There are courageous people everywhere in this country. Look
at the ones in the hi-jacked airplane headed for the White House on 11Sep01
that attacked the hijackers with the yell of 'lets roll', and stopped yet
another catastrophe at the brutal cost of their own lives. As long as we
have people like that living here, there will be no panic like ruled Cambodia
in 1975!
The bravest people on earth cannot overcome a large technological advantage. Take the US Indian wars from 1850 to 1900. There were many brave Native Americans, and many individual fighters were more skillful, better marksman and more experienced at war than the U.S. Army soldier. But the Indians never had the slightest chance of victory. They were mowed down as easily as the Germans destroyed Polish cavalry in the Second World War. If someone were to develop small CF powered robotic killers like the ones I have described, I cannot say whether would take 50,000 or 5 million of them to destroy the US but I am quite sure it could be done -- probably within a few months. All the courage in the world would have no effect on the outcome. When you accidentally poke a hornet's nest, you can stand tall or be as brave as you like, but it will have no effect on the angry swarm of bees. If there enough of them and you do not run (and you do not happen to be holding a can of insecticide), they will kill you. (Bees kill more people in North America than any other animal.)
If the robots were a little smarter than Roomba, and they could recognize military troops and distinguish them from civilians, then we would dispatch large armies in thousands of vehicles and aircraft and they would be completely wiped out within a few days -- killed to the last man -- because they would have to emerge from their protective vehicles sooner or later.
If the US had a year or two to prepare for this sort of onslaught we could probably survive, even if we did not have CF. I am talking about a surprise attack. In reality I think it is very unlikely that anyone will develop something like this in secret, so there is not much danger. On the other hand I do believe that CF would make this kind of weapon much easier than most people realize, and there are dozens of other variations have not even thought about.
- Jed
