Taipei: Drones are unlikely to fundamentally alter the military balance across the Taiwan Strait despite their growing prominence in recent conflicts, an Australian security expert said Wednesday. "I don't think drones are going to change the China-Taiwan military balance," said Sam Roggeveen, director of the International Security Program at Australia's Lowy Institute.
According to Focus Taiwan, during a panel at the 2026 Taipei Security Dialogue, Roggeveen disputed the idea that drones are inherently asymmetric weapons through which a smaller power such as Taiwan can impose disproportionate costs on a larger adversary. Both Taiwan and China can make use of drone technology, he said, adding that there is little reason to believe the People's Liberation Army will be significantly disadvantaged in a cross-strait drone arms race.
Roggeveen further argued that drones would not overturn China's advantages over the United States in a Taiwan contingency, including its proximity to the potential battlefield, greater number of regional bases, and ability to concentrate on keeping U.S. forces out.
Timothy A. Walton, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, agreed that Taiwan should not try to match China's production scale but instead place greater emphasis on the operational value of unmanned systems. Walton advised Taiwan to focus on systems that solve specific operational problems and disrupt key Chinese "kill chains."
Walton also highlighted the need for new classes of weapons that can be produced at greater scale and adapted rapidly through software upgrades and feedback between intelligence personnel and developers.