Drone Blimps Hovering Over D.C. to Stop Cruise Missiles

These ships likely have a unit cost exceeding $50M (considering that they're drone blimps), however the corresponding jet airliner JSTARS has a unit cost somewhere north of $250M. They're used as battle management and command&control tools, and the military branches will very likely want to keep them out of the hands of civilian LE departments due to all the expensive equipment on-board.

The unit cost of blimps vs rotorcraft is likely lower, especially regarding fuel expenditures, and many LE departments have expressed great interest in all kinds of drone surveillance. I would be surprised if these things weren't deployed in high-threat scenarios in municipalities.

And then Snowden2.0 will leak that they monitor everyone. There will be a short outburst of anger, and nothing will happen.

Fascism is gaining its ground one apathetic citizen at a time.

I think this is very similar to JSTARS, but likely much cheaper and using newer technology

No reason to believe they couldn't.

Also, what's the point of defending only one city from cruise missiles? Unless the enemy has a specific political target, they can cause a lot of destruction elsewhere.

It depends on what you call a cruise missile. We are at the point where anyone can take off the shelf parts and software and make a "drone" [1]. It's a pretty simple matter to modify the software to order the drone to crash into a building, motorcade, or outdoor event. Making an effective payload that can be carried by your small aircraft is another matter.

[1] - http://ardupilot.com/

A missile hitting DC is likely more probable now that it was during the depths of the cold war. To another question poised by mapmeld, DC is of significant political and symbolic importance, not to mention the many military agencies involved in the same. A successful strike against the capital would be a huge morale boost for enemies, as 9/11 was.

I have to second what Second_Ender mentioned -- we are at a critical juncture where off-the-shelf components offer rather frightening possibilities. I love technology, but benign videos like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMwSVDVJNWc&feature=youtu.be leave me deeply concerned about the future.

Almost every time I see a really big political event held outside, I wonder if it will be the one that starts a wave of automated drone assassinations. Then again, really big events might have a Centurion C-RAM or two secretly parked nearby.

First, we are actually at war.

Second, the capital (especially around the Pentagon) is always covered in missile defenses, as well as every other kind of defense they can think of. Also, not all members of the Cabinet ever meet in one place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designated_survivor and lots of other super-defensive stuff goes on all the time.

Third, it looks like this has mostly been a research project so far, and the D.C. deployment is going to be a way to show it off.

For that sort of detection threat, they fly high and at night, which they tend to do anyway since both are safer. ADDED: and I think flying high consumes less fuel.

North Korea, of course.

Pesky Canadians.

As an Australian, I know little, but the War in Iraq, and two global unwinnable-wars - the War on Drugs and Cyber Warfare.

True that.

But then, why would you only protect "the politician's city" and not the other cities (and towns, etc.)?

Who knows?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/26/pentagon-war-classi...

The ideal for the military industrial complex is to be at war 24/7 with nobody in particular. They're close to accomplishing that goal.