IDEAS
Beware of Pentagon techno-enthusiasm
A massive new drone effort, while laudable in its quest for simpler weapons, does not come without strings attached.
WILLIAM D. HARTUNG | AUGUST 31, 2023 06:00 AM ET
COMMENTARY DRONES PENTAGON AI & AUTONOMY CHINA
As Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks announced to the world at this week’s meeting of the National Defense Industrial Association, the Pentagon is bullish on a new approach to the challenge posed by China, as embodied in the “Replicator” initiative, which involves “helping us to overcome the PRC’s biggest advantage, which is mass…More ships. More missiles. More people.”
Hicks went on to outline the key thrust of the new approach: “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—which are less expensive, put fewer people in the line of fire and can be changed, updated or improved with substantially shorter lead times.” On the face of it, this seems like a better bet than building ever-more-complex systems that take decades to develop and deploy, are extremely difficult to maintain, and are in some cases far more expensive than the systems adversaries can use to counter them.
But in the quest to change how the Pentagon does business it will be important to be humble about the likely effectiveness of swarms of drones; unpiloted vehicles in the air, on land, and at sea; and AI-driven decision-making systems that can dramatically shorten the “kill chain” from a decision to attack to the arrival of a weapon on its intended target. And it is also necessary to acknowledge that implementing this effort to change how America arms itself for potential conflicts will involve a sharp political clash with Congress over the fates of aircraft carriers, piloted aircraft, and traditional armored vehicles—weapons that provide jobs and incomes in the districts and states of members with the most sway over the size and shape of the Pentagon budget.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2023/08/beware-pentagon-techno-enthusiasm/389885/
