The New Skynet: Total War Control

Dozens of countries (lead by Dutch, American, German, Japanese and Chinese firms) are involved in 21st century warfighter programs, all done for the benefit of 'national security'. What the publics of each respective country may not know is that all of the learned information and gained technology is cannabilized and sold and resold in the marketplace under loose restrictions of global economy and private public partnerships. One of the top market exchanges for such technology is the HCI-International, a bi-annual conference originally set up by scholars at Purdue University and Tsinghua University in China. Information warfare technology and advanced human cognition have been in development for years, but only in recent times have nations begun to share obtained technology and advancements in the respective fields. The HCI-International conferences were begun in 1984 and have now reached the level of total information sharing, with little hidden under the table. All is debated and discussed, with the proceeding discoveries to again be shared at the next meeting, rinse and repeat. The idea of modernizing the combat soldier is nothing new. Science fiction stories in the 1940s and 1950s had soldiers wearing breathing masks, flying around with jetpacks, and using advanced armor to evade bullets. What was once science fiction is now science fact. A quick glance at DARPA's main programs site will show a catalogue of projects designed to streamline the combat soldier into the 21st century and beyond. The attempts by science and government administration to turn the infantry man into an invincible fighting machine has already begun. But what is the endgame of this? Well, another glance at DARPA's projects, including Pentagon papers, will show a growing disdain for even using humans in many forms of combat and other peripheral operations. Why send up a pilot to fly a jet aircraft at all when the aircraft itself can be updated to fly autonomously and use auto-positioning and advanced targeting systems to locate and destroy the enemy? After all, a robotic navigation system will not suffer from bad morale, poor training, and certainly not air sickness or G-force side effects. But automating the nations' militaries will take decades to accomplish, so in the meantime the human element must remain in effect; the only challenge is updating the human to provide support for the system until the automatic systems are capable of taking over day to day combat and policing operations.