Pilotless Planes, Pacific Tensions -- Richard Aprker, New York Times
THIS week the Navy will launch an entirely autonomous combat drone — without a pilot on a joystick anywhere — off the deck of an aircraft carrier, the George H. W. Bush. The drone will then try to land aboard the same ship, a feat only a relatively few human pilots in the world can accomplish.
This exercise is the beginning of a new chapter in military history: autonomous drone warfare. But it is also an ominous turn in a potentially dangerous military rivalry now building between the United States and China.
The X-47B, a stealth plane nicknamed “the Robot” by Navy crews, is a big bird — 38 feet long, with a 62-foot wingspan — that flies at high subsonic speeds with a range of over 2,000 miles. But it is the technology inside the Robot that makes it a game-changer in East Asia. Its entirely computerized takeoff, flight and landing raise the possibility of dozens or hundreds of its successors engaged in combat at once.
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My Comment: The author focuses more on U.S. strategy and developments .... but it is really Chinese strategy and developments that are altering the status quo in Asia. The Chinese have made it very clear that their goal is to be dominant Asian military power ASAP .... and U.S. deployment of a few drones and a few ships is not going to change their program.
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