The Pentagon Is Planning a Drone ‘Hellscape’ to Defend Taiwan

Admiral Samuel Paparo described the US military’s contingency plan for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan as flooding the narrow Taiwan Strait with swarms of thousands upon thousands of drones, by land, sea, and air, to delay a Chinese attack enough for the US and its allies to muster additional military assets in the region.

China has a lot of drones and can make a lot more drones quickly, creating a likely advantage during a protracted conflict.

A 2020 Rand Corporation report concludes that hundreds of networked, low-cost drones could guide American long-range anti-ship missiles toward a Chinese invasion fleet.

The CNAS report makes several recommendations for how the Pentagon can best employ drones to defend Taiwan .

The Pentagon has earmarked $1 billion across its fiscal-year 2024 and 2025 budgets for its first round of Replicator systems.

The US is also working to bolster Taiwan ’s own drone capabilities.

In June , the State Department announced the approval of a $360 million weapons sale to Taipei that included 291 ALTIUS 600M -V kamikaze drones and 720 Switchblade-300 loitering munitions.

Taiwan plans to procure nearly 1,000 additional AI -enabled attack drones in the next year .