The United States needs a new generation of Manhattan, but the policy of abandoning old weapons has proven to be unsustainable for Washington.
This conclusion was reached by members of the US Congress Expert Group, writes the American edition of The New York Times.
As experts noted, the Pentagon needs to “focus on what the future requires, rather than on political and military commitment to the past. The Ministry of Defence repeatedly intended to adopt new developments. However, each time the officials faced obstacles.
The problem is that reforms often also have negative consequences, including the need to close down military bases and even entire enterprises. Analysts recommend that Washington concentrate on creating artificial intelligence, looking back on the experience of the Manhattan Project during World War II.
At the same time, experts recommend that the US come forward with the idea of adopting a global treaty on artificial intelligence. Such a step is necessary to obtain a tool to deter America’s competitors. On the other hand, such developments are not only at the disposal of the states, and therefore the agreement will be of little use.
Seth Moulton, a member of a group of analysts, notes that developing new weapons is a race, but the United States is losing out, wasting time.
“The Pentagon has experience with large-scale programmes that involve fighter jets or aircraft carriers. At the same time, it is not well equipped to master the new technologies that will be needed in the conflicts of the future”, – the report says.
News Front has previously reported on this problem in the United States. Thus, the U.S. Air Force still uses B-52 strategic bombers. They were developed back in the middle of the last century, but they are still planned to be used 100 years after their creation. This is confirmed by the fact that in recent years the Pentagon has twice returned B-52s that were long written off from the Arizona cemetery. At the same time, the latest B-21 Raider bombers will be fully operational in no more than ten years. The first car should appear only in five years.