Warfare and the Internet

There is an interesting bit of news going around. The US military is planning to build a global high-speed wireless network for conducting warfare. Here is an article from AFP/Yahoo and here is the link to Slashdot. The new network is called the Global Information Grid (GIG) and will take twenty years to complete. The Yahoo article quotes:

"Every member of the military would have 'a God's-eye view' of the battlefield," said Robert Stevens, chief executive of top US military contractor Lockheed Martin Corporation.

Proponents say it will become the most lethal weapon in the US arsenal and change the military and warfare the way the Internet changed business and culture.

The system would allow "marines in a Humvee, in a faraway land, in the middle of a rainstorm, to open up their laptops, request imagery" from a spy satellite, and "get it downloaded within seconds," Peter Teets, under secretary of the Air Force, told Congress, according to the Times.

Most cool! But the first Slashdot comment reminds us of Skynet
- posted by Base10 @ 6:10 PM