US Air Force nominee wants total drones approach to counter mainland China

Troy Meink tells confirmation hearing that the Pentagon needs to shorten acquisition timelines or PLA will continue to close the gap

Reading Time:3 minutes

US Air Force secretary nominee Troy Meink appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington. Handout

Published: 3:45pm, 28 Mar 2025Updated: 5:57pm, 28 Mar 2025

The US military needs to take a “comprehensive approach” to developing unmanned systems if it is to deter Beijing’s potential use of force across the Taiwan Strait, the US Senate Armed Forces Committee has heard.

Air force secretary nominee Troy Meink told his confirmation hearing on Thursday that China posed the “largest plausible military threat to the United States of America, as well as our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region”.

“China has utilised the last two or more decades to ‘go to school’ on the United States as we were focused on countering violent extremism. They have used that time to modernise and attempt to catch up in terms of both capability and capacity,” he said.

“Furthermore, their aggressive behaviour in places like the South China Sea conspicuously demonstrates a willingness to use military ‘hard’ power to achieve their national security objectives.”

Meink told the committee that he was “most concerned” with the developmental timelines of Chinese military programmes. If the US could not shorten its own timelines in acquisition, China would be likely to continue closing the gap, he said.

Turning to the Taiwan Strait, Meink said that unmanned systems played a critical role in deterring conflict in the “highly contested and sensitive” region. Beijing’s potential use of force against Taiwan presented a “significant concern for regional and global stability”.