Remarks as prepared by Mike Smitsky, Vice President, Government Relations, at AUVSI Defense on February 22, 2024, titled: "To meet existing and future threats through autonomy integration, DOD, Congress, and industry must accept risk-taking."
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Good morning, 
Welcome to AUVSI Defense Day 2. I am Michael Smitsky with AUVSI and thank you all for your participation in this important and timely event.  

While yesterday’s program focused on a traditional and ongoing defense industrial base impediment, manufacturing capacity; today’s theme, Autonomy Integration within the armed services, is a new complexity inherent to modern warfare.  

The Department of Defense is at a pivotal juncture where the convergence of modern technology and evolving military operations presents unparalleled opportunities for enhancing our capabilities across all domains. Leveraging autonomous systems is not merely a tool in the proverbial toolbox, but a necessity for maintaining our strategic and tactical edge. 

First and foremost, autonomy offers us the promise of enhanced efficiency and effectiveness on the battlefield. By leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, autonomous systems can process vast amounts of data in real-time, enabling rapid decision-making and response. This translates into faster, more precise actions that can turn the tide of a conflict in our favor. 

However, the successful integration of autonomy within the armed services requires a cross-domain approach. As we continue to develop our Joint Force, greater complexity is introduced as we expand our collaboration and interoperability with our allied partners. 

I’ve spent the bulk of the last two weeks on the road attending meaningful events discussing the benefits and challenges of Autonomy Integration. This included receiving DoD briefings with members of our Defense Advocacy Committee, hearing from thought leaders at the DIU Innovation Summit, engaging stakeholders at WEST, strategizing with USVRON 3, and addressing policy hurdles with House Armed Services Committee Chair, Mike Rogers. 

My takeaway from all of these is that the driving factor for the speed and scale at which autonomy integration will occur continues to be risk. 
There are two categories of risk to address: 

• First, technological uncertainty, encompassing safety concerns, lack of trust and acceptance, operational adaptability, human-machine interface challenges, ethical and legal considerations, and cybersecurity vulnerabilities.  

• And second, mission risk, highlighted by the erosion of strategic and tactical warning, maximizing decision time and space, human and monetary cost, and maintaining a deterrent posture.  

Both categories of risk can work in favor of the US or against it. But either way, avoiding risk is not an option. Risk must be taken, and DoD, Congress, and Industry must all be incentivized to embrace it. All three need to be obsessed with the end user of the technology, in this case the warfighter, and create an environment where they can fail early, fail fast, and fail with intention.  

Admiral Paparo stated last week that he wants to “alleviate the fear of getting in trouble”. One of my mottos has always been, the best way to do your job is to do it fearlessly. For the US to deter the PLA and other adversaries, the culture of DOD, industry, and Congressional authorizers must shift towards embracing risk, especially with autonomy integration and disruptive technologies. 

As Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Admiral Paparo is charged with monitoring 60% of the world’s oceans. Yesterday’s speakers drew parallels in Ukraine and Gaza with the deployment of UxS, but the threat in the INDOPACOM region is even larger, better funded, and more advanced. Admiral Paparo’s goal is to leverage UxS to “see, understand, decide, and act” in order to “maximize decision time and space.” The geography of the INDOPACOM region requires a cultural overhaul in thinking about scale, speed, technology, and risk.  

This is why Replicator 1, as a process, may prove to be the key to maintaining the strategic and tactical edge against our Nation’s biggest threat.  

At DOD, the team leaning in on Replicator are all taking risk to accomplish Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks’ ambitious goals. And AUVSI is working diligently to ensure industry members are an integral part of Replicator.   

The hope is that a new standard way of doing business within DoD will evolve into an agile acquisition process that rewards risk, accelerates capabilities to the warfighter, and significantly alters our adversaries’ aggression calculus against our Nation. 

On the Hill, Congress also needs to accept risk. This includes both appropriating funding for UxS and reforming acquisition to “buy new things in new ways.” Given the ever-present threat that Replicator is working to address, Congress needs to overcome their skepticism of UxS that is a result of on the ongoing challenges of other, non-unmanned systems related programs. 

For UxS to accomplish the goal of maintaining strategic deterrence, the technology must be purchased in bulk and put in the hands of the warfighter now so that experimentation can occur and help spiral develop requirements. If acquisition reform does not occur and UxS funding does not increase, then small innovative businesses will fail and large primes will pivot their investments to more predictable funding lines within DoD and commercial sectors. This will only harm the defense industrial base and the warfighter. 

Today you will hear from an excellent lineup of speakers who will certainly highlight our need to increase our tolerance for risk. They will focus on how our warfighters require new capabilities faster that address their operational needs, and the autonomy integration that will make them effective.  

AUVSI, and our members, stand ready to help support these efforts and to lead from the front on taking the appropriate risk to ensure they are successful.