A Weapons News Sandwich for November 25, 2013

A recent Wired.com article reports that drone manufacturer Northrop Grumman conducted tests showing that its catapult-launched (i.e., runway-independent) drone, called “Bat,” which has a 12-foot wingspan and a maximum speed of 70 m.p.h., is capable of jamming radar. “That means,” writes Allen McDuffee for Wired, “the Pentagon will soon have the option of deploying a flexible, largely undetectable drone with radar-jamming capability to protect manned aircraft against radar and surface-to-air missile guidance systems.”

Perhaps Bat, or similar drone technology, could also be used to disable the guidance systems used to target ICBMs? If so, it could compensate for Barack Obama’s efforts to disarm us. According to a November 21 IBD editorial, “A document prepared by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon maps out a strategy to eliminate an ICBM squadron — and destroy its missile silos — by Dec. 5, 2017.” The document reportedly says that elimination of the squadron is required to comply with the “New START” treaty, but IBD argues that this is simply not true, and that Obama, who has said his goal is to eliminate all the world’s nuclear weapons, is really aiming to unilaterally disarm the United States. If the plan — which includes destroying the squadron’s missile silos — is fully implemented, it will be “nearly impossible to reconstitute that squadron, if needed.” IBD recommends that the silos be retained on “reserve status.”

Compare the “deal” with Iran, discussed in yesterday’s News Sandwich, which does not require Iran to dismantle a single centrifuge. It need only, in exchange for the $7 billion in “sanctions relief,” dismantle the links between centrifuges. I guess Obama, who is notorious for spending piles of time on the golf course, thinks national self-defense is a game that America should play with a handicap?

Drone technology will already have proven its worth tenfold if it is able to save us from the unwise — perhaps even suicidal — foreign policy of the current Administration. But drone technology is not just for weapons anymore. Wired reports that, at a recent high-tech workshop, a group of designers conceived of a drone called “Paparazzi,” a “selfie drone” that would allow you to “virtually stream your entire life to all of your social networks without pulling out your phone or even lifting a finger.” The Paparazzi would, of course, make sure that your image is always captured from the perfect angle, with the perfect amount of lighting, etc. I mean, why bother with the effort of writing a status statement when you could just let your friends observe what you’re doing for themselves?

Other ideas that came out of the workshop included a “Guardian Angel” drone that would not only keep runners safe, but also set their pace or even allow them to compete, virtually, with runners in different locations, as well as a “wearable umbrella drone,” which would, at the appropriate moment, “take off from the wrist, position itself above the owner’s head, and divert rain with ultrasonic pulses.” And of course the drones would have a function-appropriate appearance, with the Guardian Angel looking a bit more menacing and the Paparazzi and other drones, which are intended to be used among friends and family, looking “a little sleeker and a little friendlier.” Sounds like it may not be long before children are asking for drones as Christmas presents.