DRONES IN, BASES OUT

President Bush’s plan to dras­ti­cally scale back the num­ber of U.S. troops in Asia And Europe may come as a sur­prise to many. But at the Defense Department’s labs and research cen­ters, they’ve seen this com­ing for a long time.
That’s why the Pentagon has been work­ing on a series of weapons that would allow America’s mil­i­tary to fight a bat­tle over­seas — while keep­ing our forces based, for the most part, here at home.
Hypersonic mis­siles, with ranges over 3,000 miles, could strike at tar­gets a con­ti­nent away. Killer drones, deployed from air­craft car­ri­ers, could pen­e­trate deep into enemy ter­ri­tory. Giant blimps could haul troops and equip­ment directly to the bat­tle­zone with­out the need for billion-​​dollar air­fields or deep-​​water ports.
But here’s the catch: none of these sys­tems are even remotely close to being ready for prime-​​time. So what hap­pens in the near term? As Phil Carter points out, the U.S. mil­i­tary is going to replace their old, per­ma­nent instal­la­tions with a series of easy-​​to-​​install, easy-​​to-​​rip-​​out “lily­pad bases.”

August 17th, 2004 | Drones | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.