Build a High-Low Mix to Enhance America’s Warfighting Edge and Deter China

• The Trump administration can take immediate actions to improve U.S. military capability, capacity, and warfighting to deter China and reverse negative trends in military power in the Indo-Pacific.
• The Pentagon should expedite procuring, testing, and deploying low-cost autonomous systems to rapidly integrate these capabilities into the Joint Force at greater scale.
• The Department of Defense (DoD) needs to develop a warfighting concept for the Indo-Pacific that combines the strengths of low-cost autonomous systems and high-end weapons.
• The Trump administration should prioritize building the right quantity and mixture of high- and low-end weapons and platforms.

The military balance in the Indo-Pacific is shifting. China’s military modernization has greatly expanded its inventory of ships, planes, missiles, and drones—and with it, Beijing’s ability to alter the status quo. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has significantly increased the scope and scale of its coercive military tactics in the region, asserting its territorial claims in the South and East China Seas and conducting increasingly threatening maneuvers around Taiwan. The PLA’s belligerent actions reflect a change in China’s risk calculus driven by the relative decline of American military power.¹ The U.S. military does not have a force equipped with the appropriate mix of capabilities and a concept for how to employ them to defeat the PLA. If the United States does not act quickly to rectify these deficits, China may decide that it can win an outright war of aggression and thus be more likely to start one.

The Trump administration can take steps in its initial days in office to reverse these trends and strengthen deterrence against Beijing. Recommended actions fall under three categories: rapid fielding of low-cost autonomous weapons; developing warfighting concepts that effectively incorporate a mix of high- and low-end capabilities; and improving acquisition processes and the defense industrial base to speed the production and delivery of the right systems. Together, these steps will strengthen deterrence and retain America’s warfighting edge in the Indo-Pacific.

Rapidly integrate low-cost autonomous weapons into the Joint Force. The U.S. military needs more mass or capacity to prevail in a war against China. The first days and weeks of a large-scale war with China would place immense demands on weapons stockpiles, and there would be considerable attrition of large platforms—even more so if the fight becomes protracted.² Although exquisite capabilities—such as stealthy aircraft, attack submarines, and long-range missiles—remain essential to defeating Chinese aggression, the United States cannot afford, nor can it build quickly, enough high-end weapons. Thus, lower-cost autonomous systems are needed to make up the difference.

But the Department of Defense has moved too slowly in the development and integration of autonomous systems across all domains and warfighting missions. Risk-aversion has limited U.S. willingness to field and integrate autonomous weapons into the Joint Force, constraining the development of new warfighting concepts. While considering and mitigating risk a priori is important, history has demonstrated that thoughtful, rapid experimentation and fielding can expose potential vulnerabilities and ultimately produce safe and effective systems.

The DoD should expedite the testing, evaluation, and fielding of lower-cost autonomous systems to get these capabilities to U.S. military operators faster and incorporate those systems into the Joint Force at greater scale. The updated DoD Directive 3000.09 provides the framework and authorities necessary to responsibly push autonomous systems through testing and evaluation.³ What has been missing is committed senior Pentagon leaders who are willing to accept the risk and force the bureaucracy to move fast. The Replicator initiative has attempted to create a process to rapidly procure attritable drones, but it is not clear if it has produced capabilities relevant to the Indo-Pacific. The Trump team has the opportunity to correct this and tangibly increase American combat power if a senior leader makes autonomous weapons a priority, empowers a skilled program team, and demands that they quickly experiment with these capabilities.⁴ If a senior defense official insists on it, the Pentagon can move fast and focus on procuring affordable autonomous systems that can rapidly expand American military capacity and complement its high-end capabilities.

Develop a warfighting concept for the Indo-Pacific. Specifying how exquisite and lower-cost autonomous systems should be employed with one another is essential to America’s ability to succeed in such a conflict. Currently, there is no clear plan for how to integrate low-cost autonomous systems with high-end weapons that will result in better battlefield outcomes. These systems are not substitutes for each other. While autonomous drones and missiles present tremendous opportunities to increase the scale and scope of the U.S. military’s firepower, they lack the capacity, range, and survivability needed to perform many high-risk, high-value missions.

The Joint Force needs to develop concepts for when and how to employ different mixes of capabilities across time to achieve critical warfighting missions.⁵ For instance, stealth aircraft could be employed first to suppress or destroy Chinese air defenses, thus creating a corridor for cheaper autonomous systems to effectively reach their targets. Alternatively, complex salvos that contain cheap autonomous systems along with high-end missiles might be the most effective way of penetrating defenses and damaging some targets. For more than a decade, the Pentagon has talked about human/machine combat teaming, but it needs to plan in a more detailed way for how to incorporate more simple autonomous weapons like kamikaze drones with its existing crewed capabilities.

For the foreseeable future, the U.S. military will need to rely on a limited inventory of high-cost exquisite platforms to conduct some of the most important warfighting missions. Large numbers of cheaper attritable systems can offset the military’s reliance on high-end platforms for completing some missions that otherwise might deplete expensive and lower-inventory platforms.⁶ By creating a warfighting concept that integrates both types of capabilities, the new administration can ensure that America can more effectively deter China’s military actions in the Indo-Pacific and make Beijing think twice about challenging the United States.

Build the high-low capability mix. The Pentagon routinely cannot acquire any new capabilities at speed and scale. To correct this situation, immediate improvements can be made to how the United States acquires and produces both high-end and simpler low-cost platforms.⁷ The DoD can take actions to improve the speed, scale, and efficiency of its acquisition pathways by creating concise problem statements, iterating with operators, and encouraging creative acquisition tradecraft.⁸ More rapid, agile acquisition processes for lower-cost attritable platforms are needed to increase the variety of platforms under development and cut down on the time between a platform’s inception and when it gets into an operational environment. This will improve the availability of these platforms, expedite their integration into warfighting concepts, and improve operators’ trust in these systems before a conflict begins.⁹ The war in Ukraine has highlighted that weapons must be highly adaptable and that developers must be able to rapidly update systems based on feedback from warfighters. Thus, iteration continues throughout the life cycle of the weapon.

The United States also needs to increase the capacity of the defense industrial base to produce the platforms, munitions, and components it needs on the exquisite side of the high-low mix. The country’s defense industrial base capacity is unable to build, sustain, and support this vision of the future force.¹⁰ The new administration immediately should begin acquiring greater quantities of high-cost munitions to ensure that the U.S. military can keep up with the rate of munitions expenditure it expects in a conflict with China.¹¹ Additionally, the DoD should begin investing in the spare production capacity needed to replace exquisite systems such as crewed fighter, bomber, or reconnaissance aircraft during wartime.

Recommendations for the Trump Administration’s First 100 Days

The Trump administration has an opportunity in its first 100 days to appreciably strengthen deterrence by taking immediate actions to enhance the U.S. military’s warfighting edge in the Indo-Pacific. The authors recommend the following steps:

• End the risk-averse approach to testing and evaluating multidomain autonomous systems and fully leverage DoD Directive 3000.09 to get them into the Joint Force for validation and integration.
• Develop a warfighting concept for the Indo-Pacific that determines the most effective way of integrating high-cost exquisite platforms with lower-cost attritable systems to achieve key missions.
• Encourage a problem-driven, rapid, and agile acquisition process that solves key operational problems incorporating end-user feedback to enable the DoD to get a greater variety of platforms into the hands of operators at speed and scale.
• Immediately increase the production quantity of exquisite munitions and invest in spare production capacity for critical large weapons platforms during wartime.
  

By taking immediate steps in the first 100 days, the Trump administration has an opportunity to quickly improve the U.S. military’s posture in the Indo-Pacific and reaffirm its ability to deter China’s actions to undermine American interests. The administration’s actions could improve U.S. national security, signal strength to America’s adversaries, and, crucially, guide America’s allies and partners as they invest in their own capabilities and warfighting concepts.