Taiwan Current News (TCN), in partnership with the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), produces the podcast series Taiwan Frontlines, which tracks global trends and explores how Taiwan connects with the world.Brandon Tseng, a former US Navy SEAL who served two deployments to Afghanistan and currently the president of American aerospace and defense technology company Shield AI, spoke with hosts Bonnie Glaser of the German Marshall Fund and Jason Hsu of the Hudson Institute in the latest episode of Taiwan Frontlines.Tseng urged Taiwan to immediately and visibly deploy GPS-denied autonomous drones around its perimeter, arguing that establishing a credible and observable new capability is the most effective way to force Beijing to reconsider any invasion calculus. Non-red supply chainsTseng praised the United States for moving early to address supply chain vulnerabilities in the drone industry, pointing to provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act that prohibit the use of critical Chinese components in American defense systems. Shield AI's V-BAT drone, part of the US Blue UAS program, uses no critical components sourced from China.He noted, however, that Taiwan faces a far more difficult task in disentangling its drone supply chain from the mainland. Taiwan's manufacturing sector has deep commercial ties with China, and many firms rely on Chinese-made components. Tseng cautioned that if conflict were to disrupt those supply lines — even for something as basic as screws or propellers — Taiwan would lose critical time scrambling to find alternative sources. He said Taiwan's government should lean in further on this issue and treat supply chain resilience as a national security priority, not just an industrial one.Tactical strength, strategic gapShield AI's team visited Taiwan in recent weeks and met with the island's top 10 drone manufacturers while working alongside the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCIST). Tseng described Taiwan's drone industry as broadly capable of producing reliable tactical systems but significantly weaker on the strategic side.He drew a pointed analogy, comparing the challenge of building strategic autonomous capabilities to asking any company to manufacture a commercial airliner overnight. Tseng recommended that Taiwan focus its near-term energy on tactical drones and rely on American partners for strategic autonomous capabilities, a division of labor he said would produce faster and more operationally relevant results. As time goes on, he said, “if Taiwan would like to make the investment to bring on strategic capability, I think it's fine to do so.”Counter-dronesOn counter-drone strategy, Tseng offered a clear strategic preference, he said that rather than investing primarily in shooting down incoming drones, Taiwan should build the capacity to neutralize launchers before they can fire. He framed this as the same logic that leads soldiers to pursue the source of a mortar attack rather than rely solely on defensive systems.Tseng acknowledged the value of interceptors for force protection and pointed to Ukraine as the world leader in drone interception, and Taiwan should be encouraged to draw on Ukraine's hard-won knowledge.Drones in the gray zoneTseng also addressed Taiwan's growing concern about gray zone threats — provocative actions by China that stay below the threshold of open military conflict. A Chinese drone flew over Pratas Island in January, marking a significant escalation in Beijing's harassment of Taiwan's outlying islands.Tseng noted that drones carry a different escalation risk than manned aircraft.When an unmanned system is intercepted, neither side faces immediate pressure to respond as if a human life or a crewed military asset had been lost, which in his view gives decision-makers more time and space to manage tension. He described this as one of the unexpected stabilizing effects of drone proliferation.For more in-depth coverage, tune in to Taiwan Frontlines on the NOWNEWS official YouTube channel.