Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Stavroula Pabst
“Defense officials consistently tout the Replicator initiative — an ambitious effort to ‘swarm’ thousands of attritable, inexpensive drones at a break-neck pace to counter China — as a great success. … Despite officials’ assertions, the Congressional Research Service points out that only ‘hundreds’ rather than ‘thousands’ of these systems materialized by the August 2025 target date. Not only that but critical technical issues procuring the systems persist, and associated costs remain unclear.” (10/28/25)