China’s most important asset in potential war with the United States is “mass,” says Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks: “More ships. More missiles. More people.”

To counter that advantage, the Defense Department will launch an initiative called Replicator to create cheap drones across the air, sea, and land in the “multiple thousands” within the next two years.

Cheap drones, of the type Ukraine has deployed to great effect against Russia, can be produced close to the battlefield at much lower cost than typical Defense Department weapons.

  • bdesk@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Has anybody seen what the CCP has done during the recent floods, or the fukushima wastewater discharge, or during Covid? The CCP is busy destroying China as it is. Why would western militaries bother?

    • Heresy_generator@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Because the last gasps of dying empires often involve launching (and losing) new wars of conquest. Look at what the Russian Empire is doing in Ukraine.

    • BetaBlake@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Seriously, they just need to be waited out, they are destroying themselves. especially if their real estate bubble actually pops it’s going to be worse than 2008 for them.

      It is an entire country run by and built on incompetence, at this point Papua New Guinea scares me more as a country.