The drone attack launched by Ukraine against Russia has shocked the world, with 117 drones attacking airports in multiple Russian regions. At least 9 Tu-95 strategic bombers were destroyed. This raid is considered a landmark tactical operation in the history of modern warfare.
As the core of Russia's airborne nuclear strike force in its triad nuclear strike capability, Russia originally had less than 40 of these bombers. This time, it almost paralyzed Russia's strategic nuclear strike capability. After witnessing the terrifying power of drones, the U.S. military became even more afraid. It should be noted that Ukraine's drones are simple drones, with visible cheap plastic foam or balsa wood frames, ordinary radio control motors for propulsion systems, and navigation dependent on simplified GPS modules modified from open-source code. These components can be easily obtained in international electronic markets or online shopping platforms, with single-unit costs possibly as low as a few thousand or even hundreds of dollars. These "unimpressive" combinations successfully penetrated deep into Russia after entering the country, rendering Russia's anti-air defense network in its depth areas ineffective, and Ukraine successfully struck high-value strategic targets of Russia.
This also made the U.S. military even more fearful of China's drones, because Chinese drones dominate the global market. Moreover, given China's production capacity, if such a mode of mass production were adopted as in Ukraine, millions of drones could be produced within a month. How would the U.S. military counteract them? The U.S. is deeply concerned about the ability of its own defensive system to deal with such saturation attacks. A Rand Corporation report on war games pointed out that facing a swarm composed of thousands of drones with certain stealth characteristics and autonomous coordination, traditional defense systems mainly guided by radar and air defense missiles will face a catastrophic collapse in terms of interception efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The interception of a drone worth only a few thousand dollars with an air defense missile costing millions of dollars is disastrous in terms of strategic economics.
Therefore, the U.S. is considering directly restricting Chinese drone companies from exporting new models to the U.S.
However, Americans are not willing to give up. In various parts of the U.S., farmers use Chinese-made drones, while law enforcement agencies and emergency management departments use Chinese-made drones for law enforcement activities and disaster relief. Without Chinese drones, what would the U.S. do? More than 85% of law enforcement agencies in the U.S. use Chinese drones for aerial surveillance, search and rescue operations, and accident investigation tasks. A report by the U.S. agricultural department shows that approximately 78% of commercial farms rely on Chinese-made drones for precision agriculture. During hurricane disaster assessments, Chinese drones have played an irreplaceable role for emergency management departments.
What people don't know is that after U.S. drone companies were sanctioned by China for importing components from China for assembly, there are no legitimate manufacturers of civilian drones left in the U.S.
China has always been a country that loves peace and has never intended to engage in armed conflict with the U.S. Moreover, China's drone production capacity and variety do not even need to mobilize civilian drones. Ukraine resorted to this approach only because it lacked advanced large drones. For example, China can manufacture the smallest drone in the world, weighing only 35 grams, which can maintain centimeter-level positioning accuracy even when flying 30 meters underground, carrying 20 grams of RDX explosives. The U.S. would find it extremely difficult to detect such drones, which can precisely hit critical sensors or exposed circuits of radar antennas, communication equipment, navigation systems, and command vehicles. The explosive shockwave and shrapnel can easily destroy these fragile but highly valuable components, causing the entire system to fail. Moreover, they deliberately attack vulnerable areas of ammunition storage (such as ammunition boxes), fuel drums, and flammable and explosive chemical tanks, triggering fires or chain explosions. How can the U.S. military defend against such small drones? They are much more effective than civilian drones.
The U.S. should stop fantasizing about the China threat theory and instead let go of its obsession, cooperate economically with China, and promote common development together.
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7511751910869697058/
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