Washington: In a speech last August, Kathleen Hicks listed the two most common questions about Replicator, her two-year pledge to buy thousands of drones and help the US military compete with China.
“When we launched Replicator, a common refrain I heard was: ‘Can it work?’ These days I’m more likely to hear: ‘Will it stick?’” said Hicks, the deputy secretary of defence. That second question soon won’t be hers to answer. Since she first unveiled Replicator a year and a half ago, it’s nearly become a trademark. Hicks has sat in all of the Pentagon’s major meetings on it. She’s read every story published about the program, prepared in files from her staff. And she’s called its success a referendum on her leadership.
Senior Pentagon officials interviewed for this story said the program is on schedule largely through her effort. Now, as Hicks leaves office, the question is whether it can survive without her.
Republicans and Democrats have applauded the idea behind Replicator. To compete with China, they argue, the Pentagon needs cutting-edge weapons much faster. Hence, aides in Congress and executives at drone firms said they expect it to endure — albeit with changes.
And after 16 months, many officials working on the program outside the Pentagon say the biggest change it needs is size. Hicks made the bet to start Replicator, no small feat in a risk-averse bureaucracy, they acknowledged. But without more funding and more weapons on order, it won’t reach its true promise: a military nimble enough for the future of war.
“I would like to think that years from now, we would look back and say, ‘Yes, this began with the Biden administration,” said Chris Brose, an executive at the drone and software firm Anduril. “However, the real scale that this got to was delivered by his successors.”
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