The Pentagon plans to field thousands of drones and other high-tech military equipment within the next two years as the United States military turns to “autonomous systems” to counter China’s numerical edge in terms of personnel and weaponry, a senior defence official said.
US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks told a military technology conference in Washington, DC on Monday that the “imperative to innovate” was crucial at a time of strategic competition with China, a rival who Hick described as being very different to the “relatively slow and lumbering” competitors the US faced during the Cold War.
