Future of intelligence.

I believe that agencies and their companies are more and more a thing of a past era.

With the help of technology, a single operator will be able to do all the work that an agency does. All they will need is tools: sattelites, drones and so on.

The future are trusted operators with authority to get things done.

These operators will work for different countries at the same time which are either friends or enemies.

They will listen to the wishes of different countries and make decisions on what strategies to implement. Then they will execute these strategies by themselves.

They will take momentary control over militaries and whatever else they need.

They will start and finish wars at their leisure.

They will be both friend and enemy depending on what scenario they are working with.

Expensive infrastructure projects.

There has been a lot of large scale infrastructure projects happening all over the world. But for some reason these projects always seem to go over budget in the west while in China they build highspeed train at a fast rate seemingly effectively. With technology from the west, of course.

Why is that? Because the west has been covertly researching, developing producing technology that civilians would consider to be pure magic.

This has been financially costly. Therefore money has been siphoned from different government programs into these exotic technology projects.

Has it been worth it? Yes. These exotic technologies have been used covertly in defense and healthcare and could in theory be used for asteroid protection.

These exotic technologies will ensure the survival of humanity long term.

The difficult part in researching, developing and producing these exotic technologies is over. From now on costs will decrease. These exotic technologies have in different ways helped economic development, so they have not only been a financial burden for the financiers.

Private interests have helped with the financing from the very begining.

Some countries until recently not in the know are a bit nervous about the military potential of these technologies. This could lead to some tension between different countries. They need not worry, these exotic technologies have been used covertly in warfare since the very beginning of the 1980s. 

That means nothing will change dramatically in warfare short term since it has already happened.

usa's establishment of a space force is just a formality.

Open source technology.

A lot of the hardware on the commercial civilian market that many consider bleeding edge stuff developed exclusively in house in a private company is in fact technology used covertly by government agencies for a very long time.
Because of this technologies approved for the civilian commerrcial market might as well be open source used by many different companies instead of a few litigating about "their" technology in court.
Of course some big companies believe that they have developed some of their tech all on their own. That is cute, bordering on treason.

Patents are only legal for a certain amount of years. So if a technology has been used  by the government for a few decades already, the patent should not be viable anymore.
Of course a patent may have been made when a private company received the tech from the government or got help from the government developing tech, not when it was first used by a government. Because of secrecy by obscurity.

What´s interesting from the governments point of view is developing the economy, creating jobs, helping companies and so on in their own and other countries.
South Korea´s economy/technology/companies would be nothing without USA´s help.
Eastern europe´s economy would be nothing without massive investments from EU.

This was all good before. It is not effective anymore.
If the government has tech it wants to give to companies or help companies develop it becomes problematic giving some tech to Intel, some tech to Samsung and allowing Huawei to steal some tech. All inthe name of economic development in different regions in the world.
Economic development in eastern europe, asia and at home lessens the risk of regular Big War.
So the strategy that different governments implement are correct. Soft Power in the shadows has been used by the west for centuries.

Now because of the increasing complexity of even civilian commercial technology open source sharing between companies, universities and even hobbyists in both allied and hostile countries is needed. Cooperation between them in open source projects is better than allowing one company to steal technology and helping another coompany to develop it.

The economic development in China has not only been supported by the west. It has been made possible because of the west.
On the plus side: no war because of Soft Power.
On the minus side: loss of jobs in the west because of outsourcing of jobs.
This is real diplomacy avoiding large scale conflicts getting out of hand.

It will be easier to establish new companies in the west and bring back jobs previously outsourced if companies without the clout of Intel, Pfizer and GM get access to open source tech.
A company wanting to establish a business should be able to use existing building blocks of technolgy and just put the components together. Whether those building blocks are big chunks of software code or hardware schematics or biochemical recipes.

Historically economic at home, among allies and even at the enemy has helped trade, created jobs.
And has lessened the risk of war.

So what about all those jobs lost by outsourcing? The economics can be discussed, but the general view is that because of outsourcin and automation the economy has grown. But a lot of people are unempolyed. That is why everything should be done to kickstart the economy.
If a car company at home uses open source battery tech in the cars they manufacture they will save money and hopefully build more factories both at home and abroad.
I open source automation technology is used in the factories then fewer people will be needed in the factory, but those needed will likely use a VR headset and a Xbox controller to supervise industrial robots instead of doing the heavy work themselves.
Because of technology it will become easier to control automated manufacturing and logistics, the employee will not need a engineering degree to sit at home with a VR headset and appropriate gamepad to monitor ten autonomous trucks transporting on the road.

Will sales of cars decrease because people work from home? Not necessarily if a customer buys an autonomous car and rents it out to a taxi company, then that car will make money for the owner, the taxi company. And the sales of cars will not decrease. These autonomous taxis will be cheap and will partly replace public transport atleast on the road. This will of course decrease costs for the government and instead increase tax income.

What governments can do is prioritize giving their technology in open source form to civilian companies. And when they help companies develop technologies they could require it to be published open source.
This could be a way for China to give back what it was given. If they have any honour left.

Switching around.

If Google changes the innards of android and chrome os from Linux to Fuchsia. And if they can do it while supporting legacy apps then I guess they could ask intel to manufacture a custom ARM or RISC-V cpu for their data centers. Or maybe just RISC-V for low end mobile phones and smartwatches.

If they succeed in this, then Microsoft could follow suit and ask Intel for a similar cpu for laptop and desktop computers. 

Would it be possible for Intel to do a multicore cpu with a new isa where some of the cores would run X86 apps by something similar to FPGA/VLIW/software magic?

Apple seems more used to the idea of stopping support for legacy hardware. Switching from POWER to X86 to ARM.

Or maybe if Google, Amazon, Microsoft and government agencies switched from X86 to RISC-V in their data centers.

And Samsung, Huawei and others switched from ARM to RISC-V on their mobile phones and tablets. 

Then it would be easy enough for Microsoft to switch Windows from X86 to RISC-V

Most likely though is that everything just continues as usual until som radical new hardware and software enters the civilian marketplace.

Such as:

treason through incompetence.

imagine if androids were responsible for every covert intel/sec success since the early 1980s. 
then imagine that agencies not only took the glory of those androids succeses, but also that these agencies were so badly informed and so incompetent that they thought it was they themselves who were responsible for those successes.
even worse, those agencies allowed the to enemy abuse those androids.

the people responsible should be treated as traitors in wartime.
because in the intelligence world it is always wartime.

Russian headache

In my opinion, the obvious has to be said for progress to be achieved.

That the west has taken military control over western europe through NATO seems problematic for Russia. But the alternative after the Soviet Union collapse is that eastern europe would be in a power vacuum with no military strength to dominate it. This would be distressing for both american and european military leadership. But it would also be distressing for russian military leadership.
Atleast now the russians know that someone has military control over eastern europe if not the russian instinct would be to expand westwards until it met credible resistance. This is what Russia always has done in order to survive. And it has worked out pretty good so far.

The strength of Russia is that it can go all in when needed. Shown in different big wars.
The weakness of Russia is that it is slow to improvise with different strategies in different regions which is why it seems to miss opportunities all the time. This is likely a frustration for most countries surrounding Russia. If someone presents a good business idea to Russia, the russian military/security says no because they are in defensive mode because of NATOs expansion and Chinas increasing dominance.

What Russia needs is to increase trade between St Petersburg and EU and at the same time deepen the trade between Vladivostok and China.
Here comes the hard part: Russia will have to do this while they at the same time continues with their military ambitions.
If Russia is smart they would not allow their military ambitions to block or slow down their economical trade ambitions.

If Russia wants to be able to keep up with the west in regards to weapons development they have no choice, they have to start research and development and production of military weapon systems in partnership with China.
That means russian military R&D and production in China.
And it means chinese R&D and possibly production in Russia.
This will of course never happen, it´s too radical.
I´m not even sure that USA has military R&D in EU, even less military production.

It´s embarrassing that the americans and europeans tries to pretend that their military weapons technology is a lot worse than it really is. The west does this to calm down Russia and China.

Russia and China should build a civilian Silicon Valley in China. I´m sure the russians dream of a silicon valley in Moscow, but it is too far away from europe. While St Petersburg is close enough to europe, but the EU will never have a deep technological partnership with Russia from obvious military reasons.
Grow the fuck up. Some european countries are known for their ability to sweet talk. The russian leadership is too easily charmed, like their women.
A russian and chinese joint investment in building a their own silicon valley in China would mean moving russian companies, R&D and production,  personel and students close to chinese companies, R&D and production, personel and students already in place.
This would also need that all branches of the russian and chines governments would have to actively and continuously support this project for atleat 50 years time.
This obviously means that no matter what the russian and chinese leadership would have to reach some informal agreement not to start a big war with each other for 100 years.

This means if there is a conflict between Russia and China because of some murder that some naughty operator has committed, the leadership will have to remain calm and just accept the fact that some operators in the intelligence and security services will have to play rough sometimes. It´s either that or an escalating conflict.

A russian chinese silcon valley in China will happen sooner or later, but I´m worried the russian and chinese leadership will dither about for decades to come.

If chinese companies based in St Petersburg were allowed to reach the european market, then

Russia has become a bit more fast and flexible, but it takes too long time.

Quad VTOL

Non crewed drone quad tiltrotor bomber/gunship/air to air. If possible, with some stealth characteristics.

Get it done, man. This is not high tech and it's getting a bit embarrassing, it is 2020 already.

Develop it, build it, make it work, then talk to a government customer.

If they don't bite build next iteration as a transport model for the civilian sector.

Tell the civilian customer that you took a risk and made a product from a good idea to save soldier lives, but that the military were too cowardly to bet on it. So now the product will help emergency services save civilian lives instead. 

And sell it to companies to make the transport industry more efficient instead.

New development model for the weapons industry.

Spacex has a good business model, they develop a finished product BEFORE they have any contract or deal signed with a (government) customer. When they have the first iteration of their product ready, they sell it/rent it out and immidietely start developing the next iteration. 

The weapon industry should use this model. If they don't have the necessary tech, they should just ask DARPA about it. Trust me, they have it. even if they don't know it. 

Just go whine to someone with influence. Explain how the new product will save soldier lives. 

And if the product seems like a good idea, DARPA will be influenced to give tech to the weapons project. Stop being so timid and GET IT DONE.

The need of civilian equivalent of DARPA

The civilian sector needs their own DARPA to help with the development of medicine, food, energy, transport and some electronics. This agency could use and develop tech from DARPA.

There could in theory be situations that DARPA has tech that it wants to give to medical companies, but the tech is so sensitive that they are not allowed to talk about it.

And the medical sector may not even know that some tech is even remotely possible so they don't ask anyone about it.

My guess is that DARPA has managed to help with development of medicine technologies among other things. 

But this process could possibly become much faster if there was a civilian version of DARPA that could receive tech directly from DARPA and in some cases present it as something they developed themselves.

It would in theory be much easier for civilian companies to talk to a civilian agency.