Robots, swarming drones and 'Iron Man': Welcome to the new arms race

In his quest to transform the way the Pentagon wages war, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter has turned to Silicon Valley, hoping its experimental culture, innovation and sense of urgency would rub off on the rigid bureaucracy he runs. Carter has made several trips to the Valley and appointed Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google's parent company to an advisory board. And recently he sat down at the Pentagon with Elon Musk to see what suggestions the billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX might have to make the nation's military more efficient and daring. "Having an incentive structure that rewards innovation is extremely important," he said in an interview after the meeting. Whatever you reward will happen." The Pentagon finds itself in a new arms race, struggling to keep pace with forms of combat that are fought with bytes as well as bullets. The technological advancements disrupting established business sectors are now shaking up the world of war -- where robots, swarming drones ...