February 1, 2024: The United States has taken an active interest in defending Ukraine from the Russian invasion. Even before that the Americans had a similar interest in defending Taiwan from Chinese aggression. That led to the Americans using their experience with the massive use of explosive UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), also known as drones, in Ukraine to develop a new defense strategy for Taiwan.

Recently China has been holding military exercises in waters surrounding Taiwan and this is seen as practice for a rapid blockade of Taiwan. Taiwan has a small navy consisting of four destroyers, 22 frigates, three corvettes, 37 patrol boats, some armed with an anti-ship missile and four submarines. The U.S. Navy always has two or three carrier task forces in the Western Pacific. Each Task force is based on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (CVN) plus three or four escort ships and an unseen nuclear attack submarine (SSN) which periodically sends a communications float to surface to send and receive encrypted messages about the status of the SSN and any useful information recently obtained. Incoming information has to do with any new orders for the SSN and when the next communications float should be sent to the surface.

SSNs are equipped with passive (listen only) sensors that enable them to track activity on the surface. These sensors can differentiate between warships and commercial ships and even identify warships by type. While SSNs are largely invulnerable to attack if they move slowly and keep quiet, the carrier task forces have several types of Chinese ballistic and cruise missiles aimed at them.

If China attacked Taiwan, they want to avoid war with the United States if possible because a prolonged US naval blockade of China would destroy the Chinese Communist Party, and possibly China. While Chinese naval and air forces are a major presence in the West Pacific, the US Navy could intercept almost all Chinese sea trade from well beyond Chinese naval and air range. A war would halt that trade, and this would hurt China more than the rest of the world. Taiwan is well aware of this and knows that disruption of seaborne trade is something China wants to avoid because even a few months of blockade would cause massive Chinese economic and internal political problems. While China is still a communist dictatorship, the government is not as all-powerful as it once was and fears widespread violence if there are widespread and intense economic problems.

Any Chinese attack on Taiwan would have to win quickly so the Chinese could declare a ceasefire and demand that the United States negotiate. To avoid that fate Taiwan has developed tactics that employ thousands of small, armed with explosives, UAVs attacking the Chinese fleet closing in on Taiwan. These UAVs would navigate autonomously until they encounter the Chinese warships and then switch to an attack guidance system. China is seeking ways to disrupt such attacks, but the Taiwanese are always developing new countermeasures for that. For example, Taiwan initially discovered that the manufacturer of the small UAVs it needed was Chinese and that meant Taiwan had to find another supplier for the UAVs. That was done but it takes time for that supplier to increase production to deliver the large number of UAVs needed for the armed swarm.