Over the next quarter of a century, the US Pentagon sees robots becoming more and more a part of military life with robot warplanes, submersibles, and infantry vehicles taking their place on the battlefields of the future. It may conjure up a very flashy vision of Transformer-like killing machines, but the US Army sees the first robots as autonomous vehicles used in the more prosaic task of delivering groceries and other supplies.

For all the cost of ships, planes, armor, and weapon systems, manpower is the single greatest expense in modern, industrialized armed forces. Aside from costs like pay, training, and pensions, soldiers also need equipment, clothing, food, shelter, medical care, recreation, and the logistical infrastructure to supply them. In addition, it costs more to carry out many tasks in a military setting because there are different rules.