Taiwan president pushes $6.6B military drone bill ahead of crucial legislative vote

Taiwan has tried this before. Drone funding was stripped from a larger defense package, then partially restored, then stripped again. Now President Lai Ching-te is making one more push, this time with a standalone special budget worth NT$210 billion, roughly US$6.6 billion, dedicated entirely to building out the island’s unmanned military systems. The vote is expected around August 27, 2026, and Lai publicly urged passage on August 26, making his position about as subtle as a coastal attack drone. What the bill actually buys The legislation, formally titled the Special Act for the Procurement of Indigenous Defense Unmanned Systems, would fund acquisitions running from August 2026 through the end of 2031. That is five years of hardware, and the shopping list is extensive. Taiwan’s military would receive 208,200 coastal one-way attack drones under the plan. One-way attack drones are a polite term for what Ukraine has been using to harass Russian naval assets: relatively cheap, expendable aircraft that fly to a target and do not come back. The bill also covers 1,446 reconnaissance drones and 1,320 unmanned surface vessels, the nautical equivalent of drone swarms, designed to operate o...