Pentagon's mass drone push seen bolstering Pacific deterrence (original) (raw)

A version of this story appeared in the daily Threat Status newsletter from The Washington Times.Click here to receive Threat Status delivered directly to your inbox each weekday.

The Pentagon program to rapidly deploy tens of thousands of low-cost drone weapons is paying off in bolstering deterrence against China in the Indo-Pacific region, military sources say.

The Replicator program remains secret but is credited with strengthening U.S. military power along with current aircraft, missiles, naval forces, land forces, cyber power, information warfare tools and space systems.

Replicator is providing some key advantages that will deny the Chinese military the use of airspace and maritime areas that remain tense flash points, the military officials said.

When fully deployed later this year or next year, the drones will deter China from carrying out military attacks against Taiwan or other U.S. allies.

The mass drone system means U.S. and allied forces will not need to achieve air or naval superiority in East Asia. Instead, military forces can deter attacks by denying China’s military the ability to conduct successful strikes in air, sea and ground areas.

The weapons technology is being rolled out in one or two years, and some new drone weapons for the Pacific are expected to be ready for use by the end of this year. Without the program, a similar strengthening of military forces would have taken a decade to achieve, the sources said.

In a Sept. 27 memorandum made public Monday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the Replicator program is progressing and Replicator 2 is now planned.

“In Replicator 1, we focused our aim on attritable autonomy, and we are on track with the initiative’s fielding plan for next summer,” Mr. Austin wrote in the memo. “This work has, in turn, helped ignite our efforts to scale autonomous systems across the force more generally.”

Replicator 2 will focus on building defenses against aerial drones that threaten critical American and allied military installations and force concentrations, Mr. Austin told senior Pentagon leaders and combatant commanders.

Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, the lead official for the program, announced in May that the first tranche of Replicator weapons had been deployed to the Pacific.

She said they are “producing real results.”

The goal is to have thousands of land, sea and air drones in place by the end of next year.

“This is a critical step in delivering the capabilities we need, at the scale and speed we need, to continue securing a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said in the May Pentagon statement.

The sole weapon identified under the program so far is the Switchblade 600 loitering munition. Built by AeroVironment, the Switchblade 600 is a backpack-sized precision-guided weapon that can destroy tanks and hardened targets while loitering for up to 40 minutes before attacking.

Other weapons in the program remain secret. The Pentagon said in May that they include maritime weapons and counter-aerial-drone systems.

Congress funded Replicator with $500 million in fiscal 2024, which ended Monday. An equal amount has been requested for the current fiscal year budget.

Few details of Replicator arms have been made public. The Pentagon statement describes them as “all-domain attritable autonomous systems,” dubbed ADA2 weapons.

The initial weapons include uncrewed surface vehicles, uncrewed aerial systems and counter uncrewed aerial systems “of various sizes and payloads from several traditional and non-traditional vendors,” the statement said.

The Replicator 2 counter-drone program appears motivated by the growing effectiveness of Russian drones in Ukraine, including variants of the Iranian Shahed-136 large one-way attack drone. The Shahed-136 flies 114 miles per hour and carries a 110-pound explosive warhead.

Replicator is part of a Pentagon effort to simplify and reduce weapons costs and speed up arms procurement.