The government requires non-developmental counter-unmanned aerial systems to be delivered to the Communications-Electronics Command’s Integrated Logistics Support Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, per the notice.

“The intent of this Sources Sought is to assess the availability of vendors and pricing” to provide 4,145 counter-UAS systems to meet the requirement, officials wrote.

The Army is eyeing devices that can detect, track and identify small drones in the Group 1, 2 and 3 categories of UAS and allow operators to “tag” them as friendly or foe.

Officials are looking for technology that can provide real-time classification of drone threats operating in the ISM frequency spectrum and display critical information about them.

More specifically, they want a soldier-portable capability that offers threat detection with 2-plus mile range; handheld display unit with network connected and offline map display; ability to create a user-defined “tripwire” drone warning area on a map display to alert users to incursions; show threat information such as speed and altitude with geolocation accuracy of 10-20 meters; and identify the position of the “initiator,” or remote controller, among other desired characteristics.

Officials noted that the non-developmental or commercial systems must be exportable to Taiwan and cannot be made in China.

Pentagon officials are concerned that China’s military forces might try to invade Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing aims to bring under Chinese Communist Party control. In recent years, the People’s Liberation Army has been conducting large-scale military activities in the region that some observers believe could be a portent for a future attack.

For decades, the United States has provided military equipment to Taiwan, but some U.S. officials feel a greater sense of urgency now as China beefs up its military capabilities.

The U.S. military is also investing in a wide variety of new counter-drone technologies to protect its own forces around the world. Notably, counter-UAS is one of the focus areas of the Army’s transforming-in-contact initiative.

Industry responses to the sources sought notice are due June 4.

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Tensions between China and Taiwan have been on the rise in recent years — particularly since Chinese President Xi Jinping revealed his intent to ensure that the People’s Liberation Army would be prepared and equipped to “unify” (or invade) its smaller neighbor by 2027. Although Beijing sees the island as a piece of its territory, Taipei has been under the rule of its own separate government for roughly 75 years.

The security situation in the Indo-Pacific seems more uncertain this week, after Taiwan national security officials raised alarm that they’re detecting a large fleet of warships, high-altitude surveillance balloons and other markers of potential future aggression they associate with China’s military.

“We have remained focused on the [People’s Republic of China’s] activity for quite some time. That’s why the PRC has been our pacing challenge for the last four years. We’ve talked about their coercive actions in the region. And certainly, this latest activity is something that we will continue to monitor and make sure that that nobody does anything to change the status quo in the [Taiwan Strait],” Austin said during a press briefing to close out a multi-day trip to Japan, which will mark his final visit to the Indo-Pacific as the U.S. defense chief.

The secretary highlighted joint pursuits that America and Japan executed on during his tenure, including an ongoing push to collaboratively upgrade their militaries’ command-and-control frameworks and expanding their shared operational responsibilities.

Notably, the Taiwan Strait is considered one of the world’s most critical waterways for global shipping, as heaps of valuable trade assets pass through it every day. Beijing so far does not appear to have made it clear whether the capabilities its surging near the strait this week are part of a training exercise, military drill — or some other, more threatening scheme.

Responding to DefenseScoop’s questions in Japan Wednesday, Austin didn’t say if he’s spoken to his Taiwanese counterparts about the still-evolving incident, or if his team has any indications of China’s reasoning for the deployments near the island this week.

“Our policy hasn’t changed. We’ll continue to do what we can to help Taiwan acquire the means to defend itself. Again, that work continues on. But this latest activity — we’ll continue to monitor it and see what happens,” he said.

Austin also expressed confidence that the U.S. military will continue to have the capacity and focus to deter China and work with its allies to promote peace around the Indo-Pacific, even as conflicts around the Middle East and in Ukraine continue to expand.

“Throughout [the last four years], the PRC has been our pacing challenge. And we have done a number of things that — globally — can help our partners and allies,” he told DefenseScoop. “A combination of what we’ve done to help Ukraine defend itself and put more pressure on Russia, to help Israel do what it’s done, has made Russia weaker and Iran weaker as well. And so that has had an impact.”

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Austin is representing the United States and participating in formal exchanges with multiple international military partners at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus) on Wednesday and Thursday, marking the latest stop of his week-long trip to multiple nations across the Indo-Pacific region. 

Speaking on the condition of anonymity to preview his plans ahead of the events, two senior U.S. defense officials attending in Austin’s entourage briefed reporters on the secretary’s agenda for the conference.

Leading up to the ADMM-Plus, those and other Pentagon officials suggested there was a chance Austin and Dong would directly connect on the sidelines of the event. Hope was building over the course of this week on the U.S. side for the possible linkup — particularly following President Joe Biden’s meeting with People’s Republic of China President Xi Jinping in Peru on Nov. 17.

But the night before the main ADMM-Plus events kicked off, the U.S. officials told reporters that Beijing — through an American defense attache — rebuffed Austin’s invite for the formal meet-up.

“I regret that the PRC chose not to meet here. The PRC decision is a setback for the whole region. As I’ve said consistently, the right time to meet is anytime now,” Austin told reporters in a press briefing late Wednesday after his meetings at the ADMM-Plus concluded.

U.S.-China relations are historically complex, and America’s contemporary national defense strategy identifies the Chinese military as the Pentagon’s top pacing threat. The nations’ rivalry could reach a tipping point in the near future regarding Taiwan, a self-governing island in East Asia that’s considered one of the United States’ closest partners in the region — which the PRC also claims as part of its territory. 

The senior defense officials told reporters that the rationale that Beijing provided for its rejection was related to the roughly $2 billion weapons sale package the U.S. approved for Taiwan in October, consisting primarily of missile and radar systems.

However, they also noted that, in their view, it’s all part of a long-standing pattern of PRC behavior that involves turning military-to-military communications on and off — due to whatever political reason fits their purposes at the time. Examples in the recent past, they said, include the 2023 Chinese spy balloon incident and then-House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in 2022. 

The U.S. officials additionally pointed to what they view as intensifying corruption issues across China’s government — and a hesitancy from that nation so as to not show vulnerability in such discussions with their Western counterparts — as reasoning for the PRC’s refusal to chat at the ADMM-Plus.

Despite no plans with Dong on the ground in Laos, Austin’s meeting schedule at the summit is packed with engagements. On Wednesday, the secretary joined other defense chiefs in separate bilateral meetings with New Zealand, Laos, Cambodia and Singapore. 

He also participated in the U.S.-ASEAN Informal Defence Meeting with the military leaders and defense ministers from the countries in attendance. 

While these events weren’t open to the press onsite, the U.S. defense officials said Tuesday that Austin planned to spotlight significant concerns about some of the regional and global security challenges in the Indo-Pacific — including the PRC’s ongoing coercion in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, and North Korean troops training with Russian forces as the war in Ukraine wages on.

At this year’s ADMM-Plus, Austin is also set to unveil a new “Department of Defense Vision Statement for a Prosperous and Secure Southeast Asia.”

According to a draft summary of that document shared with reporters ahead of its release, “the United States seeks to advance the collective capacity of ASEAN and individual Southeast Asian nations by investing in” the following areas: exercises, education and training, defense industrial capacity building, defense mitigation of climate impacts, and domain awareness and defense.

Though mentions of specific technology-driving initiatives were light in that document, the U.S. indicated it’s committed to helping its Asian partners with “securing domain awareness, whether in the air, maritime, cyber space, or information environment.” 

“The United States will enhance maritime capacity building programs with a focus on using commercially available technologies to expand maritime domain awareness, continuous presence, and scientific research through unmanned systems complemented by artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to maximize awareness,” according to the vision statement.

Briefing the press on Wednesday after the summit, Austin said this new vision statement will be put forward on Thursday, and it’s “focused on practical cooperation and mutual respect — and that includes training the next generation of leaders and tackling emerging challenges and deepening maritime cooperation.”

“I’m also pleased to announce the second ASEAN-U.S. maritime exercise for next year, which ASEAN member states approved earlier today, and I look forward to meeting with key allies and partners,” Austin told reporters.  

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The DoD’s problems are not simply financial — they are structural. The DoD’s global responsibilities are growing in every theater while China can focus its efforts on the Western Pacific. Unlike its Reagan-era buildup, the DoD can no longer afford to field more of today’s multimission planes, ships, or vehicles because they have become too costly to operate and crew. Even with better integration like that being pursued by the U.S. Air Force, China can field targets faster and more cheaply than the DoD can create effective shots on target.

Hedging for uncertainty

For nearly a decade U.S. officials have identified China as the DoD’s pacing challenge and an invasion of Taiwan is its most-stressing scenario. Stopping China’s expanding fleet of troop transports may demand more long-range fires than U.S. forces can deploy, even with CJADC2’s vision of AI-enabled decision aids. The People’s Liberation Army’s multiplying rocket forces further complicate the problem by requiring U.S. ships and aircraft to carry more defensive systems or operate farther away and use longer-range weapons that are more expensive and less numerous.

With outright denial likely off the table, deterrence increasingly depends on creating uncertainty for Chinese leaders that an invasion will go smoothly and incur acceptable losses. But pushing forward ships and aircraft to launch torpedoes or missiles against an invasion fleet is the most predictable U.S. approach — and one China is developing capabilities to counter.

For more than a decade, defense officials argued that the PLA would have difficulty fielding a kill chain that could attack aircraft carriers or mobile ground forces more than a thousand miles from China. In addition to the challenge of delivering precision-guided weapons at that range, the sensors and networks China would need to use could be disrupted or deceived by U.S. electronic warfare systems. 

Arguably the shoe is now on the other foot. To stop an invasion, U.S. ships and aircraft operating 500 miles or more from Taiwan will have to find, target, and engage a Chinese force with possibly very little notice. Fighting on its home turf, the PLA has numerous options to break the DoD’s CJADC2 kill chains and increase the confidence of Chinese leaders that an invasion could succeed.

To create uncertainty for the PLA, the DoD will need a more adaptable approach for stopping an invasion than relying on long-range fires alone. In a new report from the Hudson Institute we argue the Pentagon should field specialized forces to hedge against scenarios like the Taiwan invasion in which the one-size-fits-all U.S. military is unable to win at acceptable risk.

Using short-range uncrewed systems in each domain, a hedge force for Taiwan would act essentially as a mobile minefield, damaging transport vessels and warships in narrow “kill boxes” along the Taiwan coast. Just as important, the hedge force would also make long-range fires more effective by slowing the invasion and compelling PLA escorts to activate their defenses, creating targeting opportunities for U.S. forces to exploit through the Joint Fires Network.

Exploiting today’s technology

Although they achieve cutting-edge performance, the DoD’s connectivity initiatives are largely built on existing capabilities, rather than new development and acquisition. CJADC2’s initial instantiation is a descendant of DoD’s Project Maven and the Joint Fires Network implements work matured by DARPA. Going forward, these efforts can take advantage of an expanding range of commercial offerings — like Ukrainian forces who assembled battle networks from Starlink terminals, subscription satellite services, and open source-derived decision support software.

A hedge force for Taiwan could similarly exploit commercial innovation and existing technologies to quickly reach the field. Uncrewed air, surface, and undersea vehicles today incorporate sufficient targeting and guidance automation to find and engage slow-moving troop transports or warships in confined geographic areas. These systems would not need new advancements in AI or sensors and could operate without human intervention beyond programming their rules of engagement.

Small drones like the Switchblade, Altius 700, or A2LE have demonstrated their effectiveness as loitering munitions or by complementing missile attacks in Ukraine. Uncrewed surface vehicles like the Saronic Cutlass or Magura V5 sank more than a half-dozen ships in Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and could pose a lethal threat to Chinese forces nearing Taiwan. And undersea, vehicles like the Speartooth could place  a torpedo’s-worth of explosives under a vessel’s hull to cause catastrophic damage. Although they may lack the survivability or destructiveness of traditional weapons, these vehicles will damage transports and make them easier pickings for long-range U.S. fires.  

Buying more of today’s ships, aircraft, or weapons even with better integration, will not solve the DoD’s fundamental geographic, strategic, and fiscal disadvantages in stopping a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. To turn the tables and regain the advantage, the Pentagon needs a hedge force that will ensure every shot counts.

Bryan Clark is a senior fellow and director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute, and an expert in naval operations, electronic warfare, autonomous systems, military competitions and wargaming. Previously, he served as special assistant to the chief of naval operations and director of the CNO’s Commander’s Action Group, led studies on the Navy headquarters staff, and was an enlisted and officer submariner in the Navy.

Dan Patt is a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, where he focuses on the role of information and innovation in national security. Patt also supports strategy at national security technology company STR and supports Thomas H. Lee Partners’ automation and technology investment practice. Previously, he co-founded and was CEO of Vecna Robotics and served as deputy director for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Strategic Technology Office.

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“There’s good progress, but I don’t think any of us are satisfied that what we have resourced and fielded — either in our guardians themselves or in the capabilities that we’re given them — is adequate to the task,” Maj. Gen. David Miller Jr., director of operations at the Space Force, said Monday during a webinar hosted by the Mitchell Institute.

The Defense Department believes space will likely be a warfighting domain in any future conflict, and that counterspace weapons would pose a significant threat to the Pentagon’s on-orbit assets used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), communications, positioning, navigation and timing (PNT), and other critical missions.

In particular, a 2022 report from the Defense Intelligence Agency highlighted that China has developed capabilities that could damage satellites, including powerful ground-based laser weapons and missiles.

Miller also pointed to China’s tests of a fractional orbital bombardment system carrying a nuclear-capable hypersonic glide vehicle as a testament to the militarization of the space domain. If executed correctly, the weapon would fly into space in low-Earth orbit before reentering the atmosphere to attack its target

“Frankly, the difficulty in countering a threat like that and the potential risks associated with that — I think that opened a lot of people’s eyes,” he said.

The Space Force is currently at a critical transformational point since its establishment in 2019, according to Miller. Whereas the service’s first three years were about establishing the Space Force’s foundation, now it is focused on becoming a “warfighting Space Force,” he said.

“There’s been a significant change in the narrative and a significant change in the resourcing in the Space Force just over the last three years,” Miller said. “I think we’re on the right track to get there, but we’ve got to move in a few key areas in particular. And I think these next two years will be significantly consequential in telling us if we’re going to get there or not.”

While the service has been forthcoming about some of its data collection and defensive capabilities, it’s been relatively tight-lipped about its own offensive counterspace capabilities. During a Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee in April, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman told lawmakers that he expected the Space Force to have an on-orbit capability that would enable the service to “compete in full-spectrum operations.”

When asked what Space Force needs in order to give options to leaders in the event of an attack on U.S. space-based assets, Miller pointed to three tenets in Saltzman’s three-part “Competitive Endurance” framework to deter and defeat aggression. The tenets focus on bolstering the service’s space domain awareness and resilience, as well as engaging in responsible counterspace activities.

“We have to get about the process and the prospects of — from multiple domains, not just the space domain — providing capability to find, fix and deny any adversary capability to find and target U.S. forces or allied forces,” Miller said. “That is something that in this transition … from legacy architecture to a warfighting force, that is where the nation is expecting us to go.”

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Frederick “Jay” Stefany, acting assistant secretary for research, development and acquisition, announced the establishment of the MARCC in a May 2 memo, which was obtained by DefenseScoop.

The new cell will “ensure swift, comprehensive DON support to critical Department of Defense (DOD) priorities and ongoing crises. The MARCC will coordinate and prepare DON responses to urgent DOD security cooperation tasks, contingency operations support, and other identified priorities. It will posture DON components to respond swiftly to current and future critical needs. The MARCC will initially focus on Ukraine, Taiwan, and contingency support, and will have inherent flexibility to adapt to new conflicts or urgent DOD requirements and tasks,” per the memo.

Among its many tasks, the group will identify “actionable suites of capabilities” that could aid U.S. allies and partners; lead cross-functional teams to develop “creative solutions” to capability gaps; and oversee “agile and urgent” provision of capabilities needed to address current threats, “offset” future threats, and enable friendly forces to have an operational and technological edge over adversaries.

Assistance packages could be tailored “across the spectrum of conflict” and include “high, medium, and low-end naval warfare capabilities,” according to the memo.

The cell will include a cross-functional team with representatives from the Navy secretariat, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Marine Corps headquarters, systems commands, program executive offices, warfare centers, Navy R&D enterprise, and the fleet.

The MARCC is to be led by an executive director who will serve as the top adviser to Navy leadership on “strategies and responses for urgent security cooperation tasks, contingency operations support, and other identified rapid response priorities” — with oversight provided by a board of directors co-chaired by the deputy undersecretary for policy and the principal military deputy assistant secretary for research, development and acquisition.

DefenseScoop is awaiting responses from the Navy regarding whether an executive director for the new cell has been appointed and when it is expected to be up and running.

Directives for the MARCC “will remain in effect until ordered no longer needed,” Stefany wrote.

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The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, designed a wargame using historical data and operations research to model a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan in 2026 — the time frame for when some international security observers fear rulers in Beijing might launch such an attack — and ran it 24 times.

Rules were designed using analogies with past military operations, as well as theoretical weapons performance data, so that “the results of combat in the wargame were determined by analytically based rules instead of by personal judgment,” according to a new CSIS report detailing the findings.

Hypersonic missiles are designed to travel faster than Mach 5 and be highly maneuverable, providing a quick-strike capability against time-sensitive targets and posing a challenge to enemy air defenses. China has already fielded these types of technologies, and the Pentagon is trying to catch up. A number of Defense Department hypersonics programs are underway, but they are currently in the research-and-development phase and they may not be fielded in large numbers by the middle of this decade.

“Hypersonic weapons would be useful for attacking highly defended and deep targets such as China’s over-the-horizon-backscatter radars or satellite uplink stations,” the CSIS report noted. “However, hypersonic weapons are expensive and no substitute for large numbers of long-range cruise missiles. Picking off a few high-value targets does not solve the central problem of countering a massed invasion. That requires sinking enough amphibious ships such that Chinese forces cannot sustain a lodgment on Taiwan.”

U.S. industry’s production of hypersonics will likely be limited in the next few years, given where things stand today with the programs, the study suggested.

“The base case [for the CSIS wargames] includes Chinese DF- 17s with hypersonic maneuverable re-entry vehicles. It is logical for China to pursue hypersonic technologies to defeat the well-developed U.S. missile defense system,” the report said. However, “by 2026, the United States will have few equivalent hypersonic systems. The game included 50 U.S. hypersonic weapons (the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon, or ARRW), although this was speculative. In 2022, no U.S. hypersonic weapons are yet programs of record although several systems are emerging from development. Most U.S. hypersonic programs would likely be in testing or initial fielding in 2026 and thus not available in large numbers.”

U.S. officials need to recognize that hypersonics would only be “niche weapons” during a war with China in that time frame, it added.

Such systems are also expected to come with a high price, which could further limit the numbers that are fielded.

At DefenseScoop’s DefenseTalks conference in September, the Pentagon’s Undersecretary for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante said officials are aiming for a price tag of $5 million to $10 million per “all-up” round.

“Their high cost limits inventories, so they lack the volume needed to counter the immense numbers of Chinese air and naval platforms,” the CSIS study said.

During most of the CSIS wargame scenarios, U.S. and Taiwanese forces — as well as those of America’s Japanese allies — defeated the invasion and imposed heavy casualties on the Chinese military. But they paid a steep price in lives and materiel.

“The United States and Japan lose dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and thousands of servicemembers. Such losses would damage the U.S. global position for many years. While Taiwan’s military is unbroken, it is severely degraded and left to defend a damaged economy on an island without electricity and basic services. China also suffers heavily. Its navy is in shambles, the core of its amphibious forces is broken, and tens of thousands of soldiers are prisoners of war,” the report said.

To avoid having to achieve such a pyrrhic “victory,” the U.S. needs to move quickly to strengthen its deterrence capabilities to ward off a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the study advised.

While the report recommends the Pentagon continue with development and fielding of hypersonics, it suggests prioritizing acquisition of other weapons and platforms such as: long-range anti-ship missiles; bombers; smaller, more survivable ships; unmanned surface vessels; and submarines and other undersea platforms including unmanned underwater vehicles.

“Submarines were able to enter the Chinese defensive zone and wreak havoc with the Chinese fleet,” the study noted. Additionally, “the range, missile standoff distance, and high carrying capacity of bombers presented the People’s Liberation Army with daunting challenges.”

It also recommends producing more fighter jets that are “cheaper” than some of the high-end, stealthy platforms that the U.S. military is currently fielding.

“With so many aircraft lost early in the conflict, the Air Force risks running out of fighter/attack aircraft and becoming a secondary player in the conflict unless it has a large enough force to sustain the losses,” it said.

The report’s recommendations don’t specific whether some of these fighters should be unmanned. However, the U.S. military already has plans to pursue new drones that are expected to be less expensive, more “attritable,” and serve as robotic wingmen to crewed systems.

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