The Pentagon Is Planning a Drone ‘Hellscape’ to Defend Taiwan
The Pentagon Is Planning a Drone ‘Hellscape’ to Defend Taiwan
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The Pentagon Is Planning a Drone ‘Hellscape’ to Defend Taiwan
201 comments
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Ever notice how Ukraine has to beg for support but Taiwan has a blank check against a far more capable potential enemy?
Just noticing that maybe Ukraine should start making semiconductors.
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I think it’s also that opposing China is bipartisan, but the Republicans take bribes from Putin.
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Taiwan does not have a blank check.
The US has backed away from any language of the martial agreements with Taiwan.
Have you noticed how aggressive China has been to Taiwan ? Or is it only bad if it is Japan being aggressive towards Taiwan ?
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When was Japan last aggressive to Taiwan? Genuinely curious.
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So does Israel. Israel receives checks for weapons and armaments they can resell,
Ukraine receives loans along with the associated debt. It's a regional power thing for the US, treat certain friendly countries at strategic hotspots in such a way that they hold key industries or resources others have to rely on, creating a situation of mutual dependence and giving an incentive for other countries to also support them. Ukraine has Europe and NATO right beside it, so it's much less on the priority list for the US.It also creates a bunch of problems, specially when it involves a country that's borderline religious neocolonialism, and doesn't work that well against large world and regional powers that are working together like China, Russia, or even Iran.
But Ukraine really does deserve better.
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What a stupid fucking comment. How about you open your eyes bud? We have a lot of business with China, China isn't posturing with war and crying about NATO expansionism and threatening to use nukes.
Get it yet? Probably not, so I'll help you some more.
The US can build up the defenses of Taiwan because they have no active warzone/conflict. Taiwan isn't wanting to strike inside Chinese territory. The US cannot give Ukraine everything they want without restriction (because they DO want to strike inside Russia, and rightly so) without triggering Russian escalation WHICH INCLUDES VARIOUS NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
When NUCLEAR WEAPONS are used, the rest of the world WILL get involved. NATO is not just being a jerk about things for fucks sake.
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You're not wrong...
Nations will certainly bend over backward to ensure access to strategic resources. Unfortunately for Ukraine, grain isn't a highly demanded resource.
Finding some niche technology or product to specialize in would probably be a really good idea. They have experience with rocket engine manufacturing, though that's not a huge market. I suppose they could always extend that to munitions manufacturing, it seems there's always a market for that... Sigh...
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Ukraine has had massive success with naval drones which I would imagine to translate very well to the defence of Taiwan as well.
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The difference between hypersonic missiles and drones is interesting, too. Hypersonics are something a major nation state needs a years long development program to make. They have some inherent issues, like having a limited maneuvering budget without burning themselves up. The response time of defenses are shorter, but existing Patriot missile batteries have managed to deal with them to at least some success.
Meanwhile, Ukraine attaches bombs to some fancy RC planes and sinks much of the Black Sea Fleet. IIRC, they're up to something like half of it by tonnage, and Russia likely has no way to replace some of the larger Soviet-era ships.
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Apparently, there's more than one way to skin a cat. And some of the ways don't cost billions in R&D.
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Millions of inexperienced soldiers stuck on ships facing thousands of drones coming from all directions -
I...don't want to imagine the absolute, pure horror that would be.
The fact that the two current superpowers are actually gearing up for war with each other makes my blood freeze.
This would cause global suffering on par with World War 2. Except in World War 2, most battles were still fought primarily with glorified armored tractors, rifles, shovels and horse-drawn artillery.
Oh, and now, there's the added danger of a nuclear escalation that will literally bomb us all back into the stone age.-
This is nothing different to what they've been doing for the last 20 years
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All of this is a lot of flexing, there’s no reason for China to cause massive conflict with the US because both parties would lose in some major ways. Essentially it would just waste resources between the two nations and permanently kneecap both of their economies.
Not to mention that I don’t think any nation is in a position to challenge the US anywhere in the near future. A minor conflict could break out, sure, but an actual war where the US takes the gloves off is not a good idea for anybody.
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Wow! I, for one, will plan to be both shocked and awed by the 'hellscape'.
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Now with 50% more A.I !
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More like defending TSMC... large majority of all high-tech silicon is made in Taiwan. If that foundry burns, the consequences would be astronomical. The possible consequences are already at a point they could make threats via self-sabotage.
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If the hellscape thing comes to pass the structural integrity of any building is probably going to be the least of anyone's care. Like a drone walk is not going to make people happy about going into a clean room for an entire shift. That will end shortly.
The much more possible possibility is that the plant moves to the US with newer machines.
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My faith that this plan will succeed is a bit shaken by the other news story about the Navy today: the Navy ran out of pants.
We can't seem to produce enough pants for our sailors and marines, but we expect to produce "thousands upon thousands" of fancy new drones? Well I do hope it all works out, but uh, I guess I'll just keep my fingers crossed.
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You sure they are simply choosing to not wear pants?
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I mean, I'm not making any assumptions...
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I'm not super knowledgeable about drone operators, but I don't think you need pants to fly drones.
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Talk about a low drag high speed operator
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The folks making pants and the ones making drones are not the same
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Manager: Rodney, Rodney what the fuck are you doing?
Rodney: Sweating as he tries to complete a tripple stitch on a pair of Navy Standard Issue Pants. Sorry boss, these pants gotta get shipped today!
Manager: Fuck the pants, Rodney. These MQ-9 Reapers gotta be finished and out the door by noon. gestures to massive pile of weaponry and metal in the corner The Chinese are gonna invade Taiwan!
Rodney: puts pants down Sure boss!
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Well, let's hope.
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but we expect to produce "thousands upon thousands" of fancy new drones?
I think Taiwan can absolutely help support the US in producing thousands upon thousands of new drones.
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We aren't gonna produce those drones. We don't have the infrastructure, China does. When we decided to ban Chinese made drones there were no one capable of replacing them in the consumer space. The ones left in the Blue UAS program pulled out of consumer markets. DJI dominates and that's just in the consumer market. I wouldn't sell the Chinese short in military drones.
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Where do you think our current drone fleet came from? A hint: it wasn't China.
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Well, DJI has the market cornered in quadcopter/multirotor drones. But what do they have with wings?
From the sound of it, this program is also quite interested in vehicles with longer loiter times and heavier payload capacity (winged aircraft). And they're explicitly interested in seeding smaller companies with funding that would allow them to realize whatever innovations they may have and scale up. So with that in mind, it may be irrelevant that DJI dominates the multirotor drone market.
I guess we'll find out in time.
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Protecting Taiwan would be one of the most important tasks to accomplish.
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Archive link here https://archive.is/kJlQW
China has no incentive to invade Taiwan. Geographically there's nowhere but the heavily fortified western side of the island to land an amphibious assault. And even if you get a beach head there, it's not Normandy, there's sheer fucking cliffs, and then MORE mountains. China doesn't have the Navy to setup a blockade or the carriers to setup an air bridge and if they did it'll be Antoniv all over again.
The Taiwan government isn't trying to unify the "two Chinas" anymore as Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Li-Jen have been dead a long while. The PLA or what's left of it does not want control over mainland China and the current ruling Taiwanese government are happy to create 60% of the worlds super conductors. In fact they have Thermite and other destructive charges setup in the fabs in case china invades. There's other fabs in the US or EU they can spin up with engineers and personnel that will likely be swept away by the US or Japan or South Korea.
This is saber rattling from the Pentagon and a distraction from Pooh Bear's own internal problems. Nobody wants war in Taiwan most of all the Chinese.
However it would be very profitable for defense contractors. Hey, I should write an article about that.
Edit: sorry if it wasn't clear in my tone, I do not like China and do not support their foreign policy. People in Taipei and across Taiwan are very very worried. And likely as not it's so Xi can feel big after the Olympics. It's terrible that they're taking advantage of such global strife to pull this again. With Iran and Israel playing brinkmanship, the genocide in Palestine, the ongoing war in Ukraine... A German naval vessel is waiting for the go ahead to cross international waters.
Edit 2: I have sprinkled references to support my points throughout my comment to hopefully form a cogent thought from the word salad I originally wrote. Further reading for those interested:
https://www.cfr.org/article/why-china-would-struggle-invade-taiwan
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China has no incentive to invade Taiwan.
I hope you are right, but your post is giving me big “herr Hitler is not going to invade Poland” vibes.
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There isn't the same political pay off at home in China that Hitler got. Chinese economy is not in the same dire straights and there is no economic benefit as China would start a war with 70% of their trading partners.
Also unlike when Hitler invaded, the EU and the US is already building up arms because of the bullshit Putin is pulling right now.
When I get to my computer tomorrow I'll drop some links. But this is sounding more like North Korea and less like Nazi Germany.
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Pooh bear found out his missiles were fueled with water, and some of his launch silos never existed. He did a purge of the military and got real quiet about launching an invasion
Now they're showing their special forces threading lines of needles and riding electric skateboards.
I'm not saying China wouldn't invade Taiwan, but I really don't think they're going to in the near future
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Or how we were all convinced that Russia wouldn't invade until it actually happened
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There are rumors that Xi has been overthrown and is now only a figurehead.
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Nobody is saying invading Taiwan would be a good idea, the CCP has been very consistent in stating that they are willing to do it though.
I personally thought Ukraine wouldn't be invaded by Russia because it would make no sense and go against Russia's interests. Turns out I was half right, but it happened anyway.
So let's hope that it's all sabre rattling and continue planning for the worst.
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Russia invaded Ukraine twice before there was a war, Putin took Georgia before that, very little international response happened. It wasn't until Ukraine had the Revolution of Dignity in 2014 before anyone was even concerned about Ukraine and when Zelensky was elected, a comedian, Putin thought he could have his special operation and assassinate Zelensky.
There's none of that in the last 30 years with Taiwan. Unlike Ukraine in 2015; Taiwan has very strong mutual defense treaties with Japan and the US, strong trading partners in the EU. There's a German Naval Vessel standing by to join the fight
The position the US holds about Taiwan and making it rain "hellfire from drones" tells you all you need to know. They just last month let Ukraine use HIMARS in Russia, and Ukraine took Kursk.
Chinese troop numbers are down, their equipment isn't doing well in Ukraine and their pilots are using solid fuel from missiles to cook hot noodle on cold days.
Now if this article was about the Chinese "third navy" I'd understand the rhetoric but it isn't.
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I don’t disagree with the points you’re making in terms of military explanations.
I think the U.S. definitely wants to provide Taiwan with all manner of drones, as they can use that as a test bed for their own drone efforts. Even if it’s unlikely to actually occur, I think the specter of China getting involved militarily is an opportunity the U.S. is keen to exploit that will allow them to deploy and test drone systems on the dime of one of their strategic partners, rather than solely at their own expense.
But I also think that China is working on a diplomatic/economic win in Taiwan.
With the recent passage of the … oh, I can’t remember the name of it … the law that allows China to arrest people who criticize China online that will apply to Chinese citizens who live/work in Taiwan, or to Taiwanese citizens who have reason to visit China, it means that there is a pall of fear over criticizing China in Taiwan.
If folks can’t criticize China, it skews the narrative in Taiwan. A few more laws like that, some social/election influence campaigns (in the U.S. and Taiwan), and I could see a gradual undoing of Taiwanese-U.S. relations, and perhaps even a voluntary joining of PRC in a few decades.
I’m sure, though, that the U.S. is doing the same thing in Taiwan, to try to keep the relationship tight. So it sorta comes down to who can do the best data mining, influence campaigning, and crafty diplomacy.All armchair speculation on my part, but that’s how I think it’ll shake out. Less of a military conquest, and more of a cultural conquest.
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My response was targeted against the Hellfire against a Chinese Invasion referenced in the orginal article, so that was absolutely militarily driven and focused.
However the one thing the dictatorship of Xi can do is have a long form plan of unified direction and consistent rhetoric. That's something the US has been incapable of the last 12 years unfortunately.
So yes, China is much better at looking at economic targets and wielding soft power. If Taiwan does fall, it'll be diplomatically, with very if any military intervention. I believe the law you're referencing came out of the CCP Central Committee Sixth Plenum referenced below.
However I would also look at the CCP's 2030 plan and recent military purges as direct support for a military response to be essentially posturing, for now.
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Ultimately, if China truly has no incentive to invade Taiwan, why not just recognize it as a sovereign nation? They haven't, they likely won't, and that to me is enough evidence to show that there is reason to invade - we as armchair strategists simply don't know them.
Does China benefit from the current arrangement in any way that would motivate them to keep the status quo?
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Yes absolutely they benefit from the current status quo.
First is the nebulous status Taiwan has in global politics the Chinese government uses it as a smoke screen for all sorts of complaints and a great source for demanding concessions and justifying their actions. Especially against the" colonial powers in the West that are oppressing the Taiwanese." ::: spoiler spoiler Which there is colonial oppression from the west but I wouldn't look to Taiwan as a victim in that regard, South America and Central Africa however are a different story. Where the PRC have their own history of colonial actions but that's not the topic of this comment.^ :::
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce8dy437pdno
For the PLA there's an outsized boogyman with Taiwan that they can beat the war drums for to drum up support for increased military presence. They have war games frequently, almost every year, to counter the "threat of the US and their hold over the poor Chinese bretheren on Taiwan"
Much like how politicians aren't often incentivised to fix the potholes in the roads or solve other simple issues, what will they campaign on next year if the roads and bridges are fixed this year? The PLA use Taiwan to justify arms buildups and Naval investments
Note these exercises are from a year ago and you'll see a long history of such actions if you look for them https://www.nbr.org/publication/the-plas-strategic-deterrence-a-case-study-of-the-april-2023-exercises-toward-taiwan/
https://news.usni.org/2023/10/31/chinese-military-corruption-wont-slow-pla-expansion-panel-says
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China doesn't have the Navy to setup a blockade
Do you have sources that backs up that claim? Just because they didn't do so in a sabre rattling exercise doesn't mean they can't. Afaik their navy is actually quite capable, and actually it's the largest in the world by number of vessels.
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The sources are in my original post.
Basically it boils down to the US Navy has been built up to directly interidict, challenge, and if need be destroy Chinese vessels. The US Navy is and has been intentionally building naval forces to counteract Chinese naval practices and doctrine. Numbers in naval battles aren't really all that important. Now it's mostly down to sigint, jamming, and other interuptive measures.
Pages 51 and 52 will be of direct interest to my point https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL33153/280
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And even if you get a beach head there(on the West side), it's not Normandy, there's sheer fucking cliffs, and then MORE mountains.
Idk much about Taiwanese coastline, but your wiki article states:
The terrain in Taiwan is divided into two parts: the flat to gently rolling plains in the west, where 90% of the population lives, and the mostly rugged forest-covered mountains in the eastern two-thirds.
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Yeah beach is heavily defended on the west side. Over watching those beaches are cliffs, behind those cliffs are mountains. The east side of the island, facing away from the PRC is just all mountains.
US SOF have trained Taiwanese forces to basically evac as many folk as possible and for the Taiwanese army to take up fighting positions in the mountains.
Look to Afghanistan or Switzerland or Vietnam to see how that tends to work out for the invading forces.
There's a map in that link that shows the terrain.
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-green-berets-explain-how-they-train-taiwan-troops-2021-10?op=1
Note take special care when researching this as the Taiwanese minister of defense was misquoted earlier this week. Taiwan still only hosts rotating SOF when PLA exercises are active and the US and Taiwan have their joint training/exercises. There is not and hopefully will not be a permanent US base on Taiwan.
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lol who is trying to claim most of south china sea again and harassing their neighbours?
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Explain the comment on racism? Pooh Bear is not anti sino to my knowledge
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Winnie-the-Pooh_in_China
Let me know if that link doesn't work for you. 🧸😗
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Can the USA just not get entangled in more wars?
I would like this money going to repair local infrastructure, instead of this bothersome corporate welfare that helps keep prices high ( I know it’s a jump from a to b but it’s true in my mind)
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I mean in this case it's preventing a war and securing your main chip supply.
Until Intel produces in the US, the way this is going looks grim..
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I’m naive because I only see protecting big business with no trickle down effect to me and my community.
And, quite honestly, any increased tensions with China takes money out of each household here, due to increased prices.
Sure, this is a selfish view, but I’m really tired of eternal war when I see a lack of money in my rural area.
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All the people who down voted you, I bet not a single one would go fight in the war they want America to be a party to.
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It literally can't, and I hate it.
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Dude. Don't pretend to be bad now. Our best drones are regularly being shot down by goat herders. Lol.
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Exciting new rendition of the "You're about to find out why this country can't afford healthcare" meme is about to drop.
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What drones would that be? US drones very, very rarely are shot down.
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I saw it in that interstellar documentary.
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Bad bot
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yes... to "defend" Taiwan, LOL
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Yes. Defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion that threatens their sovereignty. One that is continuously threatened by China and one Taiwan actively prepares for.
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Are we the baddies?
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Maybe but that would be in spite of defending Taiwan not because of.
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I’m not so sure. A majority of people polled in Taiwan disagreed with the US’s approach of a military forward strategy of ensuring Taiwan’s political independence. I believe the reasons the US has not pursued a diplomatic solution is largely because it wouldn’t serve their geopolitical interests. By pursuing a militaristic strategy, they’ve escalated the stakes at the expense of the Taiwanese people and I think Taiwanese people generally understand that.
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This is always the correct response in a system where food scarcity is a matter of economics and not supply. Some years we burn more corn than we feed folk with.
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😔
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Is the 'we' you are referring to china? If so, then yes you are. Bunch of cry babies who can't accept that Taiwan is not theirs and never was. The government of Taiwan predates their government.
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They can't wait to start another proxy war, this time with China. They are encircling China with military bases and outposts and then constantly harp on "China's aggression". Fucking disgusting.
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Chinese aggression like ramming ships in international waters where they are making imperialistic claims to territory that doesn't belong to them? Yeah.
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And the many many 'shipping ports' they've built for poor nations with contracts that state they will gain control in the event they can't pay. Just a coincidence all those ports are also capable of docking war ships.
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And checking out the global warming level to see if they can melt the ice cap so they can ship temy products via the northern seas? Yup
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moron alert
Couldn't possibly be because Taiwan's TSMC plant holds significance... NO! It is instead all about proxy wars!! EnCiRcLeMeNt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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If any countries need to have an eye kept on them and a contingency plan for them should shit go south it's fucking China and Russia.
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Why?
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List the number of wars, conflicts or proxy wars China was involved with the last 50 years. I wonder what it is about those people that makes you think they are so untrustworthy and dangerous? Like contrary to actual historical facts of who is dangerous and kills people and destroys countries.
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Did you know that Trump was never actually President? Hillary was President and he whole time. She actually still is.
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201 comments
I feel like we should at least consider that DJI is a mainland Chinese company and nearly all drone innovation in the past decade has originated there. They are no strangers to extreme manufacturing or advanced automated drone technology.
Quadcopters are actually insanely simple devices. I dont think the west would have any issue making hundreds of thousands of them without the help of china. Maybe the chips could be an issue but im sure taiwan would be happy to provide.
The future of drone warfare will be determined by software. That's the one thing where the US still have a huge lead.
Insanely simple devices still require a certain minimal amount of materials and manpower to assemble. The terrible secret of the Chinese economy is that they simply have more people doing more manufacturing labor. Sure, they often have state of the art equipment and a robust, heavily industrialized logistics system (one reason why western efforts to pivot off-shore manufacturing to Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and the Indochina Peninsula haven't been particularly successful). But first and foremost, you need physical labor. Americans don't have a superabundance of domestic labor, so they're not capable of rapidly churning out lots of low-cost, disposable weapons systems at a rate comparable to the Chinese mainlanders.
And that's before you get into the cost of deploying, maintaining, and upgrading a large network of low quality units over a long time frame. Imagine building and deploying an entire fleet of Mark 1 Defense Drones to the island, only to discover a major security vulnerability that renders them easily inoperable. You've got hundreds of thousands of these units in the field, all of which need to be recalled, patched, and re-tested. That takes manpower, too.
The reason these low cost easily distributed systems work for, say, Houthi Rebels and Palestinian dissidents is that they've got these diffuse cells of insurgents with very little else to do except fight. These large ad hoc guerrilla forces are more a consequence of the deplorable state of the local economy than the fighting power of the region. Idle hands, etc.
Americans don't have that. We're at near full-employment. We can't peel off a tens of thousands of young men to go work on the drone assembly lines without suffering economic shortfalls. Hell, neither can Israel, which is why their domestic economy is tanking while they try to make war with virtually all of their Arab neighbors.
The Chinese economy has capacity to spare. The American economy does not. That's the same problem the Japanese ran into during WW2, and a big reason why they got washed in Mainland China after a decade of horrifying genocidal occupation.
Its funny but when I think of drones and innovation I don't think of china. China just mass produces but for the most part when the current class of true drones were being created I remember a lot of amateurs working on it and others, china being one of them stealing the base tech. Just like 3d printing.
Wait... you think amateur hobbyists out in the American suburbs are inventing new forms of independent flight technology from kits they bought on Amazon. And then some of the largest and most well-financed universities in the world are stealing the technology?
Just purely out of curiosity, who do you think Mingjing Qi, a professor of energy and power engineering at Beihang University stole this schematic from?
When I think of China I think of serious medical innovations including the cure for fucking HIV and herpes. Idk that they are so great with robotics but I wouldn't really underestimate them.
There's such a gulf of difference between a DJI drone and an American Predator or Reaper drone that I actually kinda feel bad for you for bringing DJI into the conversation.