Glad to see our universities making progress in this important area of national security.
This is the tragedy of the commons. I'd rather see nobody making these advances, but if someone has to it'd better be people on my side. Can't stop progress :(
Yeah, screw GPS, trauma surgery improvements and better prosthetics, IFF systems, radar/sonar, Internet, ToR, Epipens, and duct tape. /s
Really, I get having a generally anti-war position and wanting to spend money on other shit but pretending like there are no positive externalities to defense spending is childish.
There’s a lot of wholes in the plot, but the overall premise and scenario seem eerily plausible
You said yourself that other nations can and will make this too. Avoiding a decrease of national security is the same as improving national security.
That's offense not defense. It worsens the national security of your opponent but doesn't strengthen your own.
You don't defend territory with static defense's or force fields or walls.
Drones and robots made attacks easier, did that help national security?
Countries like Russia or China won't attack because of nuclear weapons but groups like ISIS don't care.
Large flying drones make patrolling a border easier. You don't have to worry about the pilot's fatigue level. Only fuel/battery.
The war in Ukraine clearly shows that smaller drones also help in attacking and defending. Attacking, by dropping bombs or spotting targets. And defending, via spotting incoming enemy forces; spotting enemy artillery that is shooting at you, etc
Yes because the enemy will have them eventually regardless of whether you develop them. Call it a Prisoner's Dilemma if you will, but it's the reality. Besides, unlike nuclear weapons, warfare with autonomous systems is not particularly more cruel than WW1 or WW2 style warfare.
But the word "defense" is much wider than that. Is the US supplying offensive weapons to Ukraine contributing to the national defense? Even if you feel the US should not be doing that, I hoe you can see the logic of people who do frame it that way.
And Ukraine's in a defensive war against an invader, and for that they have to go on the offense.
(Of course the US renaming the Department of War to Department of Defense in 1947 was 100% propaganda, or to be more charitable, aspirational. There is no question that it has been used offensively).
In a war the line between offense and defense is blurred but the national security is at level zero.
It's not. It's contributing to European security, and as such is necessary for the US to reaffirm their suzerainty over Europe, but it's not really about US defense and even less about National Security. (I'm glad they do btw, because we European powers would have left Ukraine fall after deciding it would be too expensive to help them…)
If you consider “national security” to be a meaningless buzzword and not an actual concept, you can say that. It's as accurate as saying “US sports results at the Olympics is a national security issue via soft power”.
Pretty much everything is “national security” by that standards.
> Being a global superpower has many benefits for US citizens.
Sure, but most of them don't have anything to do with national security.
Consider terrain such as the mountain ranges along the side of California. Or the entirety of Japan.
Wheeled and tracked vehicles generally have problems in that terrain.
Legged robots don't. Suddenly your troops intended to operate in mountainous terrain have a reliable robot donkey to use as a packmule.
Many countries (US, Germany, France, Italy, etc) still use horses and donkeys for transport in bad terrain.