28 January 2024

An Anti-Drone Warfare Idea

A Chinese language movie clip reel (it isn't entirely clear if this is in China, Taiwan, Singapore, or even somewhere else) depicts an interesting paramilitary response to a attack by insurgents or organized criminals on a festival of unsuspecting civilians with a small swarm of armed quadcopters (it isn't entirely clear, but they seem to be bomb carrying kamikaze drones). 

The paramilitary forces of the authorities deploy a squadron of slow moving ultralight aircraft with crews of two paramilitary soldiers each to scoop up the drones with what looks like parachute cloth nets at the end of poles, similar to the nets on poles that would be used in fishing.

As an aside, there are apparently lots of Chinese language movies these days depicting Chinese soldiers and/or paramilitaries in foreign deployed military missions or SWAT team style operations. But these movies almost never reach U.S. movie theaters, TV channels, or streaming services, so this little sub-genre is below the radar for American observers.

Of course, American movies and TV depict these kinds of situations all the time with American and/or European protagonists.

What makes this notable is that neither the People's Republic of China, nor Taiwan, nor Singapore, have engaged in any meaningful expeditionary military actions or foreign wars. Likewise, there haven't been meaningfully armed insurgent movements requiring paramilitary grade responses for more than 40 years (and these shows are generally set in the present).

Some of this is no doubt drive by pent up demand for dopamine surging action shows that a Chinese audience can related to (and, it seems like, at first, this high violence action genre for Chinese audiences started with science fiction and World War II or earlier settings). But, the People's Republic of China, at least, has a media sector that is pervasively subject to censorship and context regulation driven by Communist Party propaganda agendas. So, it is possible to read an agenda to prepare their Chinese audiences to be more receptive to the involvement of Chinese troops in foreign wars, and to robust paramilitary responses to any insurgencies that could arise (or perhaps to create a perception that it would be futile to try to do so).

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