For thousands of years weapons stayed pretty much the same. There was an innovation here and one there, but nothing like we have today. Weapons seem to be changing and advancing at a rapid pace. One of the big problems we have today is even a tiny country can become a weapon’s superpower. If we look at North Korea and what they are doing we can see how powerful they can become on the world’s stage without spending a lot of money to improve their military forces. All they have to do is concentrate the little money they have in perfecting nuclear weapons and rockets and once these are perfected they will have the power to destroy countries. It is hard to sit back and watch a country like this continue to improve its nuclear force, but that seems to be what we are doing. We know the leader of North Korea is a vicious tyrant and so were the leaders before him and that is why we decided to not have negotiations with them, but it seems this policy did nothing and we need to find a new way to try and solve this problem.

One of the reasons the Germans became so strong at the beginning of World War II was Europe had allowed them to build all sorts of weapons without stepping in. They took advantage of this even though there was a treaty supposedly preventing their buildup and yet no country did anything about it. When Europeans started to get worried about Germany it was already too late, because Germany had built a powerful army and Air Force and began to roll across Europe. Automation is taking over everything and the Russians have come out with a new heavy tank called the Armata. This tank is said to be an advanced tank and will stay in use for many years to come, but what makes it so advanced is the fact it is said be able to operate autonomously. In other words the tank can operate on its own without any humans aboard. It is hard to tell if this is the first tank to operate this way, because if we have one it would probably be a secret, so far this is the first one I know of which can be automated.

You have to wonder where the United States fits into some of these things. Specifically I’m thinking about our nuclear force which seems to be getting extremely old while some other countries are improving their nuclear weapons and modernizing them. Since we don’t conduct nuclear tests anymore, we are relying on computers to let us know if these weapons are still viable. One thing is for sure, we are pricing ourselves out of the modern weapons market with the astronomical prices we pay for our weapons. I think it is safe to say that everything from bullets to aircraft carriers, which are made in the United States, are far more expensive than what other countries would pay to build them. One has to wonder how long we can allow ourselves to be drained of money this way. When one spends tremendous amounts of money in one area it deprives other areas of funds and that is exactly what is happening in this country.

Many experiments have been conducted lately in controlling human brains. DARPA is the US government agency for weapons development. One suspicious program which DARPA is involved with is the brain initiative. Supposedly it was to have something to do with self-healing of the body and the mind and develop therapies to do this. Is this the only thing they are investigating or is there something else? We know there have been recent announcements about controlling human brains and mind control could be perceived as the greatest weapon of them all. Is DARPA conducting mind control experiments? Other scientific agencies have announced they are, so I think it would be very naïve of us to believe that DARPA isn’t conducting them. I don’t think any of us like the idea where this is heading, because sooner or later someone will decide to take this out of the field of war and use it to control civilians.

There is no doubt robotic weapons will be used all over the battlefield in the next few years. More robots than ever are taking over industry. There was just an announcement the other day of a sneaker company building sneakers entirely using robots. It has been predicted this company will fire 4000 people in the next four years as more robotic machines take the jobs of humans. The same thing is happening on the battlefield. While some people may think this is a good thing and it may be in a small way, but large-scale probably means enemies will concentrate on population centers, because they will feel this will have more impact than destroying a few robots. If this turns out to be the case we really will not be saving lives, we will have just switched losing soldiers to losing civilians.

Weapons have gotten so expensive even in other places in the world that Britain is in a quandary. It is building two new Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers and even though they cost less than our new carriers they are so expensive they threaten to force Britain to do away with the rest of their surface ships. Some of the countries in Europe while not having the biggest Armed Forces are still quite formidable. It is said the most powerful country in Europe could be Germany if it wanted to be, but its history is holding back. The Germans have the industrial base and could turn things around any time they wanted and they do build what is said to be the best tank and some very capable conventional submarines. The air forces in Europe are tiny compared to ours but still comprise hundreds of planes in each of the four most powerful countries. By far Russia still has the most powerful military in Europe and has been improving its nuclear arsenal and France has a respectable force.

It is just too bad the world can’t agree on getting rid of nuclear weapons. This would certainly make the world a much safer place since nuclear technology is spreading and truthfully there is no way to stop it. It is only a matter of time before some radical group gets their hands on a nuclear weapon.