Ukraine knows the secret to defending Taiwan

Excerpt In May 2022, Ukrainian engineers converted a fishing boat into a drone. By early 2024, boats costing roughly $270,000 were sinking Russian warships worth $60 million to $70 million each. When Russia sent helicopters and jet fighters to hunt them, Ukraine armed the drones with missiles and shot down those aircraft. Each Russian challenge on the Black Sea since 2022 has driven Ukraine to create a countermeasure, a new technology or tactic. Thanks to rapid innovation by its engineers and military, Ukraine has built the world’s most advanced unmanned navy. It has also developed extensive knowledge about adapting to the range of threats a military can face at sea. That experience points to a role for Ukraine that its partners have barely begun to use: helping other threatened democracies simulate and plan for the campaigns Russia’s partners are preparing. Catarina Buchatskiy is a co-founder and the director of analytics at the Serpens Center for International Security. Mark Montgomery is a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.