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Robot dogs, with guns for heads

Images of a military or security robot resembling a dog with a gun in place of a head have elicited dread online. The machine, created by Ghost Robots and Sword International and named the Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle (SPUR), may offer a glimpse into the future of warfare.

A common reaction is one of horror. We have seen all the Terminator and Matrix movies, featuring the robot takeover and enslavement of humanity. In such movies, a common theme is that robots exceeded humanity in their abilities. They became more agile, resilient, and even more intelligent. Ultimately, their fighting ability grew greater than humanity's and humanity was conquered (subverted in the movies, of course, by messianic heroes who can outclass the machines).

Warfare advances and there is no point in complaining. But is it really a matter of man against machine? Or even a matter of better machines against inferior and dated machines? Such thinking may have more in common with movies than reality.

What does technology mean to war?

The actual relationship between technology and warfare is often misunderstood. Technology has always been more a way for a wealthier power to leverage its wealth to produce military results with greater propaganda effect and at a reduced cost in personnel lives, rather than a silver bullet capable of producing victory. It is just more ordnance put to use against the other side's ordnance, and not ultimately the deciding factor in who will will be victorious. Just take a look. History is filled with examples of wealthier and better-equipped nations being defeated by poorer ones in wars. Technological advantages can be negated a lot more easily than many would think, and humans are a lot harder to kill than their counterparts portrayed in movies and games.

Those times when advanced technology got beaten

Look no further back than the outcome of the War in Afghanistan (2001-2021). Surely, it was a foregone conclusion that the mighty NATO forces would defeat the inferior Taliban forces? It was also a foregone conclusion that the Soviet Union would be defeated by the German military in 1941. What happened?

We might be able to inflict our wrath on people in poor nations as a result of billions spent on advanced weapons, but that act in itself just serves to encourage someone else to pick up an AK-47 and continue the fight. A Taliban fighter is a low-cost means of waging war, driven by faith, willing to sacrifice his life. You only believe killing him is a victory because you mistakenly equate his loss with your own death, when in reality a group like the Taliban has an endless supply of men. You don't have an endless supply of expensive bombs and robots. Worse still, depending on robots means you have absolutely no supply of men willing to sacrifice themselves.

Attrition ultimately can still wear you down, even when you take no human losses. And the unwillingness to take even one casualty just makes that one casualty hit a whole lot harder, when it eventually does happen. The anti-war sentiment ends up being just as strong, nay, worse, than it would be if you were taking thousands of losses in 1940.

Strengths and weaknesses

There is also the fact that a robot soldier may just be forever doomed to be less efficient, less manageable and far less adapted to its environment than the real thing.

Imagine a robot horse. That is a fine thing for fiction, but a real horse operates a lot better in the real world and is better made for it. A normal horse does not come from a manufacturing plant thousands of miles away. It can be replaced very easily using other horses. It can be recharged using grass and water abundant in many normal environments, and does not need expensive and rare power cells that must be transported to it by yet more technology.

Of course, an already good military can be made better by robots, which surely can add to its firepower. These kinds of unmanned rifles are not going to be a replacement for soldiers, but they could certainly be buddies for soldiers and increase the firepower of already effective military units.

An army that still puts a lot of human bodies to use in addition to its mechanical muscle will likely prevail over one that attempts to rely solely on machines. Willing humans will continue to be the more important factor in winning. People and even animals are going to continue to be a more convenient and cost-effective way of getting lots of weapons to the front line, for a long time.

Russia has been accused of hypocrisy by the United States and NATO, after its satellite destruction test reportedly created debris and panic in orbit.

If you have seen the movie Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, you are familiar with the problem. In fact, this recent event was exactly the plot of the movie, including such details as which country did the deed of taking down a satellite with a missile.

Some may even have been irked when Gravity came out, because back then the most recent offender in destroying satellites was China, yet the movie chose to cast Russia as the aggressor as is so often done in American media. Now, it seems, Russia has finally stepped up and played its movie role for real.

The blame game

Of course, Russia rejected claims that the debris created in the test endangered any space installation. Moreover, Russia pointed to similar satellite destruction tests by the US, China and India. Both sides accused each other of hypocrisy, with the US saying Russia's actions directly contradict its words.

When it comes to hypocrisy at this moment, Russia may be somewhat guiltier than America, and so too could be the Chinese when it comes to their activity in space. For something to be hypocritical, one's words have to contradict one's actions. Russia and China have steadfastly stated that they oppose the weaponisation of space. They may be using a narrow definition, speaking of the stationing of weapon systems in orbit rather than the temporary course of projectiles through space, but to send weapons into space to blow things up is certainly not conducive to preventing the weaponisation of space.

It is the presence of ICBMs, which move at such high altitude that they enter into space, that motivated the desire of the US to weaponise space in the first place, dating even back to the 1980s. Since the US has openly created the Space Force as a branch of its military, and declared space to be a war-fighting domain, the US is not breaking its word when it carries out military activity in space. It is doing exactly as it promises. The Russians and Chinese, however, are playing a diplomatic stalling game in which they likely intend to shame American advances in military space technology.

Warfare inevitably advances

The Russian and Chinese position is roughly equivalent to the Spartans decrying the Athenian use of arrows. Complaining about the other side's developments as being unsportsmanlike, appealing to arbitrary definitions and rules about what constitutes the right and proper way to kill people and blow things up, is unavailing in the end. It could also be deterring huge strides in technological development that could ultimately save humanity itself if we eventually come to depend on space colonies to escape disasters on Earth.

Russia can blow up whatever it wants to blow up, but there is no point in Russia crying foul about the other side coveting powerful technologies that could accomplish military supremacy. Russia has very capable engineers of its own and has surpassed the United States in some areas, such as hypersonic missiles. So, too, has China. This should teach these countries that the answer is not to complain about American advances, but to make advances of their own.

Every breakthrough in space is good

At the end of the day, enemies or not, we are all human, and it is in the human interest to fully exploit space for every benefit to our security and colonise the other planets of the Solar System. The stumbling block to this has been funding, and if one organisation on Earth is not short of funding, it is the US Department of Defense.

This is not a call for American conquest of the Solar System, but an acknowledgment that someone has to start the process and it would be wrong to simply stall them.

Movies, shows unfairly bashed in a culture war before being released

Entertainment media needs to be given a chance and actually watched before it can be rejected or boycotted.

In recent years, a very unfair trend developed among political commentators, the worst offenders most likely being those of the "alt right", whereby movies and television shows are condemned often before being aired, due to being supposedly politicised (ironically, such commentators are most responsible for bringing politics into the discussion of such entertainment).

Politicisation, which is very likely unwelcome for the production companies themselves, who want to sell to all audiences, begins with commentary from those of a liberal persuasion. They will usually, innocently and likely thinking themselves apolitical, praise some form of inclusion in terms of casting or story-writing. They then face some counter-commentary from conservative figures reacting by condemning Hollywood in turn for its apparent political radicalism.

The latest 007 movie went through this, at first with liberal commentaros suggesting the titular British spy would be replaced by a female or minority actor. This was met with outright condemnation from conservative commentators. The final product apparently had some nod to inclusion, but otherwise was just a normal Bond movie. It turned out this was a false alarm.

We see this with Amazon's upcoming The Lord of the Rings (not actually The Lord of the Rings but other prequel tales from the same author), expected apparently to feature a more racially diverse cast than previous iterations.

We know nothing of the specifics of how this new J. R. R. Tolkien-inspired show will be cast, or how, if at all, a diverse cast would possible undermine its ability to represent the author's vision. It may be that the diverse cast is well-intended and well-chosen and manages to still properly represent Tolkien's world. It may be that it has no effect at all on the entertainment value of the series.

When you haven't seen a thing, you are in no position to judge it. However, thanks to pre-emptive attack, many tend not to watch a new show or are intent on giving it a bad review without even watching.

Sometimes, preachy and political dialogue can definitely undermine a story set in a fantasy world. Casting decisions can also be poor. However, whether such issues are present and undermine entertainment value isn't known until you see something. Instead of politicising entertainment in protest against the politicisation of entertainment, just watch it and then explain the problems you find, giving at all all times specifics.

If entertainment is genuinely poor, the biggest losers will be those who produced it. They are invested in it, quite literally, more than any "fan".

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