In a speech last Monday, Kathleen Hicks, the US Deputy Secretary of Defense, announced that the US military has plans to start the incorporation of thousands of war-fighting robots in the coming two years. These plans spur as part of efforts to counter the growing power of China.
US Robot Army
These efforts comes as part of the Replicator initiative, which aims to collaborate with tech and defense firms for the high-volume production of affordable systems for all military branches. It has become common in the past decades of military systems to have varying levels of independent operation.
However, the recent announcement shows how even conflicts in the future could change as war-fighting robots could arise. The development of military robot systems has been significant in the past decade. The shift has now been focusing towards using such systems for actual war combat. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has shown that such kind of technology could be ready to be deployed in real-world settings.
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Attritable Autonomous Systems in Multiple Domains
Hicks explained in her speech the perceived urgant need to alter how wars are being fought. She further declared that this Replicator initiative would offer attritable autonomous systems that go as far as multiple thousands in scale and in multiple domains. As such, these are plans for the coming 18 to 24 months.
The word "autonomous" indicates that the robot would be capable of performing complex missions for the military without the need to be intervened by humans.
On the other hand, the word "attritable" indicates that the system would be cheap enough to be placed at a position of risk and to be lost in a high-priority missions. Though this does not indicate disposability, it simply means that the systems should be affordable enough to be purchased in scale and to have losses replaced.
The term "multiple domains" indicates plans to have them deployed in land, sea, air, and space. As such, this means that the robots could be deployed anywhere and everywhere for various tasks.
Threatened by Quantity
The US military deems Russia as an "acute threat." However, China, on the other hand, is becoming a "pacing challenge" for benchmarking military capacities. The People's Liberation Army of China has a huge vantage point when it comes to mass. As such, the army has more workforce, ships, tanks, missiles, and more. While the US is at the forefront in terms of quality, China wins when it comes to quantity.
Hence, the Replicator program that covers the production of thousands of these autonomous attritable systems will give the US the numbers it needs to win major wars in the future. The initiative also looks even further ahead as it aims to move forward with the institutionalization of robot mass production in the long run.
Revolutionary Change
A huge concern regarding such autonomous systems lies in whether they align with the laws regarding armed conflict. Both optimists and pessimists have their own arguments regarding it.
On top of this, the US could be the world's first to field massive quantities of autonomous systems. However, other countries may follow suit, with China being a clear candidate.
There are others who have already performed similar efforts. Israel and Libya have reportedly launched autonomous weapons. Turkey has also made drones that have been seen to play crucial wars in the Ukraine war.
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