Before It's Too Late
The Davidson Window opens in two months.
Many predict 2024 - 2027 is the peak threat window for China to invade Taiwan. A war with China over Taiwan could ruin the global economy and cause more deaths than Covid.
Most of the major weapon systems to deter China won’t be delivered until the 2030s.
A majority of the U.S. aircraft, ships, and satellites were launched last century. Meanwhile China produced the world’s biggest Navy with over 370 ships and subs, growing to 395 in 2025 and 435 by 2030. To compete, the DoD seeks to divest to invest by retiring costly legacy systems faster than delivering new systems. Our shipyards can only build 1.5 destroyers and 1.2 subs per year. One report found China has 200X shipbuilding capacity.
“The PRC remains our most consequential strategic competitor for decades.”
“Our current system is too slow and too focused on acquiring systems not designed to address the most critical challenges we now face. This orientation leaves little incentive to design open systems that can rapidly incorporate cutting-edge technologies, creating longer-term challenges with obsolescence, interoperability, and cost effectiveness. The Department will instead reward rapid experimentation, acquisition, and fielding. We will better align requirements, resourcing, and acquisition.” - National Defense Strategy
DEPSECDEF Kathleen Hicks outlined a bold Replicator initiative to field thousands of attritable autonomous systems within the next 18-to-24 months. Yet months later the details are unclear. While Congress is eager to see this plan, appropriators aren’t inclined to support new funds anytime soon. The DoD will leverage current funding and align current systems already in the pipeline. What is needed is billions in new funding so many traditional and non-traditional defense companies can develop and produce thousands of air, ground, sea, and undersea autonomous systems.
Time is paramount. What can be delivered in the next two to four years at scale?
If the sh*t hit the fan tomorrow and the Pentagon, Congress, and Industry finally all got on the same page to fund $100B+ to rapidly produce thousands of systems, could they deliver in time to impact operations? Will U.S. and Allies have sufficient long range fire power in theater to take out PLA systems? Will we have protection against the thousands of PLA missiles and drone swarms that will reign terror on U.S. and Allies’ bases and cities?
Investing in these capabilities to deter China now will be infinitely cheaper in blood and treasure than trying to come back from major losses in a drawn-out conflict or extract the PLA entrenched in Taiwan. We spent trillions on the wars in the Middle East. Imagine what a peer adversary will cost us both militarily and economically.
Instead of investing in capabilities to deter China this decade, DoD and Congress continue to focus on massively complex major systems that take 10-15 years to go from ‘Idea to IOC’ with the hopes of operating them for the next 30-50 years.
Will Congress fund a bold Hedge strategy or even the HAC-D pilot program with 0.1% of the defense budget for DIU to demonstrate a modern approach to product delivery? Yet the discussion these days is how much buying power will DoD lose when Congress finally passes a defense budget after the umpteenth CR.
Will DoD rapidly buy commercial solutions to complement the exquisite defense unique systems to harness American innovation for national security? Or will the defense industrial base continue to atrophy while the remaining players drive up costs with drawn out schedules?
Will Congress and the State Department finally overhaul the broken FMS system to include clearing the $19B backlog with Taiwan? Will Congress exempt our closest allies in the UK and Australia from the ITAR morass so we can actually co-develop solutions?
Will centuries of naval tradition around massively large ships with hundreds of sailors make way for many smaller unmanned systems that could operate within the island chains? Will Air Force generals with wings on their chests make way for swarms of drones, especially attritable systems that achieve unique mission effects? Will the Army’s love for blowing things up embrace directed energy weapons? Are we investing enough thinking, training, and iterating on how to effectively harness leading technologies in radically new ways for military advantage?
Delivering meaningful capabilities in this decade requires a commitment from DoD leadership and Congress to enact radical changes. Modernizing and accelerating requirements, acquisition, and budget enterprises is table stakes (and the law). It also requires aggressively removing the most bureaucratic elements of the system and the saboteurs defending the status quo. We must change incentives for all key stakeholder groups to align on strengthening our national security.
Transforming the world’s biggest bureaucracy will take time. Time we don’t have. We must hedge our bets by investing in many small things that can be delivered quickly to complement the few big things that will be delivered outside the threat window.
Will there be sufficient will power and leadership to enact these changes…
… before it’s too late?
I’m wondering why China would risk interrupting the commercial flow of goods from Chinese manufacturers to the American market. After all the US is one of the largest retail markets in the world. Why would China screw that up? And if they do take over Taiwan, who would buy any of the products they would then be producing? Especially after a war to claim the island.
"Most of the major weapon systems to deter China won’t be delivered until the 2030s."
Then maybe DoD and the nation should find better approach to countering Chinese aggression. One that focuses less on U.S. military superiority in force projection and more on building partnership capacity, and developing diplomatic and economic levers to punish bad behavior.
The current plan makes the naive assumption that deterrence is only achieved by buying military hardware and fails to take advantage of a host of other options. This path imposes large costs on the U.S. to preserve the sovereignty of, in this case, a small island. Resources and attention are drained away from national security planning. This lack of focus results in continued failures to maintain U.S. infrastructure (water, rail road, healthcare, public health/pandemic, social safety nets) leave the country as a whole weaker and less resilient. It also leaves a military more and more dependent on exquisite weapon systems that are being fielded half-baked and are unaffordable to operate. This is exactly how China weakens the U.S. resolve before the battle.