The United States military is unprepared to counter the growing threat of low-cost drones and must urgently expand its defenses, a Washington-based think tank has warned.
In a new report, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) said American forces face mounting risks from drones used as mass precision weapons, both in current operations in the Middle East and in potential future conflict with China over Taiwan.
The report, authored by CNAS Defense Program director Stacie Pettyjohn and research assistant Molly Campbell, argues that drones have already undermined U.S. air dominance.
Since 2004, Iran has equipped proxy groups with unmanned aircraft that are more accurate than rockets or missiles but far cheaper to produce. U.S. troops have at times used interceptors costing millions of dollars to destroy drones valued at roughly $50,000, a cost imbalance the report described as unsustainable.
The study also highlighted the scale of China’s drone development, calling Beijing Washington’s “foremost strategic threat.” The People’s Liberation Army, it said, is rapidly advancing autonomous systems and fielding them in large numbers.
As part of the analysis, CNAS conducted a tabletop exercise simulating Chinese drone operations in a prolonged conflict over Taiwan. In that scenario, U.S. forces deployed on a Japanese outlying island and in the Philippines struggled to withstand sustained drone strikes across the Indo-Pacific’s wide geography.
The report concluded that massed Chinese drones could suppress U.S. operations and overwhelm defenses such as jammers, missile interceptors and directed-energy systems.
CNAS recommended building large stockpiles of counter-drone weapons and investing in mobile defenses that can be repositioned quickly to protect dispersed forces.
“Without deep magazines of substantially enhanced counter-drone capabilities, the United States risks having its distributed warfighting strategies overwhelmed by massed Chinese drone attacks, and could lose a war over Taiwan,” the report said.
