War & Peace & Progress

Technology for peaceful purposes has always progressed quickly during wars. For instance, metallurgy (Bronze & Iron Ages) brought advances out of the Stone Age as a result of arms races; food preservation advances include toast (Greeks), various cheeses (Romans), and canning (France during Napoleonic wars); and modern technology like chemistry (dynamite by the Nobel who established the peace prize), powered transportation (WWI & WWII & Cold War), and electronics / computers / communications (WWII & Cold War). Application of technological advances have reduced the American causalities since the Civil War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_casualties_of_war#Wars_ranked_by_total_deaths.
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However, every casualty is a tragedy that ripples through our Society, incurs ongoing costs, and causes political upheaval. Because of the political repercussions, our Military is spending significant resources developing robotic systems to further reduce casualty rates, and this is the next wave of technology that will shape our future. Robotic technology is at the equivalent level now that powered transportation was at the end of WWI.
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Texas recently committed a very small amount ($250k) to robotic research http://www.texasinsider.org/?p=9634. However, we need to move forward to catch this wave before it passes us by http://world.honda.com/ASIMO/. Things we could do to help our Region, State, and Nation move forward on this important emerging technology include: increase robotics education http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/39305, encourage our universities to move into robotic related fields like is being done by the University of Texas at Dallas http://www.wpafb.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123145891, entice robotic firms to relocate to Texas, provide incentives for Texas venture capital, and recruit robotists from all over the world.

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