Taiwan could deter a Chinese invasion through sheer operational chaos and staggering projected casualties - without relying on the United States to come to its rescue - according to a new defense concept built entirely around cheap, autonomous drone systems.

The concept, laid out by Stacie Pettyjohn and Molly Campbell of the Center for a New American Security in a report, reframes what deterrence means for Taiwan, "Hvylya" reports.

Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, first used the term "Hellscape" in 2024 to describe his intent to flood the Taiwan Strait with unmanned systems. But Paparo's version was an American concept requiring long-range, expensive drones launched from distant bases. The CNAS authors argued that Taiwan itself is far better positioned to deploy the kind of cheap, short-range drones that have proven so effective in Ukraine.

"The question is no longer whether Taiwan can win a conventional war against China," Pettyjohn and Campbell wrote. "The question is whether Beijing can stomach the operational chaos, staggering casualties, and strategic uncertainty that an invasion would bring."

The concept shifts deterrence from a contest of military might to a calculus of cost. By making an assault prohibitively expensive and dangerously unpredictable, Taiwan could prevent it from happening in the first place - regardless of what Washington decides to do. The CNAS report noted growing concern that the United States might not intervene in a cross-strait conflict, making a self-sufficient defense strategy increasingly urgent.

Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense should commission a comprehensive review of drone operational concepts and release an unclassified version publicly, the report recommended. Regular "drone labs" bringing together operators and technical experts would cultivate the bottom-up innovation critical in Ukraine's experience. "The technology is neither exotic nor overly complex," the CNAS authors wrote, "making it within the reach of a country like Taiwan to develop and produce at scale."

Earlier, "Hvylya" examined why Foreign Policy warned that lessons from Ukraine's war apply far beyond Eastern Europe.