U.S. military planners are building an army of deadly but relatively cheap drones, as part of an emerging “unmanned hellscape” strategy to stymie a hypothetical Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
This drone army concept is an attempt to overcome some of the apparent challenges the United States would face if it were to come to Taiwan’s defense in a future conflict.
The hellscape strategy has emerged as successive war games have shown the U.S. military is likely to face a costly fight to defend the de facto independent island territory. One set of 2022 war games conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found that the United States could win, but at a cost of up to two aircraft carriers, 20 other warships, 400 warplanes, and around 3,000 troops in just three weeks of fighting.
With U.S. lawmakers and military leaders unsettled by these findings, some strategists have begun to focus on a battle plan that could preserve their most exquisite weapons warships and weapons systems, and keep the human casualties to a relative minimum, by instead sacrificing thousands of rapidly producible air and sea drones.
Adm. Samuel Paparo, the commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, began to articulate this battle plan in a June 2024 interview with The Washington Post. As he explained it, the moment Chinese leaders order their troops to attack Taiwan, U.S. commanders will begin deploying as many small aerial, surface, and submersible drones as possible into the Taiwan Strait, to gather intelligence and harass the Chinese force as much as possible.
“I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities, so that I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything,” Paparo.
The Taiwan Challenge
Since normalizing ties with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the 1970s, the U.S. policymakers have described the overall approach policy toward Taiwan as one of “strategic ambiguity.”
The United States treats it contacts with the de facto Taiwanese government as informal interactions, and continues to supply the island with weapons it could potentially use to resist a Chinese invasion, but still leaves unclear whether it will sail to Taiwan’s defense in a worst-case scenario.
For decades, this policy of strategic ambiguity has allowed a peaceful but uneasy status quo. But in that time, China has vastly increased the size of its military, and modernized its fighting capabilities.
In 2020, China officially overtook the United States as the country with the largest naval force, by sheer number of vessels. The country is also making advances with modern fighter jets, and missiles.
U.S. military planners have concluded a major component of this Chinese force modernization is the development of what’s known as anti-access, area denial (A2/AD) capabilities. As U.S. planners see it, the Chinese military is built to assert control over a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific region, and use their A2/AD components to block any outside forces from intervening.
Adding to the challenge in a Taiwan conflict scenario is the sheer distance from which the U.S. has to move. The Taiwan Strait puts about 100 miles distance between the island and the Chinese mainland, well within range of many advanced Chinese weapons systems.
U.S. forces, by contrast, would have to cross hundreds or even thousands of miles come to Taiwan’s defense.
With hundreds of miles of coastline to choose from, Chinese forces could easily array their A2/AD capabilities to fire on the avenues of approach leading up to Taiwan. In essence, the United States and any coalition of willing allies will have to sail into a veritable shooting gallery to get to Taiwan.
In a Taiwan conflict scenario, there is a real risk that China could make significant progress overwhelming the island’s defenses, or even capture the island outright, before the United States and its allies will have mobilized enough forces to fight back.
If Chinese forces have significant control over the island, the fight becomes much more difficult for the U.S. side. The 2022 CSIS found that Taiwan’s ability to contain a Chinese beachhead was one of four requisite components to a relatively successful defense of the island.
As Paparo explained it, his hope is that this “unmanned hellscape” strategy will provide a rapidly-deployable mass of drones that can stall and degrade a Chinese invasion force.
The ‘Hellscape’ Drone Army
The U.S. military is already taking some steps to build up the drone army needed to fulfill Paparo’s hellscape vision for Taiwan.
In 2023, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks revealed a program, dubbed “Replicator,” which aims to develop a portfolio of expendable unmanned systems for grinding down China’s military.
“Replicator is meant to help us overcome the PRC’s biggest advantage, which is mass. More ships, more missiles, more people,” Hicks said at the time.
Hicks indicated the plan took inspiration from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, where both sides have rapidly weaponized relatively cheap drone systems to devastating effect.
Last May, the Pentagon announced it had chosen the AeroVironment Switchblade-600 as its first Replicator system, and had begun looking for vendors to produce unmanned surface vessels. The Switchblade-600 is a loitering munition that has already seen use in Ukraine. With a set of spring-loaded wings and a pusher prop, the Switchblade can be launched from a tube and hang around over a battlefield, searching for a target.
In November, Hicks announced the first batch of replicator drone systems would be ready to ship to the fighting forces by August of this year.
Other systems are also moving toward delivery. The Pentagon has chosen the Anduril Dive-LD as its first drone submarine.
The Army has chosen another two drone systems as part of the Replicator program. The first is the Anduril Industries Ghost-X drone; an autonomous operating drone helicopter for surveillance, which troops can pack down into a rifle case and assemble for flight in as little as two minutes. For their second new drone, the Army has chosen the Performance Drone Works C-100; an autonomous quad-copter drone capable of carrying and releasing munitions weighing up to 10 pounds.
The Marine Corps has chosen the Anduril Industries Altius-600; a tube-launched autonomous pusher-prop plane that can carry a variety of payloads, including explosive ordnance. The Altius-600 is a loitering munition with similarities to the Switchblade-600.
Alongside the main batch of Replicator systems, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit is also working to develop Air Force’s Enterprise Test Vehicle (ETV). The service is seeking an autonomous system that can fly for up to 500 nautical miles, at a speed of over 100 miles per hour, with the capability to carry a variety of different payloads.
Last month, the Air Force narrowed the ETV program to two finalists: the Anduril 500 Barracuda, and the Zone 5 Rusty Dagger Open Weapon Platform. Both companies have presented their offerings as relatively low-cost, rapidly-producible small cruise missiles.
It remains to be seen whether this Replicator drone army will ever be called into action, and whether it will be effective.
As with any widely publicized strategy, China is likely developing its own answers. A January paper by the China Landpower Studies Center at the U.S. Army War College notes China is preparing a range of systems to counter drones, including laser interceptor systems.
This article was originally published by FreeBase News and is reprinted with permission.
American Military News Rephrased By: InfoArmed