UFO sighted on a road in our area??

  OK so the heading on today's blog was a little dramatic but it did get you to open the blog post!  If you have been a regular reader of this blog you know that I have frequently blogged on how the digital revolution has changed so much of how we do many things.  Last week I happen to notice an article in the Washington Post that made me think about how the digital revolution has changed warfare.  The article was about how a new large drone being transported on Route 270 in Montgomery County looked like a UFO to many people in the area and the police were flooded with calls about the sight.  Called the X-47B it will be flying over the area near the Patuxent Naval Air Station. This is after a drone crashed recently on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

     The recent military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan evolved into warfare by remote control.  Pilots thousands of miles away from the conflict can pilot a drone without any danger to their life and safety.  Warfare in the future will be waged with minimal causalities to those countries like ours that has this technology.  The question is will this make the United States and other advanced countries more likely to use military intervention when there is little danger to our combatants?  We have certainly seen how warfare has been impacted by advancements in technology but this is very different by removing the combatants from the location of the conflict.

     The use of drones for civilian purposes has raised concern in some quarters.

    The other area of this digital advance is the planting a "virus" in the computers that controlled the Iranian nuclear reactor.  This method of damaging a vital plant was certainly safer than the Israelis using jets to take out the nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981.  This safer method can also give the perpetrator "deniability." The only problem with this advancement is how long will it be before an enemy force has the capability to damage vital systems in the US like our electric grid or impact one of our nuclear reactors.

     Rachael Maddow has written a book well worth reading regardless of you political orientation called "Drift."  It shows the dangerous progression over recent years to make military intervention more politically "sellable" as the roles traditionally played by soldiers has been contracted out.  That and the use of unmanned weapons of destruction using digital technology will make military action seem less risky.  The question is that a good thing for our country and the rest of the world.

P.S.
  Speaking of things being transported on our local roads, I have noticed over the years trucks transporting loads on Route 70 going west with Maryland State Police escorts.  The materials being transmitted are encased in containers that look like they are impenetrable.  Nuclear waste?  Highly toxic materials?  The State Police escorts make you wonder.

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The Parks and Rec Summer Concerts at Centennial Lake started this week.