China Is Menacing Taiwan with Drone Swarms and U.S. Is Playing Catch-Up

"The military and commercial drone industrial base in both nations is quite weak," said Stacie Pettyjohn, an analyst at the Center for a New American Security, of Taiwan and the US.

If China's nationalist leader Xi Jinping acts on his long-standing ambition to seize control of Taiwan, he'd seek to take out high-value US military and Taiwanese targets first. China would likely initially seek to target key US military sites in the region in missile attacks, then deploy thousands of drones to surveil and help pinpoint further strikes.

"These drones could pass the target's location to long-range artillery that can range Taiwan or ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles," said Pettyjohn.

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Surveillance drones could also be used to "find Chinese landing forces" and to target them with weapons such as artillery or long-range missiles, added Pettyjohn, while small first-person view drones could be used "like kamikazes as a strike weapon to prevent the Chinese troops from being able to reorganize after making it ashore."

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