When I read this post on Winds of Change on the ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), I couldn’t help but marvel at the intricate interplay among the American way of war, technology, and American popular culture. For more than a century, since the United States burst onto the world scene during World War I, this interplay has been apparent.
The young Americans who went to war during the First World War either owned guns or wished they owned guns and many were highly experienced in their use. For a mythic representation of this, watch the great Gary Cooper picture Sergeant York.
World War II was won as much by the factories and plants on the home front as by the troops in the field. The man with the gun was still critical but so were the machine guns, planes, tanks, and ships that were produced by industrial America in incredible quantity. By this time the fascination of many young men was automobiles and the tinkering that so many had spent hundred or thousands of hours at must have had a great influence.
Now imagine not too many years from now—thousands of truly low-cost armed and unarmed UAV’s produced in fab labs (which are, themselves, produced by fab labs) close to the front while behind computer screens stateside hundreds or thousands of young Americans monitor or control their operations. These young Americans have been well-prepared by hundreds or thousands of hours playing video games.
