UAVs continually kill civilians, but the U.S. military wants to expand its arsenal with an army of new, mass-produced kamikaze AI drones.
By Nick Turse, The Intercept
Worried about a potential war with China, the Pentagon is turning to a new class of weapons to fight the numerically superior People’s Liberation Army: drones, lots and lots of drones.
In August 2023, the Defense Department unveiled Replicator, its initiative to field thousands of “all-domain, attritable autonomous (ADA2) systems”: Pentagon-speak for low-cost (and potentially AI-driven) machines — in the form of self-piloting ships, large robot aircraft, and swarms of smaller kamikaze drones — that they can use and lose en masse to overwhelm Chinese forces.
Earlier this month, two Pentagon offices leading this charge announced that four nontraditional weapons makers had been chosen for another drone program, with test flights planned for later this year. The companies building this “Enterprise Test Vehicle,” or ETV, will have to prove that their drone can fly over 500 miles and deliver a “kinetic payload,” with a focus on weapons that are low-cost, quick to build, and modular, according to a 2023 solicitation for proposals and a recent announcement from the Air Force Armament Directorate and the Defense Innovation Unit, the Pentagon’s off-the-shelf acceleration arm. Many analysts believe that the ETV initiative may be connected to the Replicator program. DIU did not return a request for clarification prior to publication.
Recent Posts
These Billionaires Have Already Spent $19 Million In A Bid To Defeat Mamdani
Take Action Now Michael Bloomberg and anti-DEI pundit Bill Ackman are just two of the many billionaires showering cash on Cuomo.By Mike Ludwig,…
Does The House Have The Grit To ‘Block The Bombs’ To Israel?
Take Action Now Lawmakers returning from recess have a chance to do what their constituents are telling them to — stop US complicity in Gaza……
The Moral And Strategic Idiocy Of The DNC
Take Action Now At its meeting this week, the DNC opposed a ban on U.S. provision of offensive weapons to Israel.By Harold Meyerson, The American…
From Guernica to Gaza, Mass Killers Have Been Above It All
Take Action Now The Detached Cruelty of Air PowerBy Norman Solomon, Tom Dispatch Killing from the sky has long offered the sort of detachment that…