers of the federal government and only feign fealty to the constitution when it suits their purposes.