The hardest target on Earth: Former US Navy SEAL says Taiwan could turn any invasion into a nightmare

From jungle mountains to dense megacities, former Navy SEAL and Shield AI co-founder Brandon Tseng argues Taiwan’s greatest strategic advantage may lie in the island itself — even as he warns that China’s industrial might and rapid military adaptation remain deeply formidable.

In the latest episode of Taiwan Frontlines, launched by Taiwan Current News (TCN) in partnership with the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), Tseng sat down with Bonnie Glaser and Jason Hsu (許毓仁) to discuss why Taiwan’s geography, asymmetric defense strategy, and rapidly evolving drone warfare ecosystem could make the island one of the most formidable military targets in the modern world.

Taiwan’s geography as a natural fortress

For Tseng, Taiwan is not merely another geopolitical flashpoint. It is, in military terms, perhaps the most difficult battlefield imaginable.

"It is the hardest target on the face of the planet to take,” Tseng said, describing how Taiwan’s geography alone could impose staggering costs on any invading force.

Drawing on years of operational experience with the SEAL teams, Tseng explained that military planners instinctively evaluate terrain from an adversary’s perspective — asking how they themselves would assault a target.

Taiwan, he stated, presents almost every obstacle possible.

The island’s tropical weather, rough seas, mountainous interior, dense jungles, and sprawling urban centers together create what Tseng described as a “natural stronghold.”

To get into a conflict there, he said, would be the “absolute hell for whoever is trying to take that country.”

Tseng compared the prospect to Russia’s failed attempt to seize Kyiv in the early stages of the Ukraine war, noting how urban warfare alone had proven devastatingly difficult. Taiwan, he argued, combines massive metropolitan density with inhospitable terrain across the entirety of the island.

Yet even as he extolled Taiwan’s advantages, Tseng acknowledged the immensity of the threat posed by China, whose military and industrial capabilities loom just across the Taiwan Strait.

Goliath is sitting right next to the island, he said.

Making Taiwan a porcupine

Tseng repeatedly emphasized that Taiwan’s defense strategy should focus on transforming the island into an exceptionally painful target — echoing the “porcupine strategy” embraced by many security experts, including Professor William Murray from the US Naval War College.

Central to that concept, Tseng argued, is the integration of drones, autonomous systems, and intelligence networks capable of rapidly identifying and striking enemy assets.

Much public discussion surrounding drones tends to focus on one-way attack systems, Tseng noted. But he argued that intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting platforms are equally indispensable. “Intelligence drives operations,” he said, recalling lessons from US operations in Afghanistan.

Shield AI’s V-BAT drone, he explained, is designed precisely for that mission: conducting reconnaissance and targeting operations while pairing with one-way attack drones and unmanned surface vessels.

Tseng said that such systems would be especially important in a blockade scenario, which Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the GMF's Indo-Pacific program, described as one of the more plausible forms of coercion China could employ against Taiwan.

Tseng argued that Taiwan should heavily expand its use of unmanned surface vessels, underwater vehicles, and tactical drones capable of harassing and wearing down hostile forces attempting to encircle the island.

He pointed to the strategic challenges surrounding the Strait of Hormuz as evidence that maritime chokepoints are extraordinarily difficult to control without sustaining severe losses — a lesson he said Beijing is undoubtedly studying closely.

Deliveries “by September”

One of Taiwan’s most persistent frustrations in arms procurement has been delayed deliveries and mounting backlogs from foreign defense contractors, said Jason Hsu, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, before asking Tseng how quickly his company could supply Taiwan if orders were placed today.

Tseng's answer was direct: “We can deliver by September.”

Tseng cited the losses of expensive US MQ-9 Reaper drones in recent Middle East conflicts, where multimillion-dollar aircraft have reportedly been downed by comparatively inexpensive weapons.

Building large strategic systems, Tseng said, inevitably requires time. Tactical drones, by contrast, can be produced rapidly and in significant quantities.

“V-BAT does the exact same mission of this drone,” Tseng said when comparing V-BAT to the MQ-9 Reaper drones, adding that “it's got tactical level footprint that's providing strategic capability.”

For Taiwan, Tseng recommended pursuing a “high-low mix” approach: maintaining critical strategic weapons systems while heavily investing in indigenous drone production and rapidly deployable tactical capabilities.

China’s strength lies in speed of adaptation

While Tseng maintained that the United States still retains advantages in software, large-scale military operations, and high-end systems, he said China's speed of adaptation concerns him more than its current capabilities.

"It doesn't really matter where they are," he said. "It matters how quickly they iterate and adapt."

China's production capacity alone is formidable, Tseng said, adding that in a straight manufacturing contest, "China's going to beat us on production." But the deeper concern, he said, is iteration speed.

“China's cycle time is ridiculously fast in terms of how they're adapting, how they're pumping out new capabilities.” Tseng said. "And that's what concerns me more than where they are today."

Even if American systems remain technologically superior in certain domains, Tseng stated that slower iteration cycles could be concerning.

For more in-depth coverage, tune in to Taiwan Frontlines on the NOWNEWS official YouTube channel.