China Studies Russia’s Ukraine War to Strengthen Military, but Taiwan Invasion Risks Grow Clearer

China is using battlefield lessons from Russia’s war in Ukraine to advance its military capabilities, while experts warn that drone warfare, prolonged resistance and mounting economic costs could make an invasion of Taiwan far more difficult than Beijing anticipates.

By yourNEWS Media Newsroom

China’s military is drawing on more than four years of warfare between Russia and Ukraine to identify weaknesses in modern defenses, develop unmanned weapons and refine strategies for a potential confrontation with Taiwan, according to a new defense analysis. The conflict has provided Beijing with an opportunity to study evolving combat tactics without committing its own troops, although military specialists caution that the same lessons could expose serious obstacles to Chinese military operations in the Indo-Pacific.

A Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis examines how China’s People’s Liberation Army and defense industry are responding to technological developments on Ukrainian battlefields, particularly the effectiveness of inexpensive drones against sophisticated aircraft, naval vessels and military installations. The findings indicate that Chinese institutions are incorporating observations from the conflict into research, training and weapons development while evaluating vulnerabilities that could affect their own forces.

The research, based on more than 90 Chinese-language publications issued between July 2022 and August 2026, found that Chinese military analysts generally recognize emerging battlefield tactics within four months of their appearance. Translating those observations into operational capabilities frequently requires at least another year, however, creating a distinction between identifying innovations and implementing them across a large military organization.

For Beijing, the implications extend beyond improvements in weapons technology. Experts interviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation said Russia’s difficulties in Ukraine demonstrate how a militarily superior country can encounter prolonged resistance, unexpected equipment losses and substantial economic consequences when attempting to defeat a smaller opponent. Those developments have complicated earlier assumptions that overwhelming military strength could quickly secure political objectives.

“Russian experience in its war against Ukraine is of exceptional strategic, tactical, and operational value to Communist China,” Matthew Boyse, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Beijing has been building up its military for decades but, despite its massive capabilities, has not fought a hot war since 1979 and its military lacks battlefield experience, [especially] in the most modern forms of warfare, which it can only get from [Russia].”

China’s access to wartime observations is particularly significant because its military modernization has proceeded without recent experience in a major conventional conflict. Although Beijing has invested heavily in missiles, naval expansion, aircraft and increasingly sophisticated surveillance systems, its armed forces have not faced the sustained logistical demands, equipment attrition or technological adaptation characteristic of the fighting in Ukraine.

The relationship between Moscow and Beijing also extends beyond China’s examination of Russian combat operations. NATO’s 2024 Washington Summit Declaration identified China as an important supporter of Russia’s defense industrial base, citing the transfer of dual-use materials and equipment. Such assistance includes components, industrial machinery and raw materials that can support weapons manufacturing.

The latest findings suggest that Chinese defense researchers are paying particular attention to Russian setbacks rather than exclusively studying successful battlefield operations. Nearly half of the materials reviewed by CSIS originated from publications connected to defense industrial organizations, whose work on weapons design and production could allow lessons from Ukraine to influence procurement decisions and future military systems.

That institutional interest does not necessarily translate into a decisive advantage over the United States or Taiwan, according to analysts who emphasize that the changing nature of warfare presents challenges for every major military.

“China alone is not getting ahead of anyone,” Steve Bucci, a retired Army colonel and visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Phillip N. Truluck Center for Leadership Development, told the DCNF. “China’s tech is not that good (look at the total failure of the Chinese air defense systems in protecting Iran) … It will be an addition to warfighting techniques, on all sides, but not a breakthrough for one side against all others.”

Stephen Herzog, a professor of the practice at Middlebury College, similarly cautioned against assuming that identifying Russian vulnerabilities would allow Beijing to eliminate comparable weaknesses in its own forces. He said American military planners should also be examining the conflict to strengthen defenses against drones and ensure that critical facilities can continue operating during attacks.

“The CSIS report suggests that China is studying Ukraine’s drone attacks on Russian warships and airfields partly because they raise questions about vulnerabilities in its own forces,” Herzog told the DCNF. “That makes sense. But studying Russian mistakes isn’t proof that Beijing could simply avoid them in a potential conflict over Taiwan. The Pentagon should be taking these lessons seriously too, pairing advanced weapons with affordable drone defenses and ensuring that bases can keep operating even when under attack.”

Those concerns have become increasingly relevant as drone and missile attacks expose vulnerabilities at American installations outside the Indo-Pacific. Iranian strikes damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at U.S. military bases across eight Middle Eastern countries, according to findings from the Pentagon inspector general. The attacks highlighted the difficulty of protecting widely dispersed military infrastructure against sustained strikes.

The Daily Caller News Foundation’s reporting also examined assessments from specialists who compared Russia’s difficulties against Ukraine with American military challenges involving Iran. Although the conflicts have distinct political objectives and military circumstances, analysts pointed to the ability of smaller powers to impose significant costs on larger adversaries through unconventional tactics, persistent resistance and relatively inexpensive weapons.

Yao-Yuan Yeh, a political science professor and director of the Taiwan and East Asia Studies Program at the University of St. Thomas, said Russia’s inability to secure a rapid victory provides an important warning for Chinese leaders considering military action across the Taiwan Strait.

“Russia’s experience shows that even a smaller, militarily disadvantaged country can sustain its resistance when its population is willing to fight, and it receives substantial international support,” Yeh told the DCNF. “For China, this is a reminder that invading Taiwan could be far costlier and more difficult than Beijing might initially anticipate.”

“Taken together, these lessons should give Chinese leaders additional reasons to reconsider the costs of military aggression against Taiwan,” Yeh said. “The potential costs of an invasion may far outweigh any anticipated benefits. From this perspective, the most important lesson China could learn from Ukraine is that avoiding war may ultimately be the more rational strategic choice.”

The contrast with expectations surrounding Russia’s February 2022 invasion is especially striking. When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the offensive shortly after appearing alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Beijing Winter Olympics, some observers feared that a quick Russian victory might encourage Beijing to pursue similar military objectives against Taiwan.

More than four years later, the continuing conflict has instead demonstrated the ability of smaller states to challenge materially stronger opponents through defensive resilience, foreign assistance and technological innovation.

“When Moscow first invaded Ukraine (just weeks after Putin had appeared in Beijing next to Xi at the opening of the winter games) the concern was that the lesson would be [that] invasion is relatively cost-free and this would embolden China to act more assertively towards Taiwan,” Allen Carlson, an associate professor at Cornell University, told the DCNF. “Now more than four years later, the lesson has become one of caution: in today’s battlefield, asymmetrical power advantages may be being eroded by the proliferation of cheap counter weapons (particularly drones). This is perhaps even more evident when it comes to the course of the ongoing US-Iran war.”

China nevertheless continues expanding the military capabilities needed to conduct operations against Taiwan. The Pentagon’s 2025 report on Chinese military power describes Beijing’s preparations for possible amphibious operations, maritime blockades and missile attacks, along with efforts to strengthen its ability to threaten American forces throughout the region.

The challenges associated with those missions extend far beyond the initial application of military force. An operation against Taiwan would require Chinese commanders to coordinate naval, air, missile and ground forces while securing supply routes, protecting transport vessels and responding to Taiwanese resistance and potential intervention by the United States and regional partners.

Michael Swaine, a senior research fellow in the Quincy Institute’s East Asia Program, said Russia’s initial campaign illustrated how overly optimistic political assumptions can undermine otherwise substantial military advantages. He emphasized that Chinese planners would face similar dangers if they expected Taiwan’s leadership or population to capitulate quickly.

“Russia’s initial failures illustrate the danger of planning a war around optimistic political assumptions: that the opponent will collapse, resistance will be limited, and military success will quickly deliver the desired settlement,” Swaine told the DCNF. “Poor logistics, inadequate coordination among services, and a failure to eliminate mobile air defenses compounded those errors. By implication, Chinese planners cannot assume that Taiwan’s government would collapse or that its population would acquiesce after an opening attack.”

The Pentagon has identified 2027 as an important benchmark for Chinese military modernization and capabilities related to a possible Taiwan contingency. However, American defense officials have distinguished that readiness objective from a firm decision by Beijing to initiate hostilities, according to a Defense Department briefing on China’s military development.

Andrew Yeh, senior director for Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific at the London-based China Strategic Risks Institute, said the economic consequences of extended warfare could be as influential as the tactical lessons emerging from Ukraine. A prolonged confrontation involving Taiwan would threaten Chinese economic interests while disrupting international trade and financial activity.

“Certainly China will be keen to learn from Russia’s mistakes,” Yeh told the DCNF. “But this doesn’t just apply to the military tactics. A long and prolonged war across the Taiwan Strait would be devastating to China’s own economy, as well as globally. China may well look [at] Russia’s experience in Ukraine — and the U.S. experience in Iran — and decide it wants to avoid getting bogged down in lengthy military conflicts.”

Despite those strategic warnings, China’s examination of Russian battlefield practices has produced evidence of growing interest in specific operational techniques. Among the most important developments is the integration of reconnaissance drones with precision-guided weapons, allowing military units to identify targets and conduct attacks far more rapidly than in previous conflicts.

A Chinese military research publication examined Russia’s employment of Orlan-10 reconnaissance drones to identify Ukrainian targets before employing Lancet and Kub loitering munitions against them. The approach combines aerial surveillance with attack systems capable of remaining near a target area until an opportunity to strike emerges.

Researchers at China’s National Defense University have also evaluated the speed of Russian targeting operations. According to PLA Daily’s account, Russian forces have demonstrated the ability to strike some detected targets within three to five minutes, compared with the hours often required during earlier conflicts. Such improvements could complicate the movement and concealment of military forces in a future confrontation.

For American forces operating in the Pacific, faster targeting systems and the proliferation of inexpensive drones could create additional threats to aircraft, ships and forward-deployed installations. Boyse said Chinese military technological advances have already increased risks to U.S. assets and underscored the importance of strengthening deterrence and layered defenses.

“U.S. assets in [the] Indo-Pacific have in recent years become increasingly vulnerable to PRC technological advances. This makes deterrence and better defensive measures all the more important for the US,” Boyse told the DCNF. “Again, the Iranian case is also very relevant: when an adversary accumulates such large numbers of drones that it can overwhelm defenses, it gains a critical advantage over its adversaries, aka second-strike capability.”

Ukraine’s success with relatively inexpensive defensive systems has also reinforced arguments that Taiwan should prioritize weapons capable of damaging larger Chinese formations without matching Beijing’s military spending. These include unmanned aircraft, anti-ship missiles, air defense equipment and other systems designed to complicate amphibious operations and protect critical infrastructure.

Andrew Yeh said American administrations have repeatedly encouraged Taiwan to develop such asymmetric capabilities, although he raised concerns about delays affecting a proposed weapons package worth approximately $14 billion.

“Successive U.S. administrations have pushed Taiwan to adopt the kinds of ‘asymmetric’ capabilities that Ukraine has used to effectively hold back Russia’s invasion,” Yeh told the DCNF. “This includes drone warfare, as well as anti-ship, air defence and other defensive systems. However, many of these vital weapons are held up in the $14 billion arms package that is still awaiting President Trump’s approval, and has been held in abeyance as part of a ‘bargaining chip’ with China.”

President Donald Trump has delayed approximately $14 billion in proposed American weapons sales to Taiwan since his May meeting with Xi, with the administration treating the transaction as part of broader negotiations with Beijing. Trump characterized the proposed deal as a “very good negotiating chip”, while concerns continued over the implications for Taiwan’s defensive preparations.

The package remained unresolved in October, according to Reuters reporting on Taiwan’s pending arms sales. Taiwanese officials said they had not received information indicating that new American weapons transactions would be divided into smaller packages.

The importance of such equipment has become increasingly evident as drones demonstrate their ability to threaten expensive military platforms at a fraction of their replacement cost.

“The war has demonstrated the effectiveness of drones and other asymmetric warfare capabilities,” Yeh told the DCNF. “Relatively inexpensive weapons can inflict substantial damage on much more expensive military assets, allowing a weaker military to challenge a stronger opponent. This fundamentally changes the cost-benefit calculations of modern warfare.”

Among the technologies receiving attention are fiber-optic drones, which maintain communication with operators through physical cables rather than conventional radio connections. Their development offers an alternative to wireless control systems that can be disrupted by electronic warfare, creating new problems for forces relying on traditional jamming equipment.

Chinese state television was already documenting security forces training with first-person-view drones and exploring fiber-optic systems by April 2025. The activity demonstrated the speed with which techniques emerging from Russian and Ukrainian operations could become subjects of experimentation within China’s military and security institutions.

Boyse said American officials have recognized the need to respond to these developments, although he questioned whether established military procurement procedures can consistently keep pace with technological change.

“DoW is studying these technologies intensely but despite SecWar Hegseth’s and SecState Rubio’s demands that their Departments ‘move with the speed of relevance’,” Boyse told the DCNF. “Their bureaucracies don’t always adapt as quickly as necessary. The incorporation of innovative inputs from start-ups and smaller, more agile defense tech firms is critical as the primes don’t always have the answers.”

The challenge is not limited to the United States. Eric Heginbotham, a principal research scientist and co-director of MIT’s Wargaming Lab, said modern navies are encountering similar difficulties because their fleets were largely designed around threats that predated the rapid expansion of drone warfare.

“It would be easy to say that the United States has not adequately prepared for drone warfare, but fairer and more accurate to say that few countries have adapted sufficiently,” Heginbotham told the DCNF. “The Chinese fleet is based largely on the same kinds of warships that characterize the U.S. fleet, and the rapid evolution of drone warfare presents challenges to both fleets as well as to national military strategies more generally.”

Ukraine’s attacks against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet have become a particular focus for Chinese naval researchers. Ukrainian forces have employed unmanned surface vessels to threaten Russian warships and installations, demonstrating that relatively small maritime platforms can impose substantial operational costs on a more powerful naval force.

The implications for Taiwan are significant because Chinese forces would need to protect large numbers of vessels during any attempted amphibious operation. A successful crossing would require control of maritime approaches, protection against drones and anti-ship weapons, and the uninterrupted movement of troops, equipment and supplies.

Chinese naval training has increasingly reflected those concerns. In April 2026, Chinese forces conducted live-fire exercises against unmanned boats, followed during the summer by training involving armed drones attacking fast-moving maritime targets. The activities suggest that China’s military is investigating both offensive employment of unmanned systems and methods for defending conventional naval platforms against them.

Heginbotham said the technologies could create competing advantages and vulnerabilities for Beijing. While drones might strengthen China’s ability to threaten commercial or military shipping near Taiwan, they could also make Chinese naval operations and supply routes more exposed to attack.

“For the Chinese, this would make an invasion of Taiwan, for which it would need to control offshore areas, more difficult,” Heginbotham told the DCNF. “It may make a blockade of Taiwan easier in the sense that it can threaten shipping to and around the island more difficult. At the same time, however, China may be more vulnerable to a counter-blockade by the United States.”

Chinese researchers have also closely examined Ukrainian operations conducted far beyond the immediate battlefield, particularly attacks demonstrating that installations deep inside national territory remain vulnerable to small unmanned aircraft.

One of the most consequential examples was Ukraine’s June 1, 2025, Operation Spider’s Web, in which drones launched from locations inside Russia struck military airfields housing strategic bombers. The operation challenged assumptions that geographic distance from the front line provides adequate protection for high-value aircraft and other military assets.

For China, such an operation carries implications for airfields, command facilities, aircraft shelters and logistics centers that could become targets during a Taiwan confrontation. The ability to launch drones from concealed positions could force military planners to devote additional personnel and equipment to securing facilities previously considered relatively safe from direct attack.

Chinese forces subsequently conducted exercises reflecting similar concerns. Within approximately four and a half months of Operation Spider’s Web, military training incorporated scenarios involving concentrated drone attacks against defended installations.

An October 2025 exercise involved more than 20 drone operators attempting to penetrate military defenses, with Chinese troops employing detection technology reportedly capable of recognizing more than 800 commercially available drone models. China’s state broadcaster CCTV documented the exercise, illustrating efforts to improve identification and countermeasures against a broad range of unmanned aircraft.

Such preparations highlight a central dilemma of contemporary warfare: defenses designed to protect costly military assets may have to defeat large numbers of comparatively inexpensive threats. Even sophisticated detection and interception systems can face operational and financial pressures when confronted with repeated attacks involving numerous drones.

The effectiveness of these technologies could be particularly consequential in a conflict involving American intervention over Taiwan. U.S. military facilities across the Western Pacific would play important roles in deploying aircraft, maintaining naval operations, supporting allied forces and sustaining military logistics. Their protection against drone attacks and long-range precision strikes would therefore influence how effectively American forces could respond.

A separate CSIS war game examining a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, published in 2023, evaluated 24 potential scenarios and found that American, Taiwanese and Japanese forces could defeat a conventional Chinese amphibious invasion in most cases. Those outcomes, however, involved enormous military losses and severe economic consequences.

The simulations projected extensive destruction of aircraft and naval vessels on both sides, while Taiwan faced devastating damage to its economy. American and allied losses were substantial enough to threaten U.S. military capabilities and Washington’s broader international position for years after the fighting.

Although war games cannot predict the precise course of an actual conflict, the findings underscore the possibility that even a successful defense of Taiwan could impose extraordinary costs. The expansion of unmanned warfare adds another variable to those calculations, potentially affecting the survivability of ships, aircraft, military installations and the logistical networks needed to sustain combat.

China’s organizational structure presents additional uncertainties. Russian and Ukrainian forces have modified equipment and tactics under the immediate pressures of combat, responding directly to battlefield failures and technological developments. Chinese military institutions can study those adaptations, but reproducing the same degree of improvisation within a centralized command and procurement system may prove more difficult without comparable combat experience.

China’s ability to observe the conflict nevertheless offers advantages that extend beyond individual weapons systems. Military researchers can evaluate unsuccessful operations, examine changing tactics and test possible responses before encountering similar threats themselves. Defense manufacturers can also use those observations to influence equipment development without exposing Chinese forces to the risks of actual combat.

Whether those efforts ultimately improve China’s ability to conduct a major military campaign remains unresolved. Russia’s experience has demonstrated both the military potential of unmanned systems and the danger of assuming that superior numbers, sophisticated equipment or initial battlefield successes guarantee a favorable outcome.

For Beijing, the most consequential lesson may therefore concern the limits of military power rather than the development of any particular weapon. The same conflict that is helping China refine its operational capabilities has also shown how determined resistance, international support, technological innovation and prolonged economic disruption can complicate an invasion long after the opening attacks.

As Chinese military institutions continue analyzing Russian and Ukrainian battlefield experience, their findings may strengthen preparations for a confrontation over Taiwan while simultaneously reinforcing the risks of initiating one. The outcome will depend not simply on how quickly Beijing incorporates new technology, but on whether its leaders account for the political, economic and operational costs that Russia’s war has brought into sharper focus.