Innovation is key to U.S. defense capabilities in the face of the challenges posed by the People’s Republic of China, which Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has called the United States’ “pacing threat.”
In remarks at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Emerging Technologies for Defense conference in Washington, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks noted that for the past twenty years the PRC has worked to build a modern military carefully crafted to blunt the operational advantages the United States has had for decades.
“But the one advantage they can never blunt, steal, or copy, no matter how hard they try,” she said, “is American ingenuity: our ability to innovate, change the game, and in the military sphere, to imagine, create, and master the future character of warfare.”
Deputy Defense Secretary Hicks announced a new project called the Replicator initiative, targeted to help the United States overcome the PRC’s greatest advantage, “which,” she said, “is mass. More ships. More missiles. More people.”
The Department of Defense has already been investing in what it calls “attritable autonomous systems” like self-piloting ships and uncrewed aircraft. Now is the time, Deputy Secretary Hicks said, “to take all-domain attritable autonomy to the next level: to produce and deliver capabilities to warfighters at the volume and velocity required to deter aggression or win if we’re forced to fight.”
The Pentagon has defined attritable capabilities as those platforms that are unmanned, affordable, reusable, and which allow commanders to tolerate a higher degree of risk in employing them.
Deputy Secretary Hicks said the goal for the Replicator initiative is “to field attritable autonomous systems at scale of multiple thousands, in multiple domains, within the next 18-24 months.” She emphasized the goal can be achieved through teamwork: by working closely with the private sector, including commercial non-traditional, and traditional defense companies; collaborating with allies and partners; and partnering with Congress.
“We are in a persistent, generational competition for advantage,” declared Deputy Secretary Hicks. “We must ensure the PRC leadership wakes up every day, considers the risks of aggression, and concludes, “‘Today is not the day.’”
“Our goal is always to deter, because competition does not mean conflict,” Deputy Secretary Hicks said. “Still, we must have combat credibility to win if we must fight.”
