Military Technology - Advancement or Obsolescence?

I am interested in what you think about the following question. This question was posed by DaRage in response to Intelgurl's insightful post on upcoming US military weapons. The thread is here: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Credits to DaRage for his question but as I responded I got to thinking about what others would say. This is a helluva question IMO.

DaRage: "I wonder though. Is the US going to get so far ahead in military technology that it is inferior to the rest of the planet?"

I say that is a possibility. As I type this I also wonder if we are creating a no-win situation here. Our enemies know we have these cool weapons to which their only answer is a nuclear strike to prevent us from using them.

Thoughts?

I'm not quite gleaning the concept of advancing so far as to make one inferior.

Is that like smoking so much dope that you eventually become sober?

DeltaChaos. Maybe?

You get so far advanced that your weapons are useless against your new battles. Someone in intelgurl's post mentioned this as well after I responded to DaRage's initial question.

Im not following you either...if you advance so far as to become inferior, you haven't advanced. If you advance, you become superior. Its the nature of the word.

Maybe rephrase your idea?

Wow, I thought this was such a great question; but I guess I need to rephrase it. Let's try again.

The technologies the US military is currently pursuing will certainly advance our technological might across the world. However, in doing so will we actually lose any advantage such weapons are designed to give us?

Does that sound any better? I swear it sounds good to me; maybe it's just the Monday blues...

I can't imagine a scenario where that would be possible. It just seems too strong a contradiction. Especially with weapons.

I mean, if you build a bomb that destroys 2 square blocks, that's what you have. Then if you build a bomb that destroys 4 square blocks, but you only need to destroy 2, then you just use the bomb you built for that purpose.

The Unknown

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

Donald Rumsfeld�Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

Well #e. I understand your responses. I thought guerrilla warfare was an excellent example for my question. I'll have to revisit this on a day when I have my mind with me...

And this topic was created by a vocabulary mistake by DaRAGE

What i meant was that the USA become too far advanced that everyone else becomes sooo inferior.

Basically like the USA having machine guns against countrys that aren't that advanced and have to resort to bow's and arrows.

DaRage, no problem but it really did get me thinking about it... In my head the question I posed here made sense to me but I just couldn't get it to sound right online. Argh. Farking Mondays.

Nah well i understand what ur thinking of though. But I think that technological advancement will always make things better for those who have more technology than those who have less.

Though too much technology, that it bulks up the person using it, can be a disadvantage to them.

Or take away their technology that they are reliant on, and that they've trained with and ntohing else, and see how they handle a situation.

For instance and EMP takes out an electronic firing guns electronics, thus disabling the gun, takes out all thier radios, electrical equipment....fries anything elecrtical. Now you wakl right in and use a normal machine gun.

its not only the USA that are making tech advances lots of other countrys have there own black projects and stuff. but these countrys are so small the secret stuff aint seen. with a country the size of the usa its hard to keep somthing secret.

wot ever u test is gonna be seen sooner or later by someone.

but over here in the uk theres less eyes to spot this sort of thing.

im not sayin that america doesnt have a lead in the tech. im just thinkin to back in ww2 era where germany have the jet engine but the uk also had it but was never thought as a propa weapon.
we had it but it wasnt known til long after the war

as with america they produce the f117 and the b2 they were spotted the day they were pretty much concieved.
any1 heard of the british HALO project??? ahead but aint revealin it.

again im not sayin that USA dont have the tech but dont say that other countrys r behind

Well...I wouldn't say that all countries are behind in all areas. I'm quite certain that the UK, for example, has quite a few nifty gadgets of their own, as does Russia.

Overall, though, we've got it hands-down. The secret stuff we know about doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what we actually have.

An interesting point is the advantage that even one technology can give. Our stealth tech made every radar tracking station/AA emplacement ever made useless for defense and a total waste of resources in one single stroke, no matter how advanced they were. That, of course, put our already-huge military advantage far beyond 'ahead of the pack'. That one tech gave us the ability to place whatever munition we want on-target with total impunity, wherever we want it to go. Mwuahahahahaha

Originally posted by DaRAGE
Or take away their technology that they are reliant on, and that they've trained with and ntohing else, and see how they handle a situation.

OK, I can understand being at a disadvantage if we relied so heavily on our technology that if we lost it we would be useless without it.

I think that lesson has been learned in the past for the most part in most professions. For example, all architects use CAD programs to design buildings now, but the first thing they learn is how to draw.

Similarly, we have GPS systems in the military to tell us where we are and where we're going, but you won't find one of those in a private's hand. We don't use a GPS until we're solidly grounded in the use of a map and compass.

I think there is a problem of overconfidence in the military right now, as we haven't really had our @ss handed to us in a generation or two. It will happen eventually, though.

DC

Hmmm...

I think the issue is that the higher-tech something gets, the easier it is for it to break down. Your lasers and advanced polymers do nothing against hit and run attacks.

And, to paraphrase the Warhammer 40000 rulebook:

"The greatest, most elaborate and powerful gun in the world won't help against someone beating your brains out with a rock."

DE

This topic does provoke some interesting thoughts and possiblities.

One thing that comes to my mind is that for every sophisticated weapon there comes a more sophisticated counter-weapon, for example;

Man develops the infantry, to counter infantry the tank is invented, to counter the tank aircraft are brought in to take out the infantry & tanks, air defense weapons are made to counter the aircraft, so stealth is made, so instead of tracking aircraft with radar or heat aircraft are brought down using line of sight weapons, so visual stealth is brought into the mix... and on and on this viscious cycle continues ad infinitum...

My thought is...
Will we one day find ourselves as DeusEx quoted, beating each other with rocks because the effects of all other weapons are negated?

It's not likely but certainly an interesting concept when you've had too much coffee for one morning...

(a disclaimer: I realize that the progression and evolution of weapons of war is not accurately represented in the above illustration, I used it soley for the sake of conceptual understanding.)

[Edited on 9-3-2004 by intelgurl]

intelgurl, thanks for stopping by and posting. i love reading your posts. one thing for certain is any conflict following nuclear war will be fought with sticks and stones.