[energy123]

> A million drones won't last long in a peer conflict.

That depends on the geostrategic context of the peer conflict. If the belligerents are separated by 1000 miles, then saturation attacks with drones don't work. Drones occupy only a small niche in this context, such as reconnaissance or sabotage. The Iran-Israel war was a clear-cut example of this.

In my view, the more important thing is to ensure you have the capability to disable the enemy's industrial production (meaning: only the key nodes relevant to the armament supply chain) with stealth bombers. This is the X-factor that flips the script. In the Ukraine-Russia war, neither party has aerial superiority because they lack the technology to achieve it, so it becomes a WW2-esque war where industrial production is paramount.

The US, on the other hand, does have such capabilities thanks to modern stealth bombers, and using that capability is no more escalatory than sending 1,000,000 attack drones at the enemy.

Drones (and anti-ship missiles) in my view are more crucial to Taiwan itself, both because of their proximity to their likely belligerent and because they lack stealth bombers.

[red-iron-pine]

> The US, on the other hand, does have such capabilities thanks to modern stealth bombers, and using that capability is no more escalatory than sending 1,000,000 attack drones at the enemy.

Stealth bombers exist to deploy nukes, and were created to match the number of Soviet cities that the US Airforce planned on hitting if/when WW3 happened.

No amount of modern stealth bombers, even the F-35, could seriously crush a national-level industrial production regime. Esp. not China's which is massive.

The US would have better luck setting off nukes underwater near the coast and letting the tsunami wash away most large Chinese urban areas.

In an actual shooting war most surface vessels are going to last about 10 seconds, so it's the subs and their munitions that are going to carry the war, combined with air power.

[nostrademons]

Arguably an even greater leverage point is to have the ability to select your enemy. Don't fight wars with belligerents that are 1000 miles away. Instead, fuel nationalist and separatist sentiments within elements of your adversaries that are much closer to them. Instead of having to fight your adversaries, get them to fight themselves, and destroy their country from within.

Russia is doing a masterful job doing this to the U.S. Biden's foreign policy also was pretty brilliant - get Russia bogged down in a quagmire with Ukraine, while supplying just enough weaponry to Ukraine to keep the war going but not enough to win it. Strategy is also used throughout the globe; see all the various proxy wars going on.

If the U.S. honestly wanted to have the best chance defeating China, the optimal strategy would probably to protect and fund Chinese billionaires political ambitions, so that they could provide a countervailing (and ultimately rivalrous) force to the ruling Communist Party.

The role of drones in this is largely in protecting supply lines and information collection/dissemination points. If you want to arm your enemy's adversary and give them a shot at challenging the ruling power structures in their country, you need to be able to get weapons and information to them.

[energy123]

> Russia is doing a masterful job doing this to the U.S. Biden's foreign policy also was pretty brilliant - get Russia bogged down in a quagmire with Ukraine, while supplying just enough weaponry to Ukraine to keep the war going but not enough to win it.

I would classify these as two different things - hybrid warfare and offshore balancing. But they are both tools that can create more strategic depth and push conflict further away.