Admittedly, this is a little Dr. Strangelovish — but was very intrigued by this video clip a reader sent of “Robot Quadrotors Performing James Bond Theme.”
The reader who sent me this wrote to me that this might have been an alternative way to do (expensive as high tech approach, but cheap in terms of lives sacrificed). He writes:
Imagine militarized versions of this flying around in the COIN zone, with not only the capacity to observe, but to strike. As in, if this bird- or maybe insect-sized drone flitting around all the time at ground level catches you with weapons, bomb materials, cell phones tune to suspicious channels, etc., the little sumbitch will simply zap you dead in your bed, while not blasting your entire clan.
Not ACLU approved, to be sure, but this would be true shock and awe. That is, perhaps something so paralyzingly scary that it might have the effect, in the 21st century, that the machine gun had in the 19th century. So scary that it simply shuts down opposition.
As you know, I am not particularly fond of COIN in general, in the sense of thinking that it’s something that the US should be doing much of, but if we are going to do it, we ought to do it right. The problem with the neocons is that they were so hopped up on moral clarity that they neglected the technology that would have made their schemes possibly–possibly–work.
Whether one buys this argument or not, what this video reminds me of is that as former Center for a New American Security President John Nagl would often say: “There are more musicians working for the Pentagon than there are diplomats in the State Department.”
Musical copters — Like unmanned bombers (drones), perhaps we are one day going to see unmanned marching bands.
Take it easy. It’s Friday. . .
— Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons
