Taiwan’s Defense Ministry has signed an agreement with the US government to purchase 1,000 attack drones from two American companies, AeroVironment and Anduril Industries, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
The report said that Taiwan signed a “letter of offer and acceptance” in September, a step that comes before contracts are signed and the numbers and costs of the arms deal are figured out. The contracts are expected to be signed soon.
In June, the State Department approved a similar deal worth $360 million for about 1,000 attack drones produced by AeroVironment and Anduril. The sale included 291 Altius-600M systems, which are produced by Anduril, and 720 Switchblade drones, produced by AeroVironment.
China responded to the sale by issuing sanctions on some of the weapons makers and executives involved. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian pointed out the sanctions on Tuesday when asked about the new potential sale.
“Taiwan is a province of China and there is no such thing as ‘Taiwan’s ministry of defense.’ China’s firm opposition to the military contact between the US and Taiwan is consistent and clear. The two US companies you mentioned and relevant senior executives in charge are under sanctions by China,” Lin said.
Both the Altius-600M and the Switchblade are kamikaze drones, meaning they crash into their target to explode. Small kamikaze drones have been used extensively in the war in Ukraine, and the US military has big plans for the weapons as part of its preparations for a future war with China.
Adm. Samuel Paparo, the head of US Indo-Pacific Command, said the US is planning to create a “hellscape” of aerial drones, drone boats, and unmanned submarines in the Taiwan Strait if China attacks Taiwan. “I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities,” Paparo said. “So that I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything.”
Last year, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks outlined a plan to deploy thousands of drones controlled by Artificial Intelligence, known as the “Replicator Initiative.”
“With Replicator, we’re beginning with all-domain, attritable autonomy, or ADA2, to help us overcome the [People’s Republic of China’s] advantage in mass: more ships, more missiles, more forces,” Hicks said at a conference in September 2023. She added that the US plans to deploy the drones “at a scale of multiple thousands, in multiple domains, within the next 18-to-24 months.”
The US is openly preparing for a future direct conflict with China despite the risk of nuclear war. Last month, the US Navy unveiled a plan to be prepared for war by 2027.
Will 1000 make a difference against millions of drones? It sounds like drone production is ramping up everywhere…
Russia is producing 1.4m/year: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-says-drone-supplies-russian-army-increase-tenfold-2024-2024-09-19/
China is much more capable. All drones aren’t created equally, but a billion drones to blot out the sun would overwhelm anything Taiwan can do.
It's never drone vs drone battle, but drone or missile vs something else: ship or land troops typically. You should consider these as "big bullets" in essence, just as missiles. Of course they can be intercepted but such interceptions belong to highly specialized and extremely expensive air/missile defense systems of the kind of Patriot, Arrow, etc., which can only protect so much (if anything at all) and are typically land-based.
These systems are probably quite mobile and can be surely launched from urban areas, which are the big problem China has for any invasion of Taiwan, as they would like to minimize civilian casualties and avoid the ruthless urban warfare that the Ukrainians have exploited in their war in terms defensive (or also the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza). Victimizing civilians is always bad press and that's several times worse if you happen to kill your own people (Taiwanese are mostly Han Chinese). To some extent this can probably be circumvented by surveillance and precision bombing but there's where mobility comes handy, as they can be moved from here to there easily, forcing the enemy to either strike blindly or to not strike at all.
http://www.empowermentresources.com/info2/childrenlearn-long_version.html
China will probably be the next empire. And every “sin” the US government makes now will be precedent for how the US government and citizens can be treated.
Not likely. We will destroy the entire world first. There will be no empire or humans after us. You think I'm kidding? Time for George Carlin:
Holy shit, we need him now.
IKR!? He was my favorite!
Except beating up little countries isn’t dick waving. It’s straight out screwing them for profit.
You’re absolutely correct, but please don’t ruin his jokes. Especially my personal favorite, the missiles are shaped like dick to fu@k with other people.
https://x.com/Agitate4Change/status/1482120072751730693
LOL. He was an amazing genius.
“It’s every man’s war that keeps us apart, with stalwart convictions and affairs of the heart… To struggle forever, until, we are free… The day will soon come, when we’ll all be released”…djv
These could indeed be a hazard for any besieging Chinese fleet: even if only a fraction of them hit their targets, it would mean hundreds of warships damaged.
It must be mentioned however that it's also big business for the US military-industrial complex (MIC), which is who really profits the most from all the ongoing and prospective wars.
True. Now, Taiwan definitely has the right to defend itself, and should have a defense like all nations. Taiwan is of course a nation regardless of what Beijing politicians pretend. It has been a nation for generations. The only reason other countries won't say "we acknowlede they're a nation" is because they don't want to lose trade with China. But everyone admits that it's a nation by following Taiwanese law when they visit or do business with Taiwan.
China is not going to invade Taiwan, which they have also confirmed. And the fact is they CAN'T invade Taiwan – there are only four months of favorable weather a year, they have few modern transport ships for the necessary first-day transports, they'd lose a lot of ships early on due to Taiwan's mines and missiles which can even hit ships right outside the Chinese ports, and the U.S. Navy is far more powerful. And the Chinese also don't want to invade Taiwan, who they do business with every day, with Taiwanese having invested heavily in China. A war would cut off that business and the enormous Chinese trade with and investments in the United States.
Still, the Chinese leaders love sending ships to Taiwan's coast, even surrounding them, to bully and to look big for the domestic audience. They pretend there's a foreign issue to be patriotic about, so young Chinese men can beat their chests in online comments and ignore that they work in office buildings filled with smoke and in factories with toxic chemicals poured out on the floor.
And on the fourth hand, lots of politicians in the U.S. like to pretend that Taiwan could be invaded so they can focus on a foreign issue, just like the politicians in Beijing do. "The Chinese Communist Party! The Cold War is back again and safe to posture about!" Even though China's leaders keep the party name only because they can't admit that their party's beginnings were terrible, because that'd hurt their legitimacy. Ever since Deng Xiaoping took over it has been a market economy with conservative laws, not communist.
I have met plenty of Chinese, none were communist. I have met the daughter of a Chinese general, she was just like anyone else, with an ordinary job. Communist nations don't allow people to travel abroad.
However, China is a bigger threat to the Philippines, by trying to steal their islands for their military. They attack Philippine coast guard ships with high-powered water cannons, even ramming into them. Then some people say, "so what, it's called the South China Sea, and that name means they can do whatever they want!" A name the Portuguese invented. That doesn't mean China's government can claim the waters and islands far away from China – the waters outside Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore. These are absurd claims. If Xi Jinping was smart he'd drop this nonsense and make friends with the South-East Asians instead.
Can of worms you’re opening: Taiwan is not a nation, neither ethnically (people-nation), nor politically (nation-state) in any way of international recognition. It is for all practical purposes a rebel province of China (and the only internationally recognized China since many decades ago is the PRC).
Taiwan can be invaded of course, as China has now grown into a global superpower and that’s their backyard. Taiwanese could hardly muster any serious defense, no matter how much Uncle Sam gives them. It’s like a very small “Ukraine” made up of open plain with 5-7 cities and the mostly Aboriginal hill country to the East (plus several smaller islands near the Chinese coast that are totally indefensible). Once those five cities are captured, Taiwan is done, there’s no space for any further resistance. China can try to invade or to besiege, the former is likely to cause greater casualties to both civilians and the invading army, the latter is somewhat risky for the Chinese Navy however and risks escalation if the USA tries to meddle in the war zone (arbitrarily defined by China and surely including the whole Taiwan Strait).
IMO PR China is not communist anymore, it’s fully capitalist but with a strong director state, much like the first unified Germany of Bismarck (whose foreign policy also imitates): healthcare is limited, housing is privatized and suffering speculative bubbles comparable to those of the USA and about 80% of the economy was in private hands just a couple of years ago (now there seems to be some drive towards re-nationalization because of “war economy” however).
Gotta go…
I see that "openly" was included as a way to make it sound more scary. If someone is "openly" doing something then it's always implied that it's something criminal. But how other than "openly" would you prepare to defend Taiwan? Which you call "future direct conflict". If you would write that they are "openly preparing to defend Taiwan against a possible attack," that changes things, doesn't it?
There are people who pretend that "it's just like Ukraine," which simply comes from the school of "if Washington is FOR it, then I must be AGAINST it!" Same people who claim that Venezuela and Nicaragua are democracies that haven't at all nosiree stolen people's property and killed innocent protesters.
No, it's not like Ukraine. It's like Donbass. If Donbass has a right to break free when there was a coup in Ukraine, why didn't Taiwan have the right to break free when the most murderous criminals in history took control of China? Because of hypocricy.
Ukraine is a large country sharing a border with both NATO and Russia. Taiwan is a small island. Ukraine kept shelling Donbass for seven years before Russia intervened. Taiwan hasn't been shelling anyone, but China keeps bullying Taiwan by sending ships to surround it, as a message to both Taiwan and to South-East Asian nations that it wants to control. The U.S. defending Taiwan is like Russia defending Donbass.
China will never invade Taiwan, they just want a make-believe foreign enemy to whip up patriotism among young Chinese men, distracting them from things like the terrible work conditions. But they love insulting and bullying Taiwan. This even though Taiwan's businesses and China's businesses work with each other every day, and Chinese and Taiwanese visit each other's countries every day.
“Openly”, as opposed to hidden proxy, like Ukraine. Although the US is manufacturing a proxy in Taiwan.
Taiwan is, for the most part, already operating independently from China. They hold their own elections and trade independently. Except that there are crossovers for work. Not everyone in Taiwan wants to sever those connections altogether either.
China is not bombing Taiwan like Ukraine bombed Donbas. The Chinese aren’t utilizing extremists to dehumanize a different ethnic group.
The US has threatened to bomb Taiwan and chip manufacturers to keep it out of Chinese hands. This is not a US exercise in promoting freedom. The US fears the loss of empire.
Correct – the DPRC is way to smart to employ the "New Revised Standard American Edition For Vassalisation".
No invasion – just increasing economic and political ties between Taiwan and China until such time as the DPRC gains majority influence over Taiwan's "independent government".
As to if Taiwan and the DPRC are one nation or two – that's entirely for the DPRC and Taiwan to decide. They know & understand their situation better than any of us do.
If the US fears losing chip manufacture – then it's already past time to invest that "defense money" given to Taiwan into a domestic tech sector capable of exceeding Taiwan's seeming monopoly.
But…it’s easier to threaten and bomb into submission and how else could the blob launder money? These are important considerations.
All good points. But the DPRC is smarter than the US when it comes to the Broken Windows Fallacy.
The USA thinks it makes money by causing and financing destruction with “dead-end” products like weapons. When in reality, the actual cost of the death & destruction wrought upon potential trade partners and future functional democracies, the environmental costs from which “Island USA” is not immune, and the diversion of domestic capital to foreign adventuring, all put the US M.I.C. economy squarely in long-term net loss.
Let me rephrase…a few people in the capitalist elite get filthy rich.
Clever way to get USA technology for reverse engineering?
Imagine it – the USA sells Taiwan all its latest military tech, then the DPRC engineers the installation of a Taiwanese president who leans significantly Beijing's way & hands all that US tech over.