Eric Schmidt’s “White Stork”: Is Drone Warfare the Answer or the Beginning of the End.

Billionaire technologist Eric Schmidt of Google has been quietly building a new drone startup in Ukraine called White Stork, a reference to the national bird and symbol of Ukraine. Schmidt has assumed the role of a defense tech advisor and global financier in support of the war in Ukraine.

“Schmidt has become one of the leading voices in Silicon Valley promoting drones as the future of war,” says Forbes senior writer Sarah Emerson. “Scores of drone startups have begun developing aircraft for the Ukrainian battlefield, which has proven a viable testing ground for new tech.”

Drones are undoubtedly “the future of war”. And this “viable testing ground” concept is at the heart of why the U.S. is in Ukraine. It allows U.S. forces to “test” new drone weapons systems in a live combat setting, without obvious and immediate U.S. casualties.

There will eventually be U.S. casualties. Newton’s third law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The “action” and “reaction” refer to forces; if Object A exerts a force on Object B, then Object B exerts an equal amount of force on Object A in the opposite direction.

Here, object B, is Russia. And it is inevitable that Russia, initially through it’s proxies, will respond. They already have. Russia — China — Iran — Hamas!

If you believe that war is the answer, or an inevitable and unavoidable part of man’s nature, then it may make sense, from a western perspective, to use Ukraine to test new weapons systems.

On the other hand, if you believe, as I do, that war is not the answer, then what Schmidt and the U.S. are doing may be charting a course toward self-destruction.

In a post nuclear, pre-singularity age, we should be asking the question — is war the answer? Has it ever been the answer? And more importantly, is it now?

Or is it short-term thinking, that shows little or no vision and even less regard for long-term risk?

Throughout history, man has engaged in an unrelenting escalation of war in which we constantly devised new and improved weapons. Until we ultimately devised nuclear weapons. At which point, we wisely…