The US needs more and better drones to defend Taiwan
To address a potential Chinese threat to Taiwan, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) suggests the United States should invest in long-range drones. According to CNAS, China could exploit its large fleet of drones in a conflict, so the US and Taipei need to develop a layered defense with “good enough” and long-range drones.
The ideal mix of drones would include both advanced systems and cheaper options to ensure effective operations in contested airspace and quickly replace those lost in battle. The report also suggests the use of autonomous kamikaze drones against Chinese warships. For these they should have a range much higher than the current ones, of a few tens of km.
The US already has advanced drones such as the MQ-9 Reaper and RQ-4 Global Hawk , but CNAS's Stacie Pettyjohn doubts the war is fair, given China's numerical superiority and manufacturing capacity for cheap drones. In short, the USA has dirty drones to be able to reject the Chinese ones. Even if these means are technically valid, their number is not sufficient to cause the area of destruction that the USA intends to achieve in the event of an attempted Chinese invasion.
We think that the various Switchblades have a range of a few tens of km, while the US kamikaze drones with a longer range, such as the Hero 1250, have a range of 290 km. Not enough and in any case they are very few to create " Hellscap e", the US defense strategy.
Hero 1250
Washington must overcome the challenge of operating drones in Taiwan from distant bases. Despite the challenges, Pettyjohn believes the US can take steps to level the playing field.
The report questions whether US investment in drones is enough to counter China's advantage and whether the current array of drones is suitable. Encourage Taiwan to invest in its own fleet of defense drones, as US assistance may not be immediate in the event of a conflict.
China sees Taiwan as a rebellious province to be reunited, even by force. US intelligence predicts that China could attempt a full-scale invasion of Taiwan by 2027. So this defense needs to be in place by then.
So the US should invest more, or perhaps find a way to develop dual-use drones that are easily recalled to service when needed.
But this is another matter.
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The article US needs more and better drones to defend Taiwan comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/gli-usa-hanno-bisogno-di-piu-droni-e-migliori-per-difendere-taiwan/ on Mon, 24 Jun 2024 13:00:09 +0000.