Theater-first intel feed with the current analysis and latest brief cards for the selected hotspot.
◈ Theater Assessment
China's drone posture this window is characterized by active strategic signaling against Japan's southwestern island defense buildup, with the PLA publicly framing Tokyo's satellite-aided drone deployment near Taiwan as a provocation — a calculated rhetorical move that reveals Beijing's sensitivity to ISR and strike-capable UAS positioning on its eastern flank. The sanctions-resistant export infrastructure sustaining Russian and Iranian drone warfare capacity remains intact and unchallenged by new countermeasures. China continues to consolidate hardware dependency among client states while simultaneously working to constrain adversary drone basing options in the Taiwan Strait approach corridor.
◈ Key Developments
Current brief cards for this theater.
A Chinese influencer has turned the flying sword in Chinese xianxia fantasy novels into reality by creating a specially-shaped aerial vehicle. Fan Shisan, from southwestern China’s Sichuan province, recently posted a video of himself riding a sword-shaped aerial vehicle, amassing 3.3 million views and 284,000 likes. Dressed in black and striking a cool pose, Fan looks like a knight in China’s xianxia dramas. Xianxia is a popular genre of Chinese fantasy developed from the wuxia, or martial...
The People’s Liberation Army has accused Japan of taking a “dangerous gamble” with its plan to deploy satellite-aided drones to its southwestern islands near Taiwan. In a commentary on Sunday, the PLA Daily, the mouthpiece of the Chinese military, said that while Tokyo maintained that it was building a multilayered coastal defence system, the equipment had a “distinct offensive nature”. “While called a ‘shield’, it is in reality a ‘spear’,” it said. Japan’s Self-Defence Force plans to acquire...
◈ Operational Trend
China is simultaneously advancing its export-as-influence posture in Eurasian and Gulf theaters while escalating rhetorical deterrence against adversary drone basing in its near-abroad — a dual-track approach that pairs client hardware dependency with active attempts to politically delegitimize UAS deployments that threaten PLA operational access around Taiwan.
China’s Silent Hunter directed-energy air defence system has reportedly been sighted in Abu Dhabi Airport in the United Arab Emirates. The system made its first
Chinese companies are exporting dual-use drone components – including engines, batteries, fibre-optic cables and microchips – to Iran and Russia in disregard of US sanctions.
A suspected Chinese underwater drone hauled out of Indonesian waters this month has sharpened global focus on a security race that analysts say has been years in the making across South and Southeast Asia: undersea surveillance. The torpedo-shaped device was found near the Lombok Strait, one of the few deepwater channels through which submarines can transit submerged between the Pacific and Indian oceans and a passage closely watched by the United States and Australia. Beijing said it did not...
A recording of the meeting, published by Ukrainian prankster Yevgen Volnov, captures officials discussing supply chains for unmanned aerial vehicles.
A Chinese military magazine has suggested that if Taiwan sends a swarm of uncrewed combat boats across the strait – a strategy inspired by Ukraine – Beijing could counter with its GJ-21 stealth attack drones. According to a commentary in Defence Review, the GJ-21 has long endurance and high manoeuvrability, which would give it a critical advantage against a “game changing” swarm attack by unmanned surface vessels. The GJ-21 – a naval variant of the GJ-11 Sharp Sword – is the world’s first and...
A vehicle that can zap energy into a fleet of drones, allowing them to fly indefinitely, is getting closer to becoming a battlefield reality. Scientists in China have demonstrated a wireless power transmission system that uses a ground-based microwave emitter to beam energy to an antenna array mounted on the aircraft’s underside. Importantly, they were able to do this while both the drone and charging system were in motion. Some analysts have likened the concept to a “land-based aircraft...
"Russian forces are equipping Shahed drones with passive radar homing." This claim made a splash in Ukrainian media…
While Iranian Shahed-136 suicide drones recently drew attention for destroying key US radars and striking targets as far away as Cyprus in the US-Israel war on Iran, their distant “cousins” in China may pose an even higher risk in a future conflict. China’s ASN-301 shares the Iranian drone’s aerodynamic delta-wing design that is rooted in a common technological origin. The Chinese drone and its variants have evolved into either a highly sophisticated SEAD (suppression of enemy air defences)...
Eight overnight attacks targeted a US diplomatic and logistics centre at Baghdad’s International Airport, an Iraqi security official said on Sunday. Several waves of departures from the US facility occurred on Saturday from the airport, according to another Iraqi security source, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. “Eight separate attacks, carried out until dawn with rockets and drones, targeted the US centre,” the senior security official said, adding that...
Beriev A-50U radar planes are Russia's eyes in the sky. As Ukraine knocks out more of the A-50Us, Russian forces are slowly going blind.
Ukrainian operators of heavy multirotor drones undergo a specialised piloting course in addition to basic military training. Future drone crews are being taught night navigation and manoeuvring with payloads onboard.
The 18-ton vehicle, named the MK1, was developed in less than a year and is envisioned as a multirole platform incorporating lessons from the Ukraine war.
At first glance, placing Army modernization of small unmanned aircraft systems—sUAS—under the leadership of the aviation branch seems reasonable. After all, sUAS fly and share battlefield airspace with crewed aircraft, […] The post Who Owns the Drones? Why Modernization of Army Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Should Be a Maneuver Responsibility first appeared on Modern War Institute .