The Pentagon will spend at least a billion dollars on the “Replicator” mass-production drone program
US Defense Department leaders have outlined plans to spend $1 billion over two years on drones for its new Replicator initiative, but are remaining silent on several factors, including funding choices and flows.
Replicator is the program for the creation of a line of autonomous systems that can be used in a war of attrition, i.e. that can be built en masse and at a low cost. The war in Ukraine, in which cheap, often commercial, drones have proven indispensable on the battlefield for reconnaissance, targeting and attacks, has taught us how necessary these types of products are. The war experience has meant that Russia, among others, is also following this path, but in this field the most formidable opponent is, obviously, China.
The program was made public in summer 2023. Now we are trying to identify the products that will be its object. It is about identifying products that are already present, such as the Switchblade already in use, or identifying tools suitable for this program and not yet in production.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks announced today that the Department is asking lawmakers to allocate $500 million for Replicator in this fiscal year, FY24, and is seeking an additional $500 million in the FY25 budget submission that just sent to Capitol Hill.
Switchblade is among the drones selected by the Replicator program
“This is [a] trailblazer. It's largely about reducing barriers within our system and a process … but obviously there are dollars associated with it,” he told reporters at the Pentagon.
After the announcement of the initiative, there were also questions about who should foot the bill for all these drones, given that the program was announced after the fiscal year 24 budget was made public.
The Pentagon is currently still operating under a continuation resolution as lawmakers haggle over the fiscal year 24 budget, but Under Secretary of Defense Comptroller Mike McCord said the preferred option is for Congress to add $500 million to the fiscal year 24 spending bill to cover expected Replicator costs for this year.
“Deputy [Hicks] has personally engaged with the committees on this… [requesting that] they work with us to get some funding into the appropriations conference that we hope to see in two weeks,” he told reporters today.
If these funds are not included in a law signed by President Joe Biden, the Pentagon could seek to “reprogram” funds from elsewhere to finance the project. This will lead to the cutting of other programs in favor of this one, but on the other hand this means that the “Replicator” program is considered so strategic that important programs, such as FARA, can be canceled in order to make room for this project.
For next year, FY25, the Department has requested $500 million more for Replicator, but has not publicly disclosed whether these funds are pooled in one undisclosed pot or whether they are spread across service programs that may or may not be rendered public. This is also to keep the impacts of individual US defense programs hidden.
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The article The Pentagon will spend at least a billion dollars on the “Replicator” mass drone production program comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-pentagono-spendera-almeno-un-miliardo-di-dollari-nel-programma-di-produzione-di-droni-di-massa-replicator/ on Tue, 12 Mar 2024 13:37:47 +0000.