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Posted on 06/24/2026 2:09:17 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Taiwan’s executive branch pitched a $6.6 billion budget last week for the procurement of more than 200,000 domestically-made unmanned systems designed to defend the island’s shores.
The proposal will cover up to 208,200 one-way attack drones, 1,446 reconnaissance drones and 1,320 unmanned surface vessels, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense on Friday. A social media post on Sunday from Joseph Wu, the Secretary-General of Taiwan’s National Security Council, claimed that the budget will create an “unmanned shield.”
Amid concerns of a potential invasion from China and an increasingly capable People’s Liberation Army, Taipei has turned to unmanned systems to help blunt a potential invasion. In recent years, Taiwanese and American firms have pitched attack drones following successes from similar systems deployed by Ukrainian forces against Russian warships in the Black Sea.
Procuring the three types of unmanned aerial vehicles and drone boats “would significantly improve maritime domain awareness and targeting capability,” Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo said last month in a briefing to Taiwanese lawmakers.
“These systems could support precision-guided missiles, unmanned surface vessels and coastal strike drones in rapidly detecting and engaging hostile naval forces, thereby enhancing early warning and rapid-response strike capabilities within Taiwan’s asymmetric defense framework,” reads the MND news release.
The Taiwanese military previously focused on conventional methods to counter an attack from the mainland. However, Beijing’s modernized and expanded amphibious, long-range strike and naval forces has led Taiwan to shift to a new approach – asymmetric capabilities, such as attack drones.
Taiwan’s land-based anti-ship missile brigades, fast attack craft and other mobile dispersed long-range strike systems have seen renewed investments between 2022 and 2026 through the Sea-Air Combat Power Improvement Plan. Under this previous special budget, Taiwanese forces received funding to bolster their stocks of domestically-made anti-ship missiles, air defense systems and one-way attack drones.
American firms Anduril, Kratos and General Atomics have sold drones to Taipei and are looking to begin coproduction in Taiwan to bolster domestic defense efforts. Anduril’s Altius attack drones were fielded against maritime targets for the first time earlier this month. This week also saw the first MQ-9 SeaGuardian drone arrive in Taiwan ahead of flight trials.
The Taiwan Cabinet presented the budget last week following the removal of similar drone provisions from President Lai Ching-te’s initial $40 billion special defense budget, which faced months of hurdles from opposition parties. A heavily trimmed down version of the budget, amounting to $25 billion, was passed last month. This version removed many of the proposal’s domestic defense industrial base initiatives – such as the mass unmanned systems procurement – and kept funding for American long-range missile systems and artillery.
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Hmmm....
Sounds like Taiwan is adopting the Ukraine defense initiatives. Drones in the air; drones in the water.
All they need now is to purchase the already available technology from Ukraine, and perhaps from the U.S. and Europeans.
Yes, they did get that idea from Ukraine, and are purchasing from them. China is incredibly angry about it. Russia screwed them over.
It effects the United States too, because now big expensive war ships can be taken down by cheap drones.
6.6 Billion. That’s a good start. Hardened command and control will be at least half that.
They haven’t faced the real threat yet.
It won’t be a few dozen drones.
It’ll be thousands from all vectors
Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs), and specifically Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are the way to go.
Russia had tanks. China has boats, military and civilian.
Of course there will still be a need for flying drones, but they will need some modifications to extend their distance and to contend with strong winds.
Maybe the can get that L.A. school chat bot Ed to run their drones.
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