She’s currently taking a break before jumping into her (still unannounced) next act. “It’s been refreshing,” she says—but disconnecting isn’t easy. She continues to monitor defense developments closely and expresses concern over potential setbacks: “New administrations have new priorities, and that’s completely expected, but I do worry about just stalling out on progress that we’ve built over a number of administrations.”
Over the past three decades, Hicks has watched the Pentagon transform—politically, strategically, and technologically. She entered government in the 1990s at the tail end of the Cold War, when optimism and a belief in global cooperation still dominated US foreign policy. But that optimism dimmed. After 9/11, the focus shifted to counterterrorism and nonstate actors. Then came Russia’s resurgence and China’s growing assertiveness. Hicks took two previous breaks from government work—the first to complete a PhD at MIT and the second to join the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where she focused on defense strategy. “By the time I returned in 2021,” she says, “there was one actor—the PRC (People’s Republic of China)—that had the capability and the will to really contest the international system as it’s set up.”
In this conversation with MIT Technology Review, Hicks reflects on how the Pentagon is adapting—or failing to adapt—to a new era of geopolitical competition. She discusses China’s technological rise, the future of AI in warfare, and her signature initiative, Replicator, a Pentagon initiative to rapidly field thousands of low-cost autonomous systems such as drones.
You’ve described China as a “talented fast follower.” Do you still believe that, especially given recent developments in AI and other technologies?
Yes, I do. China is the biggest pacing challenge we face, which means it sets the pace for most capability areas for what we need to be able to defeat to deter them. For example, surface maritime capability, missile capability, stealth fighter capability. They set their minds to achieving a certain capability, they tend to get there, and they tend to get there even faster.
That said, they have a substantial amount of corruption, and they haven’t been engaged in a real conflict or combat operation in the way that Western militaries have trained for or been involved in, and that is a huge X factor in how effective they would be.
China has made major technological strides, and the old narrative of its being a follower is breaking down—not just in commercial tech, but more broadly. Do you think the US still holds a strategic advantage?
I would never want to underestimate their ability—or any nation’s ability—to innovate organically when they put their minds to it. But I still think it’s a helpful comparison to look at the US model. Because we’re a system of free minds, free people, and free markets, we have the potential to generate much more innovation culturally and organically than a statist model does. That’s our advantage—if we can realize it.
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