DARPA Unveils Plans For Worlds First Flotilla of Killer Robot Warships Within 5 Years - Sea HunterBy Nicholas West While the global drone arms race heats up across the planet, filling the sky with automated weapons of war, it makes perfect sense that the seas would soon follow. Amid cries of restraint from members of the scientific community and academia, as well as those within the field of robotics, the U.S. military is forging ahead with the development of a 132-foot stalker warship that might soon patrol the worlds oceans in search of enemies. This is an inflection point, Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Work said in an interview, adding he hoped such ships might find a place in the western Pacific in as few as five years. This is the first time weve ever had a totally robotic, trans-oceanic-capable ship. (emphasis added) (Source: Reuters U.S. military christens self-driving Sea Hunter warship) Although mainstream media might playfully compare it to a sea-bound version of Googles self-driving car, DARPA describes it as follows: DARPAs Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) program has designed, developed and constructed an entirely new class of ocean-going vesselone intended to traverse thousands of kilometers over the open seas for months at a time, all without a single crew member aboard. Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary, Robert Work, is once again out on the campaign trail stumping for a future filled with these unmanned systems that will ensure U.S. dominance within the battlespace, as he likes to call planet Earth. I recently covered Works sit-down meeting with the Washington Post, where he implored the world to understand that the U.S. is playing catch-up to the rogue nations of the world who supposedly are showing signs of mastering this emerging technology. Hence, they are forcing the hand of the U.S. to become more creative in its approach to future war planning. As I pointed out in Pentagon Warns of Killer Robot Threat (From Other Countries Of Course), this notion is pure and admitted propaganda. In reality, prior to becoming Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary on April 30th, 2014, Robert Work co-authored a 44-page paper in January of that same year entitled Preparing for War in the Robotic Age (.pdf) when he was still CEO at the Center for a New American Security. The very first sentence of the Executive Summary states in no uncertain terms who has kicked off this race to develop automated weapons: Over the past several decades, the United States has been an aggressive first mover in a war-fighting regime centered on guided munitions and integrated battle networks. These innovations have allowed U.S. forces to operate relatively uncontested in space, in the air, and on and under the sea, and to dominate conventional force-on-force land combat. For a variety of reasons the geopolitics of rising powers, the global diffusion of technology and counter-reactions by its adversaries chief among them the preeminence enjoyed by the United States in this regime is starting to erode. Its an amazing document for which this first sentence barely does justice for what is revealed throughout. So, once again we are given a DARPA press release of sorts that covers a program supposedly in development. But this is not even the first time that drone boats with the ability to patrol, and attack, enemies have been covered in establishment media. CNN reported in 2014 that the U.S. Navy could swarm foes with robot boats. The U.S. Navy is getting ready to swarm its adversaries. The Office of Naval Research over the weekend released video of tests conducted in August that showed five drone boats swarming a vessel that posed a threat to a Navy ship. The U.S. Navy is unleashing a new era in advanced ship protection, the service says in the video. Controlled by what the Navy calls Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing (CARACaS), a sensor and software kit that is transferable among small vessels, a fleet of more than a dozen small unmanned boats cruise along the James River in Virginia, setting up a protective screen on a Navy research ship. When a threatening vessel is detected, five boats break off to confront it. Robert Work would know this, as he also was the Undersecretary of the Navy from 2009-2013. All of this is to say that the Sea Hunter project, specifically, might be new; but the concept is most certainly not, nor is the spokesperson for this initiative part of a group of humble public servants just trying to figure things out as Work has intimated in past interviews. Naturally well never really know how far advanced the current state of robotic warfare is, but at least we are being publicly offered the blueprints for what we can expect. According to Secretary Work, this single robotic warship prototype will only kick-start what he envisions as oceans filled with unmanned craft: I would like to see unmanned flotillas operating in the western Pacific and the Persian Gulf within five years, he said, comparing the protype [sic] ship to early drone aircraft. At the very least, unless costs are significantly reduced, this appears to be another outrageously expensive military expenditure. Reuters reports a price tag of $20 million per warship and operating costs of up to $20,000 per day. This announcement should be further viewed as merely one part of a much, much wider desire to see a full matrix of war where all systems on land, in the air, and below the surface will communicate and orchestrate missions absent human input. In fact, a possible practice run of this wider concept has been scheduled for October off the Scottish Coast as the allies line up for the largest demonstration to date Unmanned Warrior 2016. At this point, all we are left with are the assurances from Robert Work that the Sea Hunter will not be armed, its merely a patrol boat hoping, I suppose, that people have not read about previous military strategies. Theres no reason to be afraid of a ship like this, Work told reporters at the ceremony. Watch this video, check the documents, consider history, and decide for yourself. Please leave your comments below. Hat tip: ZenGardner.com Nicholas West writes for selfnewsPost.com. This article may be freely shared in part or in full with author attribution and source link. The Washington Post is a virtual arm of the CIA and has been for a very long time. Brzezinski said years ago nation states have become obsolete the drones and ships are to control the serfs, not an arms race. No matter how far reaching it may sound to some people, we definitely have to consider that as a real possibility. I was reading the article thinking I sure wish the government would learn to mind their own business, then, I read your comment and realized that they are minding their own business as they perceive it. Im just looking up from the bottom of the food chain. Your point is well taken and I realize war has been a preferred tool for social engineering. However, most people tend to forget the banksters are psychopath control freaks who control all nations and are extremely close to completing the build up of their totalitarian world government techno surveillance system of control such that a major war would be counterproductive at this point undermining their infrastructure, risking loss of control on a number of fronts. IMO, thats exactly why they engineered the global war on terror, to create a global nemesis they can use in a highly targeted manner. They can also use their control over the global economic system also in a very precise manner. Thats all they need to finish the job. Getting the public to believe we are facing showdowns with nations X,Y, and Z provides cover for their true agenda and estimates are we only have 3 to 5 years before the new system goes fully live electronically monitoring and analyzing everything we do 24/7, chipped or virtually chipped via biometrics and RFID IDs and cards. All part of the global robot army. They are making humans obsolete so they can exterminate us through autonomous killer robots. These robots are no doubt part of this plan or their successors will be. Skynet, Seanet, Mindnet You got humanitys balls in a vice grip here ya freekin psychos! If the F-35 is any indication as to how well this robot will work.. it will either sink upon its maiden launch, it will never work at all, or it will hunt and kill itself! 