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US officials detail plans for a “Replicator initiative” to overwhelm the People’s Republic of China’s mass of forces with innovation and attritable autonomous systems.
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Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks made the comments during a National Defense Industrial Association’s Emerging Technologies for Defense conference in Washington on 28 August.
The United States needs to drive innovation with four core focuses “warfighter, deliver, speed and scale”, she said.
“The main strategic competitor we face today is different from the rival we faced during the Cold War; a rival who was relatively slow and lumbering compared to the PRC of the present,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Hicks said.
“We still believe in our capacity to innovate, and indeed, out-innovate our competitors, because we’ve seen us do it time and again.
“We’re making another big bet; the latest piece of our comprehensive, warfighting-centric approach to innovation. It’s called the Replicator initiative.
“Replicator is meant to help us overcome the PRC’s biggest advantage, which is mass. More ships, more missiles, more people. Before Russia invaded Ukraine again in February, they seemed to have that advantage too.
“But historically, even when we mobilised our economy and manufacturing base, rarely have America’s war-winning strategies relied solely on matching an adversary ship-for-ship and shot-for-shot. After all, we don’t use our people as cannon fodder like some competitors do. Instead, we outmatch adversaries by out-thinking, out-strategising, and out-manoeuvring them. We augment manufacturing and mobilisation with our real comparative advantage, which is the innovation and spirit of our people.
“We already know how to build and use today’s technology. This is about mastering the technology of tomorrow. To stay ahead, we’re going to create a new state of the art, just as America has before, leveraging attritable, autonomous systems in all domains.
“(Those systems) are less expensive, put fewer people in the line of fire, and can be changed, updated or improved with substantially shorter lead times.
“We’ll counter the PLA’s mass with mass of our own, but ours will be harder to plan for, harder to hit, harder to beat.”
Deputy Secretary of Defense Hicks, who is personally overseeing the Replicator initiative with the US Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said lessons from Ukraine have shown how emerging technology developed by commercial and non-traditional companies can be decisive on the modern military.
“Now is the time 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,” she said.
“We’ve set a big goal for Replicator; to field attritable autonomous systems at scale of multiple thousands, in multiple domains, within the next 18 to 24 months.
“These systems will empower our warfighters, not overpower or undercut their abilities. In this respect, all-domain, attritable autonomous systems will help overcome the challenge of anti-access, area-denial systems.
“To be clear, America still benefits from platforms that are large, exquisite, expensive, and few. But Replicator will galvanise progress in the too-slow shift of US military innovation to leverage platforms that are small, smart, cheap and many.”
To promote the initiative, the US Department of Defense will work closely with the private sector, collaborate or integrate with allies and forge an enduring partnership with Congress as speed and scale key enabler, she said.
During the speech, Deputy Secretary of Defense Hicks also noted current efforts involving the manoeuvring and live fire testing of the US Army’s latest long-range hypersonic weapon in Washington State on 28 August.
