I feel like we should at least consider that DJI is a mainland Chinese company and nearly all drone innovation in the past decade has originated there. They are no strangers to extreme manufacturing or advanced automated drone technology.
Quadcopters are actually insanely simple devices. I dont think the west would have any issue making hundreds of thousands of them without the help of china. Maybe the chips could be an issue but im sure taiwan would be happy to provide.
The future of drone warfare will be determined by software. That’s the one thing where the US still have a huge lead.
In terms of future AI stuff maybe, but for current year practical purposes there is no relevant difference in software capabilities for controlling a bunch of drones in the way it is being done in ukraine.
I dont think the west would have any issue making hundreds of thousands of them without the help of china.
Insanely simple devices still require a certain minimal amount of materials and manpower to assemble. The terrible secret of the Chinese economy is that they simply have more people doing more manufacturing labor. Sure, they often have state of the art equipment and a robust, heavily industrialized logistics system (one reason why western efforts to pivot off-shore manufacturing to Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and the Indochina Peninsula haven’t been particularly successful). But first and foremost, you need physical labor. Americans don’t have a superabundance of domestic labor, so they’re not capable of rapidly churning out lots of low-cost, disposable weapons systems at a rate comparable to the Chinese mainlanders.
And that’s before you get into the cost of deploying, maintaining, and upgrading a large network of low quality units over a long time frame. Imagine building and deploying an entire fleet of Mark 1 Defense Drones to the island, only to discover a major security vulnerability that renders them easily inoperable. You’ve got hundreds of thousands of these units in the field, all of which need to be recalled, patched, and re-tested. That takes manpower, too.
The reason these low cost easily distributed systems work for, say, Houthi Rebels and Palestinian dissidents is that they’ve got these diffuse cells of insurgents with very little else to do except fight. These large ad hoc guerrilla forces are more a consequence of the deplorable state of the local economy than the fighting power of the region. Idle hands, etc.
Americans don’t have that. We’re at near full-employment. We can’t peel off a tens of thousands of young men to go work on the drone assembly lines without suffering economic shortfalls. Hell, neither can Israel, which is why their domestic economy is tanking while they try to make war with virtually all of their Arab neighbors.
The Chinese economy has capacity to spare. The American economy does not. That’s the same problem the Japanese ran into during WW2, and a big reason why they got washed in Mainland China after a decade of horrifying genocidal occupation.
Its funny but when I think of drones and innovation I don’t think of china. China just mass produces but for the most part when the current class of true drones were being created I remember a lot of amateurs working on it and others, china being one of them stealing the base tech. Just like 3d printing.
China just mass produces but for the most part when the current class of true drones were being created I remember a lot of amateurs working on it and others, china being one of them stealing the base tech.
Wait… you think amateur hobbyists out in the American suburbs are inventing new forms of independent flight technology from kits they bought on Amazon. And then some of the largest and most well-financed universities in the world are stealing the technology?
Just purely out of curiosity, who do you think Mingjing Qi, a professor of energy and power engineering at Beihang University stole this schematic from?
Nope. I was involved and it was people all over the world who started building autonomous and semi autonomous drones them starting back in the mid 2000’s when cheap inertial and gyro stabilizers started appearing. I remember the open source projects that eventually matured into commercial products. China was by no means at the forefront of that. It was hobbyist the world over. Some were students at universities. Some lived in the suburbs and villages and big cities. The world over. Way before the alpha tech in that article. That they have taken those first steps and mass produced them by no means implies they invented it all.
When I think of China I think of serious medical innovations including the cure for fucking HIV and herpes. Idk that they are so great with robotics but I wouldn’t really underestimate them.
Those are being tested, not proven treatments for those diseases.
A few people have been cured of HIV from bone marrow transplants but it has to be a super specific set of circumstances like their blood type has to be a certain type and things like that.
I think of thieves and I am not underestimating them nor am I giving them credit for most of things they ‘discover’ Since its based on tech they stole. I also know that much of the HIV research did not originate in china.
Ever notice how Ukraine has to beg for support but Taiwan has a blank check against a far more capable potential enemy?
Just noticing that maybe Ukraine should start making semiconductors.
Taiwan does not have a blank check.
The US has backed away from any language of the martial agreements with Taiwan.
Have you noticed how aggressive China has been to Taiwan ? Or is it only bad if it is Japan being aggressive towards Taiwan ?
So does Israel. Israel receives checks for weapons and armaments they can resell, Ukraine receives loans along with the associated debt. It’s a regional power thing for the US, treat certain friendly countries at strategic hotspots in such a way that they hold key industries or resources others have to rely on, creating a situation of mutual dependence and giving an incentive for other countries to also support them. Ukraine has Europe and NATO right beside it, so it’s much less on the priority list for the US.
It also creates a bunch of problems, specially when it involves a country that’s borderline religious neocolonialism, and doesn’t work that well against large world and regional powers that are working together like China, Russia, or even Iran.
But Ukraine really does deserve better.
What a stupid fucking comment. How about you open your eyes bud? We have a lot of business with China, China isn’t posturing with war and crying about NATO expansionism and threatening to use nukes.
Get it yet? Probably not, so I’ll help you some more.
The US can build up the defenses of Taiwan because they have no active warzone/conflict. Taiwan isn’t wanting to strike inside Chinese territory. The US cannot give Ukraine everything they want without restriction (because they DO want to strike inside Russia, and rightly so) without triggering Russian escalation WHICH INCLUDES VARIOUS NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
When NUCLEAR WEAPONS are used, the rest of the world WILL get involved. NATO is not just being a jerk about things for fucks sake.
You’re not wrong…
Nations will certainly bend over backward to ensure access to strategic resources. Unfortunately for Ukraine, grain isn’t a highly demanded resource.
Finding some niche technology or product to specialize in would probably be a really good idea. They have experience with rocket engine manufacturing, though that’s not a huge market. I suppose they could always extend that to munitions manufacturing, it seems there’s always a market for that… Sigh…
Ukraine has had massive success with naval drones which I would imagine to translate very well to the defence of Taiwan as well.
The difference between hypersonic missiles and drones is interesting, too. Hypersonics are something a major nation state needs a years long development program to make. They have some inherent issues, like having a limited maneuvering budget without burning themselves up. The response time of defenses are shorter, but existing Patriot missile batteries have managed to deal with them to at least some success.
Meanwhile, Ukraine attaches bombs to some fancy RC planes and sinks much of the Black Sea Fleet. IIRC, they’re up to something like half of it by tonnage, and Russia likely has no way to replace some of the larger Soviet-era ships.
Millions of inexperienced soldiers stuck on ships facing thousands of drones coming from all directions -
I…don’t want to imagine the absolute, pure horror that would be.
The fact that the two current superpowers are actually gearing up for war with each other makes my blood freeze.
This would cause global suffering on par with World War 2. Except in World War 2, most battles were still fought primarily with glorified armored tractors, rifles, shovels and horse-drawn artillery.
Oh, and now, there’s the added danger of a nuclear escalation that will literally bomb us all back into the stone age.
All of this is a lot of flexing, there’s no reason for China to cause massive conflict with the US because both parties would lose in some major ways. Essentially it would just waste resources between the two nations and permanently kneecap both of their economies.
Not to mention that I don’t think any nation is in a position to challenge the US anywhere in the near future. A minor conflict could break out, sure, but an actual war where the US takes the gloves off is not a good idea for anybody.
Exactly this. Somehow this position is one of my most controversial comments, and started some really good conversation.
It’s interesting because you seem to have focused a lot more on the actual Taiwan they’d be invading and less about the worldwide implications of doing so. For me, it’s a much different argument than most people think it is.
People state that the US is overdependent on China but forget that China is also dependent on Taiwan and China is also dependent on the US. For all of the saber rattling that both China and the US do at each other, they’re humongous trade partners and losing that partnership is the #1 reason that neither of them have any interest in actually starting a war. Similar to what Russia does, they will both do as much with words as they can to show power but never go further.
Then when you get to actually talking about Taiwan, it’s kind of irrelevant in regards to geography and taking it over. China has the resources to do that and Taiwan vs China is a losing (but costly) battle if the US isn’t involved. But when the US is involved, they lose. China has a large military and tons of traditional firepower but they don’t have battle tested hardware even. Meanwhile the US eats breathes and sleeps war and is extremely well funded.
So I like your breakdown and I think you’re entirely right but the issue is just so much simpler than people make it in my opinion. Now if another conflict prompted it, China might try to take Taiwan as a distraction, but that’d be the only scenario and we’d already be at war.
Wow! I, for one, will plan to be both shocked and awed by the ‘hellscape’.
