Lesson from Ukraine: US, Taiwan need interceptor drones and wide-area jammers
The deep strike calculus was already changing for all the world’s leading military powers when, back in August, Ukraine dramatically illustrated the shifting balance of power by revealing a powerful and inexpensive new cruise missile, the Flamingo.
The six-ton, 3,000-kilometre-range missile is priced at $500,000 per round, a quarter the cost of a US Tomahawk cruise missile. Since early this year, Ukraine has been shooting the fibreglass Flamingos with their second-hand turbofan engines at Russian targets in occupied Ukraine and in Russia itself.
Cheap missiles and one-way attack drones in the class of the Iranian-designed, US$50,000 Shahed (in effect, propeller-driven cruise missiles) are proliferating faster than cheap defences against them are proliferating. That means, for now, the countries with the bigger deep strike arsenals have an edge over their opponents. They can strike relentlessly, suppressing the enemy’s defences, disrupting their command and control, severing their supply lines and terrorising their population.
That could change, however. Cheap interceptor drones can defeat cheap attack drones. More importantly, new electromagnetic warfare systems can jam munitions’ navigation across wide areas, sending both missiles and drones flying off course—on a budget.
Both types of systems should be top priorities for US and allied forces in the western Pacific. Erecting affordable, scalable defences against Chinese missiles and drones would allow US and allied forces to deploy their own deep strike munitions to greatest advantage. They could pummel Chinese forces without taking the same beating in return.
Once again, Ukraine points the way. Ukrainian forces have recently added first-person-view interceptor drones to their layered air defence architecture. There are many different types of interceptor drone, and they normally cost between US$1,000 and US$5,000 each.
Most of them work the same way. Steered by an operator wearing a virtual reality headset, a propeller-driven interceptor accelerates toward an incoming Shahed at a range of just a few miles and an altitude as high as 3,000 metres—and rams it. ‘Those drones I think are going to make a big impact because they’ve proven capable of shooting down Shaheds—and they’re much cheaper than a Shahed,’ independent analyst Andrew Perpetua said.
Even with the interceptor drones, Ukraine is struggling to defend against Russian strikes, however. At least once a week, the Russians launch devastating barrages of drones and missiles, often 500 or more at a time, targeting Ukrainian bases, cities, factories and powerplants.
Ukraine’s best surface-to-air missiles, its US-made Patriots, cost US$2 million a round—and, for that reason, are in short supply not just in Ukraine but all over the world. Usually around 10 percent of Russian munitions get through—and that 10 percent has killed hundreds of civilians, unravelled military logistics and cast Ukraine into cold darkness as the chilliest winter months loom.
Ukraine can’t shoot its way out of its air defence problem. But maybe it can jam its way out. ‘Jamming is the only economically viable solution,’ said the head of Ukraine’s Night Watch electronic warfare team, a person who uses the public nickname ‘Alchemist’. The team is part of the Ukrainian Territorial Defence Forces.
Ukrainian forces are deploying more and more wide-area jammers, including Lima EW, Pokrova and AI-Petri systems. They all work basically the same way, broadcasting radio noise to deafen the radio receivers that connect Russian munitions to their navigation satellites. (Disclosure: I’ve done contract social media work for a US-based company that supports the development of the Lima EW system.)
A set of eight or a dozen electromagnetic-warfare emitters can protect an entire city and may cost just a few million dollars. No jammer is perfect, but it’s worth noting that the Lima EW emitters protecting Starokostiantyniv in western Ukraine recently jammed all six Kinzhal missiles the Russians fired at the city, causing them to fall harmlessly into forests and fields.
US and allied forces in the western Pacific face a Chinese missile and drone problem that’s similar to the Russian drone and missile problem that Ukrainian forces face. Analysts expect that, in the early hours of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force will target Taiwanese and US air bases, ports and headquarters with thousands of cruise and ballistic missiles.
The scale of the problem will only grow as China develops and deploys a pair of inexpensive Shahed-style attack drones, the DFX-50 and DFX-100. The problem for the Americans and Taiwanese is that their air defences are still built around the Patriot system. There simply aren’t enough of Patriot rounds in US and Taiwanese stocks to swat down every Chinese missile—to say nothing of shooting down potentially thousands of DFX-50s and DFX-100s.
Interceptor drones could address the attack-drone threat. But a cruise missile traveling at 900 kilometres per hour can easily evade an interceptor drone traveling at 300 kilometres per hour. The effectiveness of the current interceptor models drops sharply against high-speed threats, Alchemist said. Interceptor drones also ‘have limited flight time, are sensitive to weather conditions and [their] battery efficiency declines in cold weather,’ Alchemist noted.
As in Ukraine, wide-area jamming may be the best solution to the missile and drone problem in the western Pacific. Ironically, the same paucity of bases near Taiwan that vexes US and allied planning in the region also makes wide-area electromagnetic warfare easier. The Americans and Taiwanese don’t need to protect thousands of potential targets spread evenly across hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of dry land.
Instead, they need to protect a smaller number of key facilities highly concentrated in smaller areas, many of them islands—Kadena air base in Okinawa, to name one. And a few other air bases and ports in Japan. And Guam. And, finally, major air bases, ports and headquarters in Taiwan, which is barely 1/20th the size of Ukraine and would require many fewer jamming emitters for effective defence.
Cheap cruise missiles and attack drones are a growing threat everywhere. But the geography of the western Pacific is almost tailor-made for an affordable defence: a jamming-first defence backed by inexpensive interceptor drones.
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