The thing I find interesting about this kind of technology is that it kind of changes the medium of the battlefield. I mean sure-- some people will be stupid enough to try and slug it out with the killer robots. But smart people will start trying to hack the control signals. Even if they can't hack them-- they can jam them. And if it was me, I'd be looking at ways to actually hotwire these things. Any machine like this is going to be mostly moving parts. If one could disable it for a short time and swap out the controlling hardware-- cha-ching. You've just bought yourself a $1m killer robot.

In fact, it occurs to me that modularity is a common design feature in equipment intended for military deployment. I bet the processing component of these things is actually just in a little black box with some wires coming out of it. Build a new black box and swap them out.

The obvious counter-measure for that kind of thing is a self-destruct activated by a single powerful burst transmission on a different frequency than the control signal, but that opens up the possibility of watergating the self-destruct data and being able to blow enemy robots in the field without ever engaging them.

Anyway, you see what I mean about the medium of the battlefield.

I think the most profound way that all this new military technology is changing the medium of the battlefield is to leave would-be adversaries no choice but to attack non-military targets. The stated goal of our National Defense Strategy is to construct a military so formidable that no force on Earth would dare challenge it. I haven't really seen any public policy discussion on the fairly obvious point that this might actually encourage terrorism, but the fact that terrorist incidents have risen worldwide since the Iraq invasion would seem to support this at least anecdotally.

As Comte pointed out, who's going to pick a fight with a brigade of lethal robots when it's much easier to target civilians who do not have swivelling electronically-targeted weapons turrets affixed to the top of them? I mean, isn't avoiding losing battles and picking easy targets pretty much the definition of terrorist tactics? And didn't mister Bin Laden himself, in his "election spoiler special" videotape, openly state that Al Queda's strategy was to bait the U.S. into a pointless military buildup that would drive it to economic ruin without actually doing anything to diminish terrorism?

It's also plain to me that the military loves its cool new computerized killing machines and is not going to let a little thing like logic stand in the way of building them.

A couple of other things that occur to me is that A) At a $1M a pop or thereabouts, it's not likely we're going to be able to field a large enough number of these things to do any more than the relatively isolated high-risk missions already described; and B) while there's no doubt these things are going to pack quite an offensive whallop, as well as being much sturdier defensibely than your regulation flesh-and-blood grunt, my guess is they're also not going to be any more effective against heavier ordinance, as in say one or two surplus Soviet RPG's. And then there's the inevitable bane of hi-tech systems: the more complicated the components, the greater the likelihood of inconvenient breakdowns, with the resulting down time spent on repairs and maintenance.

So, it seems somewhat unlikely that the bad guys are going to be intimidated by these things for any longer than it takes to load, lock & fire one or two RPG or LAW rounds, then watch how they "blow up real good".

Actually, once in full production, Foster-Miller is anticipating a per-unit cost in the $150,000-$180,000 range. And this particular unit is relatively low-tech, at least compared to the systems in development. They can not withstand RPG attacks or heavy arms fire, but firing on one with those would almost certainly mean suicide, as it would give away the firer's location.

I'm just saying. Used for the simple purpose of having it roll around shooting people, it will probably work pretty well. But we'll see.

The thing the U.S. military always seems to forget, and its less wealthy adversaries always remember, is that there is a cost/benefit ratio. The wealthiest government on earth can't possibly afford as many of these things as a reasonably provisioned construction company can afford sticks of dynamite. When your average hand grenade can take out $500,000 worth of equipment, it's a lot more fun to throw a few of them. But, personally, I'd think it was even funnier to just tip it over.

And did I read that part right about some of these using a fiber-optic "drive by wire" setup? Hoo-wee, one sharp pair of scissors and you can kiss your expensive toy gooh-buy!