Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

US Military May Soon Deploy Millions Of Drones—Which Presents A Big Investment Opportunity

Politics / US Military Aug 04, 2017 - 12:26 PM GMT

By: John_Mauldin

Politics

BY PATRICK WATSON : If you were to ask me what the most inefficient US market sector is, I would probably say defense.

Now, that’s something no one likes to hear.

How come the one sector the US government spends the most money on—the FY 2018 defense budget is $824.7 billion, more than that of the next nine countries combined—is the most inefficient?


Here’s what most people don’t understand: It’s inefficient by design.

Nobody wants war, yet governments are obliged to spend vast sums getting ready to fight it. They’re usually not very thrifty either.

For investors, that’s a perfect combination because inefficiency, in this case, spells opportunity. And right now is an especially good time to get your feet wet in defense spending.

Technology is changing the very nature of warfare. A lot of expensive equipment will get replaced in the next few years… and what replaces it may surprise you.

Leaderless Swarms of Drones

Warfare is still about arming soldiers and sending them to face the enemy. That may not be the case much longer.

Drone aircraft were the first breakthrough. They enable pilots to control their planes remotely, from a safe place, firing missiles when they see an enemy. A big step, but the big drones still resemble conventional aircraft.

The new drones are getting much smaller—and that will change everything.

A few months ago, I heard the head of the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office Dr. Will Roper speaking about “drone swarms.”

He argued that large numbers of small, inexpensive, autonomous drones working together can accomplish many of the same missions as expensive aircraft and human pilots.

The key to Dr. Roper’s vision: Drone swarms have no leader an enemy can target.

They operate much like a swarm of ants or bees. No single bee knows how to build a hive, protect the queen, and produce honey. But collectively, they still make it happen, which is quite impressive.

A few months ago on 60 Minutes, Roper demonstrated some of his drones—and I bet the DoD has even better ones still under wraps. Some are small enough to hold in one hand.

That doesn’t mean the US government will stop buying fighter jets and armored vehicles. Wise generals don’t give up a capability that an enemy might have. However, the defense industry will expand and change.

Today, leading companies profit by making sophisticated, expensive weapons platforms in relatively small numbers. Drones will be a different business. They’re small, simple, inexpensive, and the Pentagon will need a lot of them—maybe millions.

Customizing drones for particular missions will require an ability to produce them quickly, as needed. Who knows, companies might even develop mobile drone factories that can deploy to a war zone and produce new swarms every day.

The Defense Renaissance

Of course, no one likes being swarmed, and there are already commercial anti-drone technologies. For example, paparazzi photographers using drones to spy on celebrities now meet everything from net-carrying counter-drones to trained falcons.

I expect we’ll see years of rapid development for both military and civilian uses. A military reconnaissance drone swarm could also quickly search large areas for lost children or shipwreck survivors.

To me, that’s the really exciting part. Some of today’s ubiquitous technology originated in military applications. I wish we could develop them for peaceful reasons, but at least we have them.

Defense stocks never go out of style, and they’re about to enter a period of rapid innovation. I think there will be more great opportunities in this sector. I’m keeping my eyes open and I suggest you do too.

Subscribe to Connecting the Dots—and Get a Glimpse of the Future

We live in an era of rapid change… and only those who see and understand the shifting market, economic, and political trends can make wise investment decisions. Macroeconomic forecaster Patrick Watson spots the trends and spells what they mean every week in the free e-letter, Connecting the Dots. Subscribe now for his seasoned insight into the surprising forces driving global markets.

John Mauldin Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in