by James Corbett corbettreport.com September 29, 2018 OK, I've got some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first? The good news? OK, no problem. You know that old anti-war cliché about "Suppose They Gave A War And No One Came"? Well that slogan might be closer to becoming reality than you think. Exhibit A: This story from Japan Today. "SDF recruiters struggle as applicant pool dries up." You see, it seems that recruiters are having a tougher time than ever selling Japan's youth on the glitz and glamour of a career in the nation's "Self-Defense Force" (aka Japan's Stealth Army). The country's infamous plummeting birth rate has created a shortage of 18-26 year olds in the job market (11 million today compared to 17 million just 24 years ago), meaning that universities and corporations are viciously competing to recruit high school graduates. And that competition has left those struggling to sell teenagers on the benefits of joining the military in the dust. As a result, the Japanese military is over 20,000 personnel short of its goal of employing 247,154 ~~dumb dirty animals~~ valiant war heroes this year, and that gap is only likely to increase as the demographic crunch really sets in. Within 30 years, the number of 18-26 year olds in the job market is expected to drop to 7.8 million, making competition for high school graduates even more fierce. But make no mistake: This failure to entice young blood is not a uniquely Japanese phenomenon, and it is not just about demographics. It's happening in Russia. It's happening in Britain. It's even happening in the good ol' U.S. of A. All around the world, bloodthirsty warmongers are finding it more and more difficult to get fresh young meat for the meat grinder. It's almost as if people around the world are waking up to the centuries of lies and deceptions that have under girded the military-industrial complex and that no amount of fancy new recruitment tricks are going to turn the tide. Could it be that one day they will give a war and no one will come? . . . OK, now are you ready for the bad news? Pretty soon, it won't matter if no one comes to the next bankster-manipulated war. Or should I say, it won't matter if no human comes. I think you know where this is going, but in case you don't, consider this story from earlier this month: "MQ-9 Gets First Air-to-Air Kill in Training Exercise, Air Force Official Says." It's a report from military.com confirming that an unmanned aerial vehicle (specifically an MQ-9 Reaper drone from our good friends at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.) "bagged its first air-to-air kill of another small, aerial vehicle in a controlled simulation" late last year. In case the significance of this event eludes you, perhaps Popular Mechanics editorial comment that "[t]he event ism [sic] a watershed moment in the history of aerial warfare" will help it sink in. Or, for the hard of thinking, ZeroHedge's typically click-baity headline might do the trick: "For The First Time Ever, A Drone Shoots Down Another Drone In Unmanned Air-To-Air Combat." And lest there be any doubt that we have moved into a new era of armed combat, how's this for a story: "It’s Now Possible To Telepathically Communicate with a Drone Swarm." That's right, the mad scientists over at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have confirmed that brain chipped drone pilots can now telepathically direct up to three aircraft at a time. Note well: This is not just some telepathic joystick where the pilot can direct the drones with his mind, but a two-way communication where drones can send information back to the pilot about what they are detecting in their environment. Literal. Telepathic. Communication. With a drone swarm. And this is just one project taking place under DARPA's "Brain Initiative" that I wrote about last year, wherein the US Defense Department and its friends in the US government are spending $100 million+ per year to map the human brain and figure out how to telepathically connect it to various weapons systems. Welcome to the 21st century! But such telepathic drone swarms still require human controllers of some sort, brain chipped troops that (one would sincerely like to believe) might think twice before accepting an order to precipitate World War III or massacre a gaggle of government protesters. Enter "LAWS" or "Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems," which is the officially-approved feel-good acronym for killer robots. While normies are out scoffing at the idea that such things will ever exist, the UN has quietly been holding international conferences on how best to govern their use (because we all know how good the UN is at preventing war and facilitating disarmament, right?). The latest UN conference on LAWS saw a rare moment of world peace and unity where the US, South Korea, Israel, Australia and even Russia came together to officially renounce this technology and swear to eradicate it from the face of the earth should it ever arise! . . . Just kidding. They actually banded together to block any attempt to ban killer robots, proving that the warmongers of all nations can agree on the really important things when they need to. Feel free to insert the conspiracy angle on all of this. Which is, of course, that the military-industrial complex that hyped up the Cold War in order to profit from the armaments that were purchased in its name are now hyping Drone Wars for the exact same purpose. And feel free to offer as evidence the news that the US Department of Homeland Security is now asking for even more power in order to fight the "drone warfare threat" that is plaguing the US. Apparently, the dear Big Brother overlords over at DHS are so concerned about the evil Al CIA-duh boogeymen getting their hands on this newfangled drone technology that they're crying to Congress, insisting that without the power to "redirect, disable, disrupt control of, seize, or confiscate, without prior consent," any and all drones we're all going to die in a robot apocalypse (or something). But however this armament and expenditure is being justified, it amounts to the same thing. The biggest terrorists on the planet (the masterminds at the Pentagon) are sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into technologies that will further mechanize warfare and further reduce the need for those pesky unreliable humans to be in the loop in any battlefield situation. And, sadly, the Pentagon's frenemies around the world aren't far behind in that quest, either. In short: No, Toto, we aren't in Kansas anymore. And yes, it is entirely possible that the next major war will be fought not by human soldiers but by telepathically controlled drone swarms and autonomous weapons. I mean, humans will die, of course, they just won't be required to do the fighting. Which is certainly good news for those poor military recruiters that are finding it harder and harder to sell the world's youth on the dream of dying on the battlefield for Queen and Country . . . or whatever they tell the kids nowadays. So I think we all know the real lesson of this story. When someone asks you whether you want the good news or the bad news, tell them to give you the good news and skip the bad news.