Replicator marks the Defense Department’s quickly maturing, strategic effort to accelerate the adoption of “attritable autonomous systems” in multiple combat domains by August 2025, through processes that can be “replicated,” to ultimately deter China. ​​Since Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks first unveiled it late last summer, she and those involved have largely been secretive about how Replicator is fully coming together, citing security concerns. But the department intends to spend approximately $1 billion total in the fiscal 2024-2025 time frame to carry out this speedy acquisition pursuit. Hicks also announced in May that DOD has started delivering certain Replicator systems to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, though details on that continue to remain sparse.

Selections for capabilities that will be mass-produced via Replicator are being made in different tranches — the first two have been dubbed 1.1 and 1.2. Building on previous reporting uncovering systems that have been quietly tapped for Replicator so far this year, DefenseScoop recently published the first report confirming that tranche 1.2 includes drones the Air Force is developing via its Enterprise Test Vehicle (ETV) program.

During a media roundtable at AFA’s Air, Space and Cyber conference on Monday, DefenseScoop asked PACAF Commander Gen. Kevin Schneider and Chief Master Sgt. Kathleen McCool whether officials from the command and elsewhere have established concepts of operation or any official plans for maintaining Replicator systems over time after they’ve been delivered in large quantities.

“The short answer in terms of storage and concepts of employment — no, not at this stage,” Schneider told DefenseScoop.

He emphasized, however, that Replicator is a necessary element of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s future force posture — particularly in the aftermath of what he called intense fiscal pressures plaguing the Air Force and the DOD in recent years. 

“The number of aircraft that we would have — while incredibly capable — may be a little bit less than we had initially desired as those aircraft were coming onto line. So we have a high-end, highly capable force in many aspects. But I see a complement to that being the ability to have affordable mass — or things that we can deploy in great numbers, that have a significant deterrent value, that can be either in place or be accessible in short order, and can cover a range of challenges and threats,” Schneider said. “So, I see a lot of goodness in that, and certainly it being a complement to what we do every day.”

Schneider reflected on how China continues to move fast to grow and build out its own air force and other military components, and noted how concerns are intensifying about what the Chinese government is “doing through their illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive behaviors, [particularly] at the pointy end of the [People’s Liberation Army].”

Despite China’s momentum, though, both Schneider and McCool expressed confidence in the creativity and ingenuity of U.S. service members, and how that might pay off in future conflicts. 

“Our airmen are what are going to make the difference. It’s not the equipment they have, but how they are able to execute,” McCool said.  

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PACAF chief Gen. Ken Wilsbach discussed this plan as a key element of the command’s new official strategy to guide operations through 2030. Notably, he emphasized how his team is prioritizing security in their pursuit of these new information-sharing arrangements and efforts.  

“The discussions are pretty easy. The papers are pretty easy. It’s the protection of the information that we want to be safeguarded — that, we have to ensure. And so that’s why things go fairly slowly, but we are kind of trying to come up with additional computer networks where we can work on [those] computer networks together,” Wilsbach told DefenseScoop during a media roundtable at AFA’s annual Air, Space and Cyber conference this week. 

PACAF is charged with helping supply continuous air, space and cyberspace capabilities in the Indo-Pacific, where the U.S. military and its allies view China as the top threat.

“We know that [China’s military is] working on attacking our logistics. We know that they’re working on attacking our communications — because if you can take out those two things, you make agile combat deployments difficult,” Wilsbach explained. 

“The Chinese would love to have a fight that would be the China versus U.S. fight because that makes their math pretty easy. [But] when you make it China versus the U.S. — plus the other countries that will likely be with us — their math gets pretty hard to do,” he said.

In the new PACAF Strategy 2030, which Wilsbach unveiled during the roundtable, officials state that the world is moving into a “pivotal era” and any actions made in the critical region will influence the social, economic and security conditions there “for the foreseeable future.”

Competitors including “the Chinese Communist Party, the Russian Federation and the Democratic People’s of Republic of Korea,” namely, are seeking to undermine international rules and order, while violent extremist organizations are posing new risks to peace in that area, according to the document.

That’s all part of the reason why, as the strategy notes, PACAF is moving to sign new intelligence-sharing agreements with international partners and allies to strengthen defense capabilities and detection tools against air and maritime threats.  

When asked by DefenseScoop what nations the command was eyeing to deepen all-domain awareness integration, he responded: “A lot of it is classified, and so I probably don’t want to reveal too much.”

Still, he shed some light on what his command is really envisioning. 

Currently, PACAF “probably has the best and most robust sharing” capacity with Australia, and then the United Kingdom, Wilsbach said. But more recently, certain European nations — like France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy — are showing increased interest in furthering information-sharing with the U.S. 

“The reason why those European countries have been interested in the Indo-Pacific is because they see some of the poor behavior that China has exhibited in our region. And those European countries have Indo-Pacific interests and they want to demonstrate that they’re willing to defend those interests, if they have to. So, I’m really thankful for our European partners that have shown interest in the Pacific,” Wilsbach noted.

His team is striving to “increase the amount of sharing” that exists within existing alliances there, which include Australia, Japan, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines. 

“With the Philippines in the recent dust-up around some of their islands with the Chinese Coast Guard — we want to be able to share more,” Wilsbach said, alluding to recent attempts by China to harass members of the Philippines’ military as they were embarking on resupply missions to their outpost at Second Thomas Shoal.

The PACAF chief also pointed to heightened tensions and military clashes in the last few years on the border between India and China. 

“We’ve shared quite a bit of intel with [India] that they’ve been appreciative of. But we want to expand it beyond just that intelligence about China vis-a-vis India, but much more broadly than just the border region,” Wilsbach said. 

In response to DefenseScoop’s questions, he also repeatedly emphasized how his team is working fervently on the front end of establishing this deeper collaboration with other nations to ensure any information and intelligence exchanged is done so with extensive security. 

“One of the conundrums on sharing is we have to make sure that that information that we share doesn’t get propagated out,” Wilsbach said. 

In that light, his command is looking to set up “additional computer networks” to connect safely with partners and allies in the region. 

“We had a chance to work with Australia and Japan this year, of course. We already have a network that’s very robust with the Republic of Korea. And we’re trying to bring more and more of those together so they can be multi-country versus bilateral countries. And so all of these things are things that we desire and are working toward. It’s slow going, but we’re making improvements,” Wilsbach told DefenseScoop.

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The Air Force is planning to field drones known as collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) that will act as force multipliers by flying alongside manned fighter jets — like the F-35 and the forthcoming Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) system, and potentially other platforms.

While the Air Force’s CCA program is still in its early stages, PACAF Commander Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said the service is looking at how the Royal Australian Air Force deploys its own robotic wingman — the MQ-28 Ghost Bat — to help learn how to operate manned and unmanned aircraft in tandem.

“We really look forward to what they’re doing with the MQ-28 Ghost Bat,” Wilsbach said during an event hosted by the Mitchell Institute. “They’re doing some great work figuring out exactly how to use this aircraft, and we look forward to seeing what they learn and then, perhaps, applying that to our CCA program ourselves.”

The Boeing-made Ghost Bat made its first flight with the Australians in 2021 and is slated to enter service by 2025. The drone is meant to fly with the Royal Australian Air Force’s fleet of aircraft to conduct a range of missions, including intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and tactical early warning.

The U.S. Air Force wants 1,000 CCA platforms in its own fleet that not only augment manned platforms with multi-role capabilities, but also create dilemmas for adversaries, Wilsbach said.

“Imagine if they had to deal with 1,000 additional combat aircraft that can do multiple things. They can be sensors, they can be weapons platforms, they can be decoys, they can be jammers, they can be a lot of different things,” he said. “And so the ability to create dilemmas and mass up those dilemmas on your adversary causes them to make mistakes, it causes them to use weapons, and it eventually will cause them to lose their assets versus us.”

Wilsbach also emphasized that CCA can fly dangerous missions in place of manned aircraft, reducing the risk of pilots being harmed.

The U.S. Air Force is requesting more than $500 million in research, development, test and evaluation funding for CCA and related efforts in fiscal 2024, and plans to spend more than $6 billion on these activities over the next five years. The money would go towards platform development, autonomy development and creating a specialized unit to explore operational concepts.

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The Air Force plans to field robotic wingmen, or “collaborative combat aircraft,” to serve as force multipliers and keep pilots out of harm’s way.

At the annual Air, Space and Cyber conference, DefenseScoop asked Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach if PACAF had started thinking through operating concepts for those types of systems in the Indo-Pacific where Pentagon leaders view China as the top threat.

“Yes. And I would say it’s in the very beginning stages because, you know, in all candor we’re just starting to see the initial actual technology start to reach the field,” he replied during a media roundtable.

A number of questions need to be answered as the U.S. military and its allies consider how the systems could be employed, he noted.

“The first one is what do we want it to do? … Do we want it to be a sensor? Do we want it to be a shooter? Do we want it to be a relay platform? Do we want it to be a decoy? … I guess I want it to do all of that,” Wilsbach said.

Another issue to be sorted out is how much autonomy the platforms should have.

“Will it be completely autonomous? In other words, will there be artificial intelligence such that you program the CCA to go do a mission and it knows how to do that, much like if there was a human in the cockpit — we’ve trained them to be able to do the mission, and even if there’s … no connection into the network, the human can accomplish the mission because they have a brain? So, will that be how we employ these? Or will they be remotely piloted? And if remotely piloted, will they be flown from another aircraft?” he said.

For example, if the drones are to be remotely operated rather than being fully autonomous, the Air Force needs to figure out whether the drones would be flown from an aircraft like the E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning and control system, another fighter jet, or some other platform.

“There’s quite a bit of work that we need to do. But I am a big fan of this CCA technology because I believe it will allow us to bring mass against our adversaries. That will be pretty difficult to contend with,” Wilsbach said.

In that scenario, enemies could be overwhelmed by potential targets and have trouble determining which U.S. aircraft they should try to shoot down first.

“It’s a pretty hard environment to operate in. And so if we can present that to our adversaries, it’ll give us an advantage,” Wilsbach said.

He noted that U.S. allies in the region are also working on robotic wingmen technology and thinking through operating concepts, mentioning Australia and its Ghost Bat platform as an example.

DefenseScoop asked Wilsbach if he envisions future scenarios in which the U.S. Air Force’s robotic wingmen could accompany allies’ manned aircraft into combat, or vice versa. U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown highlighted the possibility of such Friday during an international air chiefs conference in Washington on Friday.

“I don’t want to get in front of anybody, but … of course. I mean, we do that with our manned platforms. Why wouldn’t we do it with our, you know, with our uncrewed aircraft?” he said.

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