Swarm of drones. Photo, US Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks via Twitter.
September 1, 2023. Replicator programme should ‘help us overcome the PRC’s biggest advantage … more ships, more missiles, more people’, Deputy Secretary of Defence Kathleen Hicks says.
Analysts say the initiative, building on lessons from Ukraine war, shows a new level of US interest in tactical drone use but that it might be hard to implement
The US Department of Defense will field thousands of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) within the next two years to counter China’s growing military capabilities.
Speaking at an emerging technologies conference in Washington DC, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks admitted that Beijing holds a numerical edge in personnel and weaponry.
She said that to stay ahead of its greatest competitor, the US should develop state-of-the-art autonomous systems for use in all domains.
The US military intends to field thousands of drones within the next two years, a programme analysts called a significant move for possible conflicts in the Taiwan Strait, where the low-cost and mass-deployed unmanned systems could put pressure on Beijing.
This week, the Pentagon announced a new initiative dubbed Replicator, which aims to field “attritable autonomous systems” at scale of “multiple thousands in multiple domains” within the next 18 to 24 months.
“Replicator is meant to help us overcome the PRC [People’s Republic of China]’s biggest advantage, which is mass: more ships, more missiles, more people,” Deputy Secretary of Defence Kathleen Hicks said on Monday.
“We’ll counter the PLA’s mass with mass of our own, but ours will be harder to plan for, harder to hit and harder to beat,” Hicks told a National Defence Industrial Association conference in Washington.
The US has long invested in autonomous systems, including self-piloting ships and no-crew aircraft. Hicks noted that the Replicator initiative would take all-domain, attritable autonomy to the next level, she contended: to “produce and deliver capabilities to warfighters at the volume and velocity required to deter aggression – or win if we’re forced to fight”.