The US military improves every time it does this. Its skill today boggles the mind. Satellites detect objects on the ground and relay their coordinates to commanders in hardened bunkers thousands of miles away, who radio the data to Green Berets and Delta Force soldiers carrying laser pointers in the field. The pointers point. The bombers bomb. The enemy evaporates. The world's fourth-largest army: smashed. Battle-hardened Balkan fighters: smashed. The most feared and respected mountain bandits on earth: smashed. It's a new strategic reality. The Pentagon's role in world affairs has gone through an epochal transformation: from the Fulda Gap to the Highway of Death, from Agent Orange to GPS, from arsenal of democracy to global cop. When you're a cop, sometimes you kick doors in. Most of the time you stay on patrol. Outer space is where a global cop patrols. America's eyes, ears, and nerves are up there, all day, everyday, circling the blue yonder. Space vehicles are the ultimate asymmetrical asset. They can't be reached with a hijacked jet. They laugh at anthrax. The point of having cops is to manage robbers. The trick is to keep the robbers earthbound.

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Sterling, Bruce. "Peace is War." Wired Magazine. Vol. 10, No. 4 (April 2002). [ 2 quotes ]