On Saturday, US Army Secretary Mark Esper said that the military branch's renewed emphasis on technology – like killer robots, lasers and warp-speed missiles – is directly linked to competition with Russia and China, both countries that are developing increasingly advanced war machines.
During the Aspen Security Forum, which took place from July 18 to 21, Esper confirmed that the US Army is shifting its focus, which since 2001 has been primarily concerned with waging lower-tech counter-insurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, back to investing in high-tech weapons that will give the US an “advantage on a modern battlefield,” military.com reported Sunday.
Now, with the US planning to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan and with Daesh and al-Qaeda on the brink of elimination, the Army is now focusing on replacing the weapons it has used since the 1980s with semi-autonomous robots that can take down enemies without striking American lives.
“We need to make sure we are ready for the fight 10 or 15 years from now,” Esper said at the forum Saturday.
In April, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood told US policymakers at a hearing of the US House of Representatives Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces that he is concerned about the capability of Russia and China's hypersonic weapons research and development.
“We are very seriously concerned about the rate of development we see [in hypersonics] in China and also…
