5 Essential Steps to Make the Mass Adoption of Autonomous Ground Vehicles a Reality
Paul Benfield - VP Strategy.
In my previous article, I argued that deploying C2-integrated, prepositioned autonomous ground vehicles (AGVs) in tactically important areas could help the U.S. Department of Defense project power faster and at scale despite growing constraints on lift, infrastructure, and manpower. Properly employed, such systems can improve responsiveness, survivability, and deterrence while complicating adversary planning through deception and strategic ambiguity.
But realizing these advantages is not simply a matter of buying more unmanned platforms. Scaling uncrewed, multi-domain forces requires changes to how the Department of Defense acquires capabilities, structures its forces, and trains its people. In many respects, the primary barriers are cultural and bureaucratic rather than technological.
A new approach to acquisition
The traditional procurement system, built around a few large programs, is ill-suited to rapidly fielding thousands of small, innovative platforms. The Department’s recent Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy and the movement toward middle-tier acquisition authorities demonstrate that the Pentagon recognizes it must expedite the process of fielding new warfighting technologies.
Unfortunately, the large prime contractors that the DoD has traditionally favored have made few strides with AGV technologies. That means to succeed with this new approach, acquisition officials will have to partner with non-traditional defense firms that specialize in drones, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and robotics. As a result, they’ll also have to accept a higher tolerance for risk and iteration, and streamline requirements and funding for unmanned systems.
In other words, they’ll have to replicate Silicon Valley speed within the defense bureaucracy.
Budgeting for uncrewed systems may also mean divesting from legacy programs to free up resources. This means that Congress and the DoD will also have to ensure that budgetary investments support these new capabilities, not just legacy forces. Absent real divestment from legacy programs, unmanned systems will remain additive experiments rather than transformational capabilities.
The grand strategic benefit of this transformation is a U.S. force that can rapidly posture and reposition its strength globally, despite a constrained resource base. In essence, the DoD will effectively restore its power-projection edge through innovation, making the U.S. military more agile and unpredictable to adversaries. This should validate the shift away from legacy platforms and programs toward new AGV capabilities.
However, acquiring these technologies is just one challenge to overcome. The DoD will also have to reevaluate how it structures and deploys its forces to truly benefit from the expanded use of AGVs.
Blending manned and unmanned
In terms of force structure, the U.S. military will increasingly need to blend manned and unmanned elements at every level. Thankfully, this change is already underway across many services.
The U.S. Marine Corps is already adapting to the new reality it will face on a modern battlefield. They’ve eliminated heavy legacy units, including tank battalions and towed artillery. Instead, they’re standing up Marine Littoral Regiments, which emphasize low-signature, persistent, and easy-to-sustain units with capabilities such as long-range fires and unmanned systems for sea denial. The Marines also plan to double the number of unmanned aircraft squadrons and field numerous unmanned ground systems to enhance distributed operations.
In its Army of 2030 vision, Army leadership recognized that forward-postured ground forces, able to converge effects across domains, were crucial to deterrence, and those forces will be far more capable if augmented by unmanned partners. Moving forward, Army brigades will likely evolve to include robotic combat vehicles, autonomous supply drones, and headquarters dedicated to controlling drone swarms and C2 networks.
In this new reality, human soldiers will become mission commanders overseeing groups of unmanned systems, requiring new training and doctrine. Training and doctrine will be crucial to building trust in these new systems. Building trust in autonomous teammates will be as important as technical proficiency.
Supporting this force will require a robust communications infrastructure comprising satellites, relay drones, and anti-jam networks under JADC2, along with forward maintenance and advanced manufacturing capabilities at forward bases to quickly sustain unmanned systems in contested environments.
Force planning must also consider balance and risk. Overreliance on autonomy without adequate testing could pose risks if adversaries find ways to exploit it. Thus, part of the acquisition strategy must be to ensure cybersecurity and robust autonomous algorithms – technical areas that deserve funding in parallel with platform procurement.
These changes are complex and require reevaluating how the DoD has traditionally acquired technologies and structured its forces – but that effort comes with great rewards.
Five Steps to Operationalize Unmanned Deterrence
If the U.S. succeeds in this transition, it could alter the calculus of great-power competition. An American military composed of autonomous, elusive, nimble systems will be a far more daunting deterrent to China.
Likewise, in Europe, a NATO networked with unmanned sensors and shooters raises the bar for any would-be aggressor. This does not eliminate the role of humans. Rather, it enhances a smaller, well-trained human force with powerful robotic adjuncts.
However, to reach this aspirational reality and maintain deterrence and stability, U.S. policymakers and defense leaders will need to:
- Invest in Resilient Networks and C2: Prioritize JADC2 initiatives and programs that enable secure, real-time linking of sensors, shooters, and decision-makers. Integrated C2 is the backbone that enables multi-domain unmanned and autonomous operations.
- Expand the Army Prepositioned Stocks (APS) program: Include both land and maritime advanced unmanned platforms in prepositioned stocks for key regions. Ensure the modernization of APS, as recommended by Army analysts, so that these stocks are combat-ready and networked into joint plans.
- Accelerate the fielding of uncrewed systems: Embrace agile acquisition approaches that leverage rapid prototyping and commercial technology to deploy large numbers of proven unmanned systems within the next one to three years. Early fielding in operational units, rather than prolonged testing in isolation, will allow the DoD to refine tactics, identify technical gaps, and harden systems through real-world use.
- Adapt force structure and training: Update unit organizations to include unmanned system operators, swarming specialists, and robotics maintenance. Train troops in manned-unmanned teaming from the squad level up. Incorporate autonomous systems heavily into wargames and exercises, for example, conduct multinational logistics exercises using unmanned supply drones, to develop trust and understanding of their capabilities.
- Maintain conventional overmatch: While integrating uncrewed assets, continue to maintain robust conventional forces and lift capacity for baseline deterrence. Uncrewed systems complement but do not wholly replace traditional power projection. A balance is needed to hedge against uncertainty. For instance, ensuring strategic airlift and sealift are modernized to some degree so that manned reinforcements can still deploy behind the unmanned vanguard.
By following these steps, U.S. defense leaders can transform a vulnerable mobilization posture into a flexible, tech-enabled deterrent posture.
The ability to project power rapidly and in a dispersed form is essential to dissuading aggression in the coming decades. America’s competitors are betting that the U.S. will be too slow or risk-averse to stop a fait accompli. Uncrewed multi-domain forces are a direct answer to that bet – speeding up our response, lowering our risks, and forcing the adversary to confront a distributed, hidden, and deadly set of capabilities.
In grand strategic terms, this shift represents a modernization of deterrence for the 21st century. Rather than merely matching enemy divisions or ships one-for-one, the U.S. can present a high-tech porcupine – bristling with autonomous spines that make any attack prohibitively costly and likely to fail.
Integrating unmanned vehicles with strong C2 and a forward posture will not only solve a practical mobilization problem; it will also strengthen the credibility of U.S. commitments worldwide. Expanding the adoption of AGVs and other autonomous systems will preserve peace and stability in an era of renewed great-power rivalry.
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