But a top U.S. military commander for Asia says time is running out to put the plan in place.
SINGAPORE — President Xi Jinping has called on China’s People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take Taiwan by force. The United States, together with regional partners, must ensure a Chinese invasion can’t succeed. That plan hinges on quickly building and deploying thousands of new drones that would swarm the Taiwan Strait and keep China’s military busy until more help can arrive, according to the top U.S. military official in the Pacific.
The key to thwarting Xi’s assumed strategy is a U.S. strategy called “Hellscape,” Paparo told me. The idea is that as soon as China’s invasion fleet begins moving across the 100-mile waterway that separates China and Taiwan, the U.S. military would deploy thousands of unmanned submarines, unmanned surface ships and aerial drones to flood the area and give Taiwanese, U.S. and partner forces time to mount a full response.
The timeline for delivery of these systems is unclear. If the drone swarms aren’t ready when the attack comes, that could raise the prospects of a protracted conflict that would incur heavy losses for U.S. Naval and Air Force assets and would likely expand to include allies such as Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, according to most war game exercisesEven if “Hellscape” comes together in time, drone swarms alone will not match Beijing’s massive military buildup on its side of the Strait.
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