They're basically disposable because they're so inexpensive. And that - this particular piece of the Navy has been the most forward-leaning in terms of trying to integrate this - these new technologies. And it is - they have both aerial drones and surface drones and subsurface drones that they are using in Bahrain in the Fifth Fleet of the Navy. There's - and that operates autonomously. And I guess, I mean, what I mean by drone, it's an unmanned or uncrewed vessel. But you're talking about drones in the sea. And I think most of us think of drones as unmanned planes, you know, like. GROSS: So you keep using the word drones. And then the feeds are going into this central area where they're analyzing them and looking for threats. And so the drones are sending in constant information feeds.
Nyt watching newsletter software#
And then if you have a artificial intelligence software that's looking at their feeds, you know, they can find and identify, you know, potential targets that they want to go inspect or targets that they perceive to be threats. They just - they - you give them a general area that you want them to patrol, and then there's a command center in Bahrain that I visited, the robot operations center, where the feeds from these drones are being, you know, sent back. LIPTON: They largely function on their own. GROSS: So these unmanned vessels, who is controlling them, or are they controlling themselves? But what it really means is matching up drones with traditional platforms to expand the reach of the Navy in a much cheaper way than building more manned ships. That's their typical, you know, acronym-heavy terminology for it. The Pentagon calls it distributed maritime operations. And that's what they've been experimenting with. And it allows them to use their military-manned ships more efficiently. And so these drones essentially expand out the kind of - the range that the Navy can patrol. They can dip underwater and be completely impossible to see. So they want to basically proliferate the waters of that part of the world with these small drones that can operate for months or even a year at a time and that can be constantly doing surveillance. And they just can't do it with the number of destroyers and even Coast Guard Cutters that they have there. But they want to be able to cover something like 2 million square miles worth of water that the Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain, covers. So one of the things - the Navy only has a very small number of ships in that part of the world because it's moving a lot of its ships over to Asia because of the perceived threat from China. So what does that mean, and what are they capable of that the current weapons are not capable of?ĮRIC LIPTON: The primary thing that the - I was - I went - traveled to Bahrain in the Middle East, which is a small island nation in the Persian Gulf in really contested waters because the Strait of Hormuz is not very far away, and Iran has been intercepting oil tankers that have been passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Let's start with the new weapons that you've reported on that the Navy is testing. We recorded our interview yesterday.Įric Lipton, welcome back to FRESH AIR. Then Lipton transitioned to covering the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath. His first beat at the Times was covering Rudy Giuliani when he was mayor of New York. Lipton is an investigative reporter for The New York Times. My guest, Eric Lipton, has been investigating the military's struggles to modernize and the obstacles that have been standing in the way. Meanwhile, the limitations of the military's current weapon systems are being tested by the war in Ukraine, the current conflict with Iran over access to the Strait of Hormuz and the preparations for a possible armed conflict with China.
But the process has been held up by tradition, politics, lobbyists, the procurement bureaucracy, disagreements within the military and profound ethical questions surrounding the use of autonomous deadly weapon systems. military has been testing new weapons with remarkable capabilities using cutting-edge, digital technology, including artificial intelligence.
0 kommentar(er)
