The report’s authors detail a number of ways in which the use of drones in any conflict in the South China Sea would differ greatly from current practices, most notably the war in Ukraine, often called the first full-scale drone war.
Differences from the Ukrainian battlefield
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, drones have been helping with what military experts describe as the first three steps of the “kill chain” – finding, targeting and tracking a target – as well as delivering explosives. Drones have a short lifespan as they are often shot down or rendered useless by frequency jamming devices that prevent pilots from controlling them. Quadcopters — the commercially available drones often used in warfare — last just three flights on average, according to the report.
Such drones would be far less useful in a potential invasion of Taiwan. “Ukraine-Russia was a land-heavy conflict, while the US-China conflict would be air- and sea-heavy,” says Zak Kallenborn, a drone analyst and fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who was not involved in the report. , but broadly agrees with her predictions. The small, off-the-shelf drones popular in Ukraine have too short a flight time to be used effectively in the South China Sea.
An underwater war
In contrast, a conflict with Taiwan would likely make use of undersea and sea-based drones. With Taiwan just 100 miles from mainland China, the report’s authors say, the Taiwan Strait is where the first days of such a conflict would likely play out. The Zhu Hai Yun, China’s high-tech autonomous carrier, may send its autonomous underwater drones to detect US submarines. The drones could launch attacks that, even if they didn’t sink the submarines, could divert the attention and resources of the US and Taiwan.
It is also possible that China will flood the South China Sea with unmanned decoy boats to “make it difficult for US missiles and submarines to distinguish between high-value vessels and unmanned junk merchant vessels,” the authors write.
While most drone innovations are not focused on maritime applications, these uses are not unprecedented: Ukrainian forces have drawn attention to modifying jet skis to operate via remote control and using them for intimidation and even sink Russian ships in the Black Sea.
More autonomy
Drones currently have very little range. They are usually operated by a human and although some are able to autopilot to a fixed GPS point, this is generally not very useful in a war scenario where targets are in motion. But, the report’s authors say, autonomous technology is developing rapidly, and any nation with a more sophisticated fleet of autonomous drones will have a significant advantage.
What would that look like? Millions of dollars of defense research is being spent in both the US and China on swarming, a strategy where drones navigate autonomously in groups and perform tasks. The technology has yet to be developed, but if successful, it could be a game-changer in any potential conflict.