The message from Beijing: mass, machines, and math
On Sept. 3, 2025, Beijing rolled out an 80th-anniversary Victory Day parade that wasn’t nostalgia—it was a forecast. Under a sky full of contrails and camera drones, China showed leaders like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un exactly how it intends to fight: at scale, across domains, and with algorithms riding shotgun. The guest list alone told the story, but the hardware on Chang’an Avenue did the real talking.
What showed up: from nuclear triad to drone swarms
As reported by Reuters and others, China publicly paraded all three legs of a nuclear triad for the first time—air-launched Jinglei-1, sea-based JL-3, and land-based DF-61/DF-31/DF-5C—alongside a cabinet full of anti-ship and land-attack missiles, including YJ-17/19/20, CJ-20A, CJ-1000, YJ-21, DF-17, and DF-26D. That mix pairs reach with speed and complicates U.S. warship survival math in the first island chain.
It wasn’t all big rockets. Columns of uncrewed systems rolled by—quadcopters mounted on armored vehicles, uncrewed surface craft, and long-range underwater drones such as the HSU100/AJX002. Equally notable: a layered counter-drone “triad”—missile-gun trucks, high-power microwaves, and truck-mounted lasers like OW5-A50—a cost-per-shot answer to the FPV era.
China also debuted a new Type-100 “intelligent” tank with an unmanned turret and baked-in automation—state media’s way of saying AI is moving from PowerPoints into steel. Whether that intelligence is wartime-ready or not is another question, but the intent is clear.
All of it sits under Beijing’s 2024 reorg that created the Information Support Force plus new Aerospace and Cyberspace arms—purpose-built for spectrum dominance and multi-domain ops. The parade was a victory lap for that shift.
How it stacks against U.S. programs
Directed-energy & C-UAS. China’s OW5-A50 laser and FK-3000 gun-missile hybrids mirror U.S. moves to kill cheap drones cheaply. The U.S. Navy tested HELIOS aboard USS Preble, destroying an aerial target drone in FY2024.The Army’s DE M-SHORAD Stryker laser is transitioning from tests toward field use. Both sides are racing to turn energy into air defense economics.
Drones & autonomy. China showcased quantity and variety; the U.S. is leaning hard into Replicator (thousands of attritable autonomous systems by 2025) and the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft—autonomous wingmen for fighters. Recent updates point to deliveries of Switchblade-600s under Replicator and active CCA design pushes. Different paths, same destination: massed autonomy with human command.
Anti-ship & hypersonics. Beijing’s YJ-21 and DF-17 telegraph fast, maneuvering threats to carriers. The U.S. answer today leans on LRASM (stealthy, long-range) and Maritime Strike Tomahawk (Block V) on destroyers. CPS and the Army’s LRHW/Dark Eagle are advancing following successful 2024–25 tests, with the Army aiming to field the first battery by the end of FY2025 and Navy shipboard CPS tests slated later in the decade.
What this means for U.S. SOF and planners
Expect an electronic knife fight. China’s new force structure and parade hardware point to heavy jamming, deception, and precision geolocation. SOF units should rehearse EMCON, spectrum discipline, and low-probability-of-intercept comms as standard battle drills, with alternates for PNT (Positioning, Navigation, and Timing) loss.
Assume the drone is watching. From quadcopters on armor to ship-launched UAS, tactical ISR is now ambient. That raises the premium on signature management: thermal and RF camouflage, decoys, rapid site turnover, and deception feints. Organic C-UAS (from handheld RF rifles to portable lasers where available) becomes part of every infil/exfil plan.
Maritime SOF has less elbow room. Uncrewed surface and underwater vehicles complicate littoral approaches and harbor work. Expect more USV/UUUV pickets and smart mines in choke points. That argues for wider standoff, more unmanned scouts of our own, and tighter blue-green integration with Navy C-UAS/C-USV screens.
Speed up our own mass. The lesson from Beijing’s show: obtain quantity with quality. Push Replicator deliveries to SOCOM units for attritable ISR and loitering munitions, pair them with ground C-UAS lasers and jammers, and drill human-on-the-loop employment to stay inside Chinese OODA loops.
The bottom line
China’s parade wasn’t merely pageantry; it was a systems-engineering brief: long-range fires to hold the fleet at risk, autonomy to fill the gaps, and lasers to swat the cheap stuff.
The United States isn’t asleep—our lasers are firing at sea, LRASM and Maritime Strike Tomahawk are maturing, and drone mass is coming through Replicator.
But the future fight will reward forces that can see first, decide faster, and survive the drone-soaked spectrum.
We must plan accordingly.