The U.S. Department of Defense is making a big bet to counter China: that the employment of thousands of expendable unmanned systems will offset China’s numerical advantages in people, missiles, and ships.
Inspired by the extensive use of such systems in Ukraine, the Pentagon aims to field small and cheap unmanned capabilities within the next 18-24 months as part of the Replicator Initiative. While there are reasons to doubt such a byzantine organization with a long-track record of poor program management could scale up these capabilities in under two years, Replicator might fall short for another reason: The Pentagon is overestimating how decisive drones and other unmanned systems will be in future conflicts.
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