Illustration © concept of mass dronization (AI-generated)
By increasing its production capacity and equipping each branch of its armed forces with dedicated units, Taiwan is rapidly ramping up its drone capabilities, confirming the paradigm shift underway not only in terms of land warfare, but also in terms of deterrence against a major power with unmatched resources. This paradigm shift is based on replacing “human resources with technology” and the weight of combatants “with firepower” as much as possible (1).
The decision announced last May to equip the Army with drones heralds a fundamental shift in Taiwan’s strategy, which consists of ensuring that “China wakes up every morning feeling that today is not the right day to invade [Taiwan],” according to Defense Minister Wellington Koo in an interview with the Wall Street Journal (2).
It is in this sense that what can be called the “mass dronization” of the battlefield is now contributing to a much more comprehensive deterrence strategy, both in terms of military operations and the involvement of a commercial industrial base capable of meeting the needs of the latter.
Taiwan, Ukraine’s Asian mirror confronting high-intensity threats: technology’s revenge on geography
The provision of dedicated drone units to the Army is part of an ongoing process of drone integration across the Taiwanese armed forces as a whole, which was initiated by the Marine Corps, where some tank and artillery battalions have already been converted into drone squadrons. It is thus part of a broader joint strategy known as the “three-tier” strategy, which was made public a few days ago (3).
According to statements by the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense as reported in various Taiwanese and international media outlets, the use of drones must specifically meet the requirements of a multi-domain denial and resilience strategy based on three levels of firepower:
– the joint operations level, with ISR missions and long-range, long-duration air and naval assaults;
– the tactical level, with reconnaissance missions and identification of naval and amphibious forces, saturation of their air defenses, and support in littoral access denial operations;
– the battlefield level (“combat level”) with real-time reconnaissance and identification capabilities enabling better targeting, increased responsiveness in terms of retaliation, and more precise coordination of actions to be carried out on the coastline and further inland.
Capacity building in the field of missiles and drones is to be funded by a specific budget estimated by some sources at US$30 billion, with the objective – as far as drones are concerned – to deploy nearly 50,000 drones (48,750 to be exact) by 2027 (4).
This allocation of resources is twofold:
– first, it involves the purchase of off-the-shelf drones, as well as parts, components, software, and, more generally, means of production in this field;
– secondly, it is indeed meant to establish a sovereign production capacity with the ambition of manufacturing five new types of drones within two years (5).
Taiwan is thus gradually acquiring about ten different types of drones. As for surveillance and reconnaissance drones, experts list six: Tactical Short-Range II, Target Acquisition, Micro, Land-based, Shipborne, and Surveillance drones, all of which—with the exception of the American MALE MQ-9B Sea Guardian drone (delivery of which will begin in 2026)—are locally manufactured. As for attack drones and loitering munitions, two are locally sourced—namely the Chien-Hsiang and Jin-Feng—and two are imported from the US—the Spring Knife 300 (or Switchblade 300) and the ALTIUS-600 multi-mission drones.
This dynamic of “quasi-instant” acquisition reflects an existential pressure felt in Taiwan that is very similar to that experienced in Ukraine, and feedback from the European theater is therefore logically very present in this approach: it can be felt not only from a tactical point of view, but also in terms of technical specifications. The “overkill” drone, developed jointly by Thunder Tiger and the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST), incorporates the same new-generation strike and camera systems as those used by Ukraine (6), a technology manufactured by Auterion (a Swiss company founded in Zurich in 2017 and based in the United States and Germany) facilitating rapid capacity building.
Anti-drone warfare is, of course, not to be outdone and has been a growing priority in recent years due to increasingly frequent Chinese incursions. Taiwan is developing anti-drone capabilities combining multispectral jamming and new-generation interceptors.
In terms of doctrine, most of the autonomous systems acquired by the Taiwanese military authorities are considered consumables, like ammunition, further confirming the impact of the Ukrainian conflict on strategic thinking as far away as the China Sea and the major doctrinal shift mentioned above.
Next-Gen Surge
For Taiwan’s Minister of Defense, as for many nations around the world, the focus is now on leveraging the potential and experience of the civilian sector to accelerate innovation and autonomy within the armed forces and move towards rapid growth based on “new training, new ways of thinking, new equipment, and new technologies” (7).
In terms of training, four training centers dedicated to drones have recently been set up: one for the Army (8), one for the Air Force, one for the Navy, and another one within the Navy specifically for the Marine Corps. Meanwhile, the integration of drone piloting into the ab initio officer training program became a reality last summer. The idea is not only to build a pool of qualified pilots, but also to quickly expose young recruits to the skills required for asymmetric warfare through the country’s nine military academies. Training covers not only tactical use, but also drone maintenance, an area where shortcomings have been identified in the past, particularly within the Army (9).
But it is above all in terms of resilience and sovereignty that this “new way of thinking” seems to be quickly finding its feet: already a world leader in certain key sectors of commercial electronics (with more than 90% of the production of the most advanced chips), Taiwan has stated its ambition to become a regional hub for the construction of drones free of any Chinese components (“China-Free UAV Hub”) (10). Observers believe that, even if the creation of a new industry in such a short time is very ambitious, the reconfiguration of certain existing production lines is perfectly feasible and bolsters its credibility (11).
Since 2023-2024, Taiwan has therefore launched a vast national program for the production of “sovereign drones” (“Indigenous Drone Program”) (12) aimed at reducing any dependence on Chinese-made components, whether flight maps, batteries, GPS, or other items. This policy has recently gained momentum with the realization that several commercial models used by the Taiwanese forces are dependent on components produced by Chinese manufacturers. In order to reduce the risks of cyber intrusion and sabotage, the development of a secure supply chain—local or allied—in which no link depends on Chinese suppliers is now more relevant than ever, even if the challenge is significant, since, according to many sources, China alone accounts for 90% of the commercial drone market (13).
The industrial goal is to create a drone production hub worth NT$40 billion (approximately US$1.3 billion) by 2030. The Taiwanese Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) has indeed announced a development plan to make Taiwan a regional center for the manufacture of civil and military drones, leading to the standardization of components (propellers, optics, flight controllers) through a policy of tax incentives and subsidies for start-ups and SMEs and through international partnerships (such as the one with Auterion (14)). It is in fact interesting to stress out that half of the MoUs signed by Taiwan concern European countries.
In fact, due to the war in Ukraine, Europe has already overtaken the United States as the leading export destination for Taiwanese drones. According to the website “english.cw.com.tw,” which corresponds to the Taiwanese publication “CommonWealth Magazine (Taiwan),” “Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe have surged since the fourth quarter of 2024, with Europe overtaking the United States as Taiwan’s largest market, a change brought about by China’s export bans on Ukraine. In the second quarter of 2025, the top five destinations for Taiwanese drones were Poland, Germany, the United States, the Czech Republic, and Austria. Poland accounted for 9,307 units (66.8%), followed by Germany with 1,706 units (12.3%) and the Czech Republic with 1,113 units (8.0%) (…)” “(15)
A domestic supply of multi-purpose civilian drones (for agriculture, environmental monitoring, and disaster relief) is gradually replacing Chinese imports and is being exported to Taiwan’s allies, while in the military sector, the “Drone National Team” project (16) already brings together more than a hundred Taiwanese companies around the NCSIST.
Alongside strengthening deterrence on the military front and denial capabilities, the development of this sovereign capability hub is in itself a tool for strategic resilience. By relying on its own electronics, as well as Japanese, European, and American software and components, Taiwan is positioning itself as an alternative supplier for Asian democracies (the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam) and is adding another brick to the ongoing construction of an “Indo-Pacific defense ecosystem” of democratic countries comparable to European technological sovereignty programs such as EDIDP (European Defense Industrial Development Program) and EUMAN (European Military Airworthiness Network) in the areas of airworthiness and interoperability (17).
The principle of “friend-shoring” developed by the US Treasury under the Biden administration (18), or the so-called “trusted supply chains” mechanisms developed in Europe in the cyber field via the ECSO (European Cyber Security Organisation) or ENISA (European Union Agency for Cybersecurity) (19), aimed at securing strategic supply chains, take on a new connotation here.
Similarly, from a strictly military point of view, the hope of establishing a truly effective allied network of ISR sensors to contain threats in the Indo-Pacific through deterrence seems to be coming to life. The recent US proposal made in Kuala Lumpur at the 47th ASEAN Summit for shared maritime domain awareness (20) is certainly in line with what could be broadly described as a policy of containment through drones.
As in the case of Ukraine, Taiwan’s “mass dronization” illustrates the transformation of small technological powers in the face of military giants: turning vulnerability into distributed power, and constraints—both temporal and geographical—into levers for strategic innovation.
Taiwan’s insularity of course prevents fully replicating lessons learned from Ukraine, a continental country par excellence, but these two nations undeniably seem to be playing the role of laboratories for strategic and military innovation in a world where the benchmarks are being reset.
In the field of drones, the other islands in the region are of course far from being left behind: Japan has a superior capability advantage in this area, the Philippines is particularly innovative in naval drones, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam are developing their ISR capabilities, etc. But there is no doubt that the dual nature and specificity of Taiwan’s rise in the field of drones are attracting the interest of the latter: the strengthening of regional deterrence and an additional supplier are considered factors of stability. Taiwan is thus generally perceived not only as a laboratory for innovation, but also as a potential partner.
However, just like Europe, Asia faces the same common regional challenges in terms of threat attribution (particularly those relating to the so-called gray zone (21)), but also in terms of logistics, interoperability, and certification. The establishment of a distributed defense architecture requires the closest possible joint and allied coordination, and the integration of drones into this architecture only reinforces this well-known adage when faced with an enemy whose strength lies precisely in its more centralized nature.
By Murielle Delaporte
Sources
1 The exact quote in English is as follows: “The development of unmanned vehicles by the ROC Armed Forces follows the principle of ‘technology replacing manpower and firepower replacing troop strength’ (…)”. It is taken from: Yu Kai-hsiang, The ROC Armed Forces utilize drones in a three-tiered, four-unit-specific manner, focusing on tactical training, Central News Agency, November 3, 2025 (https://www.cna.com.tw/news/aipl/202511030225.aspx)
2 Joyu Wang, Taiwan’s Military Plans New Drone Units in Preparation for Potential China Invasion, The Wall Street Journal, 22 mai 2025 (https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/taiwans-military-plans-new-drone-units-in-preparation-for-potential-china-invasion-5e26bac0)
3 Christine Casimiro, Taiwan Unveils Three-Tier Drone Strategy to Boost Defense Readiness, the Defense Post, 4 novembre 2025 (https://thedefensepost.com/2025/11/04/taiwan-drone-strategy/)
4 https://def.ltn.com.tw/article/breakingnews/5132448
5 https://thedefensepost.com/2025/08/11/taiwan-drone-soldier-training/
6 https://thedefensepost.com/2025/07/04/taiwan-overkill-drone-china/ ; https://www.ft.com/content/23069435-ada0-4494-9ec0-b4730be8a124;
About the strategic aspects of the discussion, see for instance : https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2025/april/envisioning-hellscape-ukrainian-lessons-taiwan-drone-strategy
7 Yu Kai-Hsiang, ibid.
8 The Taiwanese Army inaugurated its own in January 2025. See, for example, on this subject: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2025/01/19/2003830477
9 Ibid, https://def.ltn.com.tw/article/breakingnews/5132448
10 https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/amid-chinese-security-threat-are-drones-the-next-big-thing-for-taiwan-after-chips
(11) See for instance: https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/taiwan-has-a-secret-weapon-to-beat-a-chinese-invasion-drones/
(12) See for instance: https://www.armyrecognition.com/news/aerospace-news/2025/taiwan-ramps-up-drone-production-with-1-4b-program-to-counter-rising-threats-from-china
(13) Quoted in : https://www.auvsi.org/advocacy/advocacy-initiatives/partnership-for-drone-competitiveness/at-a-glance/ ; but also in : https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidjeans/2025/04/16/silicon-valley-drones-china-problem/ ; https://wisconsinwatch.org/2025/08/china-drone-global-market-commercial-military-duffy-wisconsin/
(14) https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/taiwan-seals-ukraine-combat-tested-drone-software-deal-help-deter-china-2025-06-17/
(15) The original quote goes as follows: “Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe have surged since Q4 2024, with Europe surpassing the U.S. as Taiwan’s top market—a shift driven by China’s export bans to Ukraine. By Q2 2025, the top five destinations for Taiwanese UAVs were Poland, Germany, the U.S., Czechia, and Austria. Poland accounted for 9,307 units (66.8%), followed by Germany with 1,706 units (12.3%) and Czechia with 1,113 units (8.0%) (…) “. It comes from: https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=4361
(16) On the concept of « Drone National Team », see for instance: https://www.politico.eu/article/taiwan-eyes-war-drones-to-counter-china/
(17) See: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/programmes/edidp ; https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-defence-industry/european-defence-industrial-development-programme-edidp_en ; https://eda.europa.eu/docs/default-source/documents/emar-21-amc-gm-edition-1-3-%281-feb-2018%29—approved.pdf
(18) (18) An economic security strategy, “friendshoring” (or “ally-shoring” in the military sphere) refers to the relocation of critical supply chains to friendly or allied countries that share the same political values, particularly democratic ones, in order to reduce dependence on states considered hostile or unstable. The term first appeared publicly in 2021 during a speech by Janet Yellen, US Secretary of the Treasury, at the World Economic Forum in Davos (2021).
On the concept of “friendshoring,” see: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2654; https://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-comments/2022/the-friend-shoring-of-supply-chains/
As well as:
https://fortune.com/2022/07/19/what-is-friendshoring-janet-yellens-new-strategy-fixing-supply-chain-crisis/;https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/friendshoring-nearshoring-reshoring-how-us-trade-relationship-china-evolving; https://www.cfr.org/blog/friendshorings-devil-details; https://www.csis.org/analysis/friendshoring-vs-onshoring
(19) Voir notamment les rapports de l’ECSO et de l’ENISA : https://ecs-org.eu/activities/standardisation-certification-and-supply-chain-management/ ; https://www.enisa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/publications/Good%20Practices%20for%20Supply%20Chain%20Cybersecurity.pdf
(20) https://defense.info/featured-story/2025/11/secretary-of-war-hegseths-maritime-domain-awareness-proposal-for-the-south-china-sea/ ; https://dronexl.co/2025/11/01/pentagon-chief-us-drone-technology-counter-china/
(21) On this large topic, see for instance the following CSIS study: https://www.csis.org/analysis/signals-swarm-data-behind-chinas-maritime-gray-zone-campaign-near-taiwan