Envisioning a Hellscape: Ukrainian Lessons for a Taiwan Drone Strategy

In response to the 2022 Russian invasion of its country, the Ukrainian Navy promptly started sinking adversary ships on the Black Sea. One of the first targets was the Soviet-era patrol ship Hetman Sahaidachny, commissioned in 1993—which just so happened to have been the Ukrainian Navy’s own flagship. 

The Hetman Sahaidachny was purposefully scuttled to prevent a repeat of the 2014 Sevastopol incident in which 12 of Ukraine’s 17 navy ships were captured by Russian forces. While the ship’s potential capture may have become a propaganda coup, it would have provided the Russians very little in the way of combat power. That she had remained in service for so many decades, to say nothing of the fact that she was the Ukrainian Navy’s flag ship, is a testament to the extreme asymmetry between Russian and Ukrainian naval forces in the Black Sea.

And, yet, Ukraine has proven capable of destroying enemy warships as effectively as it did its own. Estimates suggest Ukraine has sunk around one-third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, including its flagship, the Moskva—a result that seems inconsistent with the balance of conventional naval power in the region. The technology and strategies that transformed the Ukrainian Navy from one whose initial response to war was to sink its flag ship into one that has destroyed or neutralized its adversary’s fleet will have a direct bearing on the “Hellscape” strategy.¹

1,000 Drones Is Not Enough

Last year, Admiral Sam Paparo, Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, described Hellscape as an effort to “turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities so I can make [the Chinese military’s] lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything.”² 

Hellscape manifested publicly in the recent sale of more than 1,000 of Anduril’s Altius-600M and AeroVironment’s Switchblade-300 drones to Taiwan.³ While this is a logical first step—and understanding that much of the United States’ and Taiwan’s deterrent planning will not be found in the public sphere—lessons from Ukraine suggest a stockpile of high-end U.S. unmanned aerial systems (UASs) alone will be insufficient to darken the Taiwan Strait for a month.

First, planners must reckon with the fact that 1,000 drones is not a lot. Across Ukraine’s 600-mile front line, where an actual Hellscape of unmanned systems has been brought into existence, Ukrainian forces are said to be expending approximately 10,000 drones per month.⁴ While this figure includes smaller and cheaper drones than those recently sold to Taiwan, it represents the steady outlay of a relatively stable conflict. In contrast, the opening volleys of unmanned systems between China and Taiwan should be expected to churn through thousands of UASs on a daily, if not hourly, basis. 

To understand the sheer mass of missiles and drones required to cause significant attrition in modern conflict, consider Iran’s 2023 attempted strike on Tel Aviv. Along with more than 100 ballistic missiles, approximately 170 Shahed-style loitering drones were launched toward Israel from Iranian soil. The strike was promptly swatted out of the sky by U.S. and Israeli air-defense systems. 

China likely will have comparable, if not superior, air defenses covering its landing force and shoreline. Even though the U.S. drones sold to Taiwan are the larger Switchblade-600 and Altius-700—which are closer in size and range to the Shahed system than the Switchblade-300 or Altius-600M—the recent sale would give Taiwan just four or five volleys of this nature. Again, with the understanding that Indo-PaCom would have done more than is publicly known to prepare the Hellscape, 1,000 kamikaze drones could have little strategic impact.

China’s Capabilities

After reconciling themselves to the strategic insignificance of 1,000 kamikaze drones, Hellscape planners must next come to terms with the relative production capabilities of China and Taiwan. China is a dominant supplier of UAS components in the Ukraine war—to both sides.⁵ Units in Ukraine’s new “army of drones” publish wish lists filled with requests for Chinese-made DJI Phantom drones and links to Chinese e-commerce websites. Russia has parried creatively with its own army of drones, and each country now claims to have the capability to deliver more than a million drones per year.⁶ The veracity of these claims and quality of these drones notwithstanding, the components of these million-odd drones come predominantly from China. 

If China’s supply chain has adjusted to support the annual production of (conservatively) one million drones in two countries at war with each other, it is reasonable to expect the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would be able to indigenously produce at least as many in the event of its own war. That means around 100,000 drones are produced in Beijing’s factories per month, indefinitely. Currently, most of these drones are short-range quadcopters that would have a limited role in a cross-strait invasion. Disconcertingly, however, larger, long-range drones have many of the same components as short-range quadcopters, so while the magnitude of China’s productive potential can be shrunk, it should not be written off. 

A slightly outdated report by the Department of Defense, not accounting for the new Replicator acquisition program, estimated that the U.S. military has a total of around 11,000 drones.⁷ While comparing the average Chinese, Russian, or Ukrainian drone to the average U.S. drone is like comparing apples to much larger and technologically advanced oranges, the napkin math suggests China’s peacetime supply chain is sustaining the production of the equivalent of the Department of Defense’s entire UAS stash several times over—on a weekly basis.

Efforts to generate defensive depth by saturating the air above the 110-mile-wide Taiwan Strait pits Taiwan against China in an ill-advised struggle for a numeric upper hand. The ability to continuously find, fix, and finish enemy assets navigating across the Taiwan Strait will invariably go to the belligerent that can launch multiples of more drones and missiles than the other without fear of expending its stockpiles. Taiwan’s drone strategy therefore should emulate Ukraine’s relatively conservative use of naval drones and protect those capabilities with counter-UAS methodologies developed in Ukraine’s ground war. 

Adopting and Adapting Ukraine’s Drone Strategy

At first glance, Ukraine’s sea drone strategy, executed on the flank of a primarily land campaign, appears incompatible with Taiwan’s amphibious problem set. Ukraine’s Navy couples small groups of longer-range assets—including Neptune antiship missiles and sea drones such as the 2,000 pound MaguraV5—with a thorough intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance regime to tailor strike packages over weeks and months. The patience and precision that characterize the strikes against the Russian Black Sea Fleet will feel unavailable, or even irresponsible, to Taiwanese planners during the chaos of an invasion, when they will be tempted to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks to the PLA Navy armada appearing on the horizon.

Be that as it may, Taiwan has inherent advantages that might allow it to use its drones with the same tactical prudence displayed by Ukraine. For one, the island nation has advance knowledge of which harbors and beaches the Chinese ships would be sailing toward: their own. With this information, in tandem with mining operations, other engineering efforts, and an understanding of the tides and sea floor, Taiwan could ascertain, with reasonable certainty, the movement corridors an invading force would traverse. Further, except for deceptive maneuvers, invading Chinese ships would arrange themselves into their respective priorities as the assault craft approach the beach while cruisers and destroyers lingered at range. 

Of course, Taiwan military forces would be targeted by over-the-horizon ballistic and cruise missiles, but China would need to establish a physical presence on the island to turn its barrages into an invasion. That physical presence would necessarily come into view of spotters on Taiwan’s shoreline, putting them in possession of higher-quality targeting data than the Ukrainians have enjoyed in the Black Sea. To achieve the precision with which Ukraine has successfully kept the Russian fleet at bay, Taiwan should circumscribe the area it seeks to control with its drone stockpiles by the island’s beach landing site approaches.

The Hellscape’s nature as a delaying action would further curtail China’s ambitions. Taiwan UAS operators would be required to slow the invasion’s progress, not repel it entirely. A swarm of drones overhead could delay the invasion by sinking ships, which could force Chinese commanders to send even more waves of amphibious forces to gain a foothold on the island. It also may be possible, though, for a drone stockpile to passively delay the invasion by robbing Chinese commanders of the confidence to move from the preparatory phase to the decisive phase of their amphibious assault. 

In U.S. strategy, contested amphibious assaults are considered one of, if not the most difficult operation and are separated into five phases. The decision to initiate phase four, “securing the beach,” is unlikely to be made unless the commander concludes enough landing craft would survive the trip to the beachhead. To reach this determination, the respective Chinese commander likely would first launch a massive salvo seeking to destroy Taiwan airfields, logistical hubs, and defensive structures. Only after these preparatory fires had successfully attrited Taiwan’s defenses to a predetermined level would the Chinese send their landing craft into the assault. 

Therefore, to buy a month of time, Taiwan need not blot out the sun with drones. Rather, its Hellscape only would have to retain the ability to destroy more invading ships than the Chinese commanders felt they could afford to lose before their assault would fail. That is, a stockpile of drones that could prevail through Chinese preparatory fires and be launched when the PLAN assault craft encroach on the island might keep Taiwan’s defensive capabilities above the Chinese commander’s criteria to move into the PLAN’s version of phase four. 

Supporting Infrastructure and Systems

Drones are naturally hardened against preparatory fires because they are small, modular, distributable, mobile, concealable, and blast resistant. Still, a stockpile of drones by itself cannot guarantee the Hellscape capability will endure for a month. Taiwan’s drones, if they are to be effective, will need supporting infrastructure and systems. Emitting and nonemitting radar systems, communication relay sites, and logistical hubs will all need to be protected so Taiwan’s drones and missiles can be maximally threatening. 

To conserve their own assets of this kind, Ukrainian and Russian forces have built a layered and distributed defense for several miles both east and west of Ukraine’s zero-line. Overlaying miles of trench line is a GPS blackout and around-the-clock radio frequency jamming. Even U.S.-supplied Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System rockets for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System are susceptible to Russian jamming.⁸ Soldiers are forced to spread out and stay moving, as static targets are vulnerable. Ubiquitous jamming is driving the next evolution in missile and drone technology to be artificial intelligence–enabled munitions, which will rely on self-contained imaging and computing processes to identify and attack targets. 

Taiwan, of course, is developing capabilities analogous to those Ukraine uses to protect its own defensive infrastructure. But Taiwan’s recent purchases of F-16 fighter jets represent a continued trend of concentrated investment in targetable assets at odds with the antiplatform, distributed, and layered defense that could successfully delay a Chinese invasion. In the same manner that Google Maps allows Taiwan’s planners to count the number of beaches on which Chinese assault craft might land, Chinese planners can count and target the airfields and highways that can service F-16s. 

A better investment would be in stockpiles of radio and GPS jammers that complement the drones and antiship missiles Taiwan is already assembling. Particularly if Taiwan can rely on partner forces to take some responsibility for disrupting China’s logistic trains and deep targets, the island nation should prioritize capabilities that improve its advantages as a defender—not in fighter jets. China’s introductory barrages would target sensors and jammers in addition to missile silos and airfields. These assets are more cheaply replaced and repaired than airfields, and, if apportioned appropriately, would maximize the Hellscape threat to Chinese assault craft. Further, if planners do limit Taiwan’s Hellscape to the near fight, the sensors and jammers necessary to protect and facilitate Taiwan’s drone swarms can be smaller and more mobile than if the Hellscape tried to reach across the strait. 

The unmanned Hellscape strategy compounds the difficulty a contested landing on Taiwan would pose to PLA commanders. Swarms of enemy drones could critically attrite PLA forces crossing the Taiwan Strait. However, an overambitious Hellscape risks putting Taiwan in competition with the PLA in a numbers game, which Taiwan is unlikely to win. Instead, Taiwan should learn from the principles the Ukrainian Navy put into practice in the Black Sea and the lessons the Ukrainian Army learned countering Russian ground forces. In doing so, a different version of the Hellscape comes into view. 

By virtue of its distributed, mobile, and replaceable design, a layered Hellscape could persist through Chinese preparatory fires, and, by virtue of its narrowed geographic and temporal scope, a limited Hellscape would patiently and precisely threaten PLA assault craft as they transition into the assault. Such a Hellscape would be a nightmare for PLA commanders and therefore would be Taiwan’s best bet to deter, delay, or even defeat an invasion.