What level of tech do you think the US REALLY has?

We are now gearing up for another monster conflict in the Middle East ... the Israelis are already making noises about what needs to be done about Iran and the US has said it will support the Israelis. The Mullahs of course are increasingly paranoid, trying to keep a toehold on their restive population while at the same time accelerating their nuke program.
Iran is now cementing a joint agreement with the deceptive and equally paranoid Syrians, who have now overplayed their hand by assassinating the ex-Prime Minister Hariri, a billionaire who was actively promoting removing Syrian influence from Lebanon.
Syria's official condemnation of his killing came within ten minutes of his death, a bit quick really. A head or two has already rolled in Damascus for that particular screw-up I reckon.
The US withdrew its ambassador to Syria within hours.

Russia is in the mix in the mess that is developing, France, Germany indeed all of Europe, but there is NO WAY the Israeli's can allow an Iranian nuke program to be successful. NO WAY, as Iran's official policy is to destroy the State of Israel.

In recent weeks Secretary of State Rice has done a number of European capitals, followed by Rumsfeld last week, and now Bush. Something is up. I understand the President's schedule is set months in advance but ...

Anyway, over the years I have noticed the pictures from satellites controlled by the US NRO are clearer and closer. But I suspect they can actually read a car number-plate from space, although that would never get on the media. I expect they have infra-red photography also. Other than the NRO what do you think the NSA is capable of?

I also wonder about these "drones" the CIA now is showing on the telly. Big lumpy things those. Do you reckon they may have miniature drones that would be almost impossible to shoot down?

Bismarck once said, "I never believe anything until it's been officially denied ..." and I think that applies in this whole area of technological subterfuge.

I just wonder what technology is REALLY being used in this ongoing war, and will be later this year when the ^&$@ hits the proverbial fan ...

 

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Well there is international law that forbids you from putting nuclear weapons in orbit. Oh I'm sure everyone wants to obey the law and so there would never be any nukes in space, because 1) it would be naughty and 2) if we got caught we could be punished by UN Sanctions - imagine being cut off from dates from Algeria...

I guess my point is I increasing do not believe anything the pols say, whether its Bush or foreign leaders.

My sense is there is an incredibly complex game of chess going on as to who is going to run the world 20 - 50 years from now, and now we have China and India involved on the board with their amazingly aggressive development (14 percent growth in China's GDP according to the WB).
India will soon be a major player on the international scene, and its already started. Last year, on a trip to India I tried to get a hotel room in Bangalore, the hi-tech capital of India, and there were "some" rooms available at $US300 per night!
These two countries are already eating our breakfast, they are looking forward to our lunch ...

The US is presently the uncontested leader in tech, but for how long? And then what? What do we do? Are we doing it?

 

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Its impossible to know what level the US has for sure, its turned into a bit of a modern day legend. I think its possible to take a few educated guesses. Magazines like Janes is always a good place to start, military journalists do get into some interesting places. Obviously they dont get shown the good bits, but sometimes they talk about projects they've seen in the early stages showing promising results just disappearing of the face of planet and people acting like they never existed. Clearly a magazine article a magazine article cannot say read between the lines, the rest of us are free to do so. I think I heard that someone tried looking into the specialities of grad students who went into such jobs, cant remember the details though, but that strikes me as a good idea. Finally try and cut through conspiracy theories, ive been through my UFO rant before and i cba to do it again.

 

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A couple of years ago I watched an interview on C-Span late one night. (If you are out of the US C-Span is a serious, intellectually-challenging, commercial-free station that pays no attention to polls, which is a good thing because only one percent of Americans have EVER actually watched it.)


The interview was with an Army General on the future of weaponry and the interviewer nonchalantly asked what the DoD is interested in at the moment. He said merging weapons with animals. Something to the effect that if we could "grow" weapons that would be a good thing ...

 

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4199935.stm

 

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I think its about time we got robots to fight for us... its the year 2005.

 

Excellent point. Another great place to look to get some idea of what tech is really out there is to check by the National Labs pages.... for example:

Sandia National LaboratoriesLos Alamos National Laboratory | HomepageArgonne National Laboratory Home PageLawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)Brookhaven National LaboratoryLawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryPacific Northwest National LaboratoryFermi National Accelerator LaboratoryNLANR -- National Laboratory for Applied Network Research

Enjoy

 

I've seen liscense plates on a kehole satellite photo, I've seen working tempest (van eck) technology and I've seen with my own two eyes drones that actually were pure drones (programmed flight plans) that flew in the 1960's that could travel at mach 2 (the d-21, mated w\ the sr-71 to form the m-21 the project was officially tanked but if that is what we were doing in the 60's those predator "drones" {remote controlled airplanes} are bullshit) tempest can read what's on your computer from 30 feet away (or far more) even if it's isolated, the only shields are filters and faraday cages, as for liscense plates, they have said in major media outlets that there are satelites capable of seeing liscense plates, if hubble were put over new yourk it could pick out the individual bulbs in las vegas.

 

Don't forget the eye lazers and shit.

 

for tempest, you could always get an LCD monitor, and close the curtains.

 

I live in Las Vegas, Nevada. Where "Area 51" is? It's been said, we are tecnologically 10 years beyond "Star Trek TOS" (The ORIGINAL Series)
Take it for what it's worth.

 

Space satellites have been capable of reading newspaper headlines at ground level for sometime now.

 

in retrospect im not sure why i put space satellite, im sure theres another kind.