Technological Change, FPV Multirotor Drones, Gas Stations, And The Evolving Cross-Strait Military Balance
🇨🇳 🇹🇼 Extensions
This post is an extension of material that has appeared in another newsletter/section and other parts of my website more generally. While my newsletters/sections are primarily categorized by region—you can either subscribe to specific newsletters/sections or subscribe to the entire website/all of my writings—many posts can be readily placed in multiple newsletters/sections—but only appear in one newsletter/section given how the Substack platform is configured—and may be highly relevant to readers who are primarily interested in other parts of the world. I hope that my Extensions themed posts help rationalize my comparativist analytical approach, one that results in my website covering a very wide range of military-related topics and much of the world.
In a recent post, I reviewed the English-language version of Taiwan’s latest civil defence handbook.
In the above post, I noted that Taiwan
would do well to systematically evacuate outlying areas, particularly the sections of the coastline that are candidates for a PLA amphibious landing, in advance.
In two recent posts, I highlighted how China can, among other things, employ armed “first-person video” (“FPV”) multirotor drones against the island of Taiwan as well as Taiwan’s outlying western islands.
Anyone visiting this website will have noticed that I am a regular and very close observer of the Russia-Ukraine War. My motivations for following that particular conflict are multifaceted. I am, at heart, a comparativist military analyst. The laws of physics—the scientific considerations at play—are universal, as are most of the analytical dynamics at play when we account for (limited and finite) variance in geography and “human factors” (this is why this publication is called Universal Dynamics). As a result, essentially every development in the world of military affairs is relevant to other countries and other contexts. The remainder of this post will broach exactly what the title advertised: how technological change, specifically the advent of “first-person video” (“FPV”) multirotor drones that are being used nine digit quantities in the Russia-Ukraine War, is enabling the highly surgical micro-level targeting of a wide range of targets including gas/petrol stations in a manner that I posit is likely to reshape the fast-evolving cross-strait military balance.
For all the importance of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) combat aircraft and associated armaments, warships, ground-launched missiles, etc.—which I have covered in multiple posts on this website and in other writings—in a conflict in the Taiwan Strait, observers should be mindful that technological change is dramatically expanding China’s options when it comes to attacking such a proximate target. By closely following the Russia-Ukraine War, other conflicts elsewhere, and developments in military technology and military capabilities around the world, we can better discern the realm of possibilities as it concerns China’s ability to wage a war against Taiwan that may or may not involve a much-discussed amphibious landing.
In recent months, first Russia and now seemingly Ukraine have been attacking gas/petrol stations with increasing regularity. What is particularly notable about these attacks concerns the use of armed “FPV” multirotor drones as miniaturized strike munitions in highly surgical attacks against specific nodes of local energy storage and distribution. I have covered these attacks in several posts:
Such attacks against gas/petrol stations constitute some of the many ways that China may attempt to bring Taipei to heel in time of war, with or without an amphibious invasion attempt. Yes, the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) and PLA Rocket Force (PLARF)— and even the PLA Ground Force (PLAGF) and PLA Navy (PLAN)—have strike munitions that can be used to target Taiwan’s oil refineries, refined product storage tanks (i.e., tanks storing readily usable petrol/gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, propane, etc.), and seaborne import facilities. Taiwan does, however, have decidedly non-zero air and ballistic missile defence capabilities in place that can neutralize a decidedly non-zero portion of a realistic PLA strike salvo, and there are many hundreds, if not thousands, of discrete aimpoints that the PLA must target to take offline the largest Taiwanese energy facilities. Even if publicly available estimates of the PLARF arsenal of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles undercount the actual total by half, the PLARF simply does not have enough munitions to undertake a far-reaching energy campaign against Taiwan while also attacking a diverse array of other target types in Taiwan and elsewhere. (Whether the PLAAF in particular will be able to compensate for this is, I think, one of the most consequential and, so far, least—publicly—underexamined analytical dynamics at play)
The challenge that Taiwan—as well as interested observers and analysts—now face is that the PLA has never had so many options for attacking Taiwan’s military forces and critical infrastructure on the island of Taiwan. This includes the use of armed “FPV” multirotor drones and similar to target the likes of gas/petrol stations along Taiwan’s western coastline. As I’ve explained in one of my earlier posts, although armed “FPV” multirotor drones lack the range to cross the Taiwan Strait, these can be launched from aircraft, whether crewed or uncrewed, or vessels, whether crewed or uncrewed, located in/above the Taiwan Strait. Through such micro-level targeting of local energy storage and distribution, which can, of course, take place alongside the targeting of Taiwan’s electricity generation and distribution facilities, oil refineries, and related nodes of the island country’s electricity and energy infrastructure, the PLA can, in effect, make parts of Taiwan “unlivable.” At a minimum, such attacks can be part of prepartory fires intended to prepare the local physical and human terrain for an amphibious invasion, which is likely to have a significant heliborne air assault component. Such a campaign against Taiwan’s local energy storage and distribution infrastructure may, however, also be part of a larger attempt to bring Taipei to heel.
To be clear, the PLA does not appear to currently possess the required—quite inexpensive and largely made in China—capability set, it may never field such a capability set for its own idiosyncratic reasons, and Chinese decision-makers may decide against such a campaign against Taiwan. It is nevertheless important for decision-makers, analysts, and observers to be cognizant of what is and is not within the realm of possibility. The micro-level targeting of critical nodes of infrastructure, including local fuel storage and distribution, is now all too possible, as seen in the context of the Russia-Ukraine War and other conflicts worldwide.
While Taiwan already has (some) defences in place and notwithstanding the fact that countermeasures are undoubtedly possible, Taiwan is unlikely to be able to secure the entirety of an island with a surface area of around 35,000 square kilometers against such attacks. The experience of both belligerents in the Russia-Ukraine War should constitute a sobering example of how there simply may not be adequate numbers of even effective countermeasures to go around, not least when measure-countermeasure dynamics diminish the effectiveness of a given set of systems and necessitate a steady supply of more capable replacements. Coastal low-altitude air defence against small, slow, and low flying aerial targets is very challenging, not least in a context in which the PLA is very well positioned to simply up the ante by using other, higher-end strike munitions to neutralize Taiwanese defences in one sector or another and, in so doing, create an opening for the PLA’s inexpensive and, as such, likely plentiful, armed “FPV” multirotor drones and similar, to undertake a potentially far-reaching micro-level strike campaign against Taiwan. Unlike Ukraine, Taiwan cannot be practically resupplied with armaments in time of war, and its prospects to keep up with China in a wartime measure-countermeasure competition—in the manner that Ukraine is engaged in a measure-countermeasure competition with Russia—without external material support are not promising.
This post is intended to broach the underexamined issue of how technological change is fundamentally reshaping the cross-strait military balance, highlight the benefits of my comparative analytical approach, and highlight the importance of viewing developments in military technology and military capabilities worldwide as nothing other than universal dynamics.