By Jia Feimao | 2025-08-25

As drones play an increasingly important role in modern warfare, Taiwan is treating "asymmetric warfare" as the core of its force-building strategy. But China across the strait possesses a much larger arsenal of asymmetric weapons.

To respond to this potential threat, Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense plans to procure almost 50,000 military drones by 2027, while the Executive Yuan's aerospace task force will buy more than 50,000 additional drones, primarily to counter the landing operations of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

The coming unmanned vehicles will include attack drones and suicide drones, which will mainly be used to target the vehicles used by the PLA to carry out landing operations, Lin Ying-yu, an assistant professor at Tamkang University's Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, told Focus.

A 'sea of drones'

Even so, Taiwan's drone fleet remains small compared with China's vast drone industry and well-trained forces.

Beijing is likely to launch a "sea of drones" in its first wave of attacks on Taiwan in a bid to paralyze Taiwan's air defense network and deplete its limited air-defense ammunition, analysts have said.

The PLA's drone units not only can perform reconnaissance and strike missions but may be used as bait for Taiwan's air defense missiles, Shu Hsiao-huang, an associate research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told Focus.

Currently, Taiwan relies mainly on indigenous Tien Kung (Sky Bow) missiles and US-made Patriot PAC-3 missiles to intercept enemy aircraft. However, these interceptor missiles cost much more than do the cheap drones China is deploying: the Sky Bow costs approximately $1.5 million per missile, while the Patriot PAC-3 costs about $3.7 million.

While such costly missiles are necessary against larger drones, using them against small, cheap drones is highly inefficient, said Shu.

Shu likened it to firing artillery at birds.

China is deploying large numbers of expendable drones, Gaurav Sen, a senior research fellow at Jawaharlal Nehru University, wrote in the Strategist in July.

A drone swarm costing only several million dollars can easily penetrate and paralyze Taiwan's air defense system, he said.

"This easily exploited disparity could prove fatal for Taiwan," he said.

Air defenses easily overwhelmed

The recent Israel-Iran and India-Pakistan conflicts have shown that conventional air defense systems have limited effectiveness in dealing with low-altitude, mass drone assaults and can easily be overwhelmed by a large number of low-cost targets, said Sen.

Shu echoed this view. "For Taiwan, the most urgent threat is low-altitude, low-speed small drones," which can easily be mistaken for birds and missed by radar, he said.

The Taiwanese military in most cases still relies on visual identification and manual fire, since it lacks an effective defense system, he said.

In 2022, when Chinese commercial drones repeatedly flew into Kinmen military outposts, the defending troops could only "throw stones" to drive them away. This scene was widely circulated online and harmed Taiwanese morale.

Although the AN/TPS-77 and AN/TPS-78 radar systems, sold by the United States to Taiwan, are purportedly able to capture such targets, their capacity to quickly transmit detection data to air defense systems remains unconfirmed.

More training needed

The PLA's drone swarm gravely endangers Taiwan's security, but in previous Han Kuang military exercises held by Taiwan, the "Red Army team (simulating PLA forces)" has never been seen using drones to simulate threats, said Shu.

Even this year's edition of Han Kuang, touted as the largest yet, did not include "drone countermeasures" as a separate theme for systematic drills and verification.

"In the next war, the first enemy we encounter may not be one in uniform or waving a flag in attack but rather a drone that 'anyone can buy,'" Chang Hou-kuang of Taiwan's defense contractor Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation, said in an opinion letter to the Storm Media in late July.

Time needed to adjust

If Taiwan's military exercises do not include such areas as infiltration by "low-altitude, low-speed small" enemy aircraft, Global Positioning System deception and image-return interference, it will be hard to verify the troops' readiness, said Chang.

At the strategic level, Taiwan must recalibrate its thinking on air defense and "realign its systems to prioritize cost-effective interception," such as deploying rapid-fire gun systems, such as the Phalanx CIWS, laser weapons, jamming equipment and interceptor drones, while dispersing radar and missile positions to improve system viability, Sen, also the author of Peril of the Pacific: Military Balance and Battle for Taiwan, suggested.

"China no doubt intends to blind and paralyze Taiwan in an initial strike," he added.

For Taiwan to survive the first wave of attacks, Sen added, it must keep its sensors and communication systems working. It can protect them by using fortified mobile radar, having backup communication networks and spreading out command centers. Additionally, Taiwan needs to strengthen its early warning systems, logistics and cooperation with its partners to effectively resist.