US shifts South China Sea reconnaissance towards drones and Philippines: think tank
Reliance on close-in aerial reconnaissance over contested waters comes as large American vessels face growing constraints
Published: 11:00pm, 25 Jun 2026
US “freedom of navigation” operations in the declined last year, as it relied more on the Philippines and uncrewed for reconnaissance flights over the contested waters, a Beijing-based think tank found. The think tank said that as large American vessels such as aircraft carriers and amphibious groups faced growing maintenance and deployment constraints such as the , Washington had changed the nature of its presence in the Asia-Pacific region. Yet, the region remained a priority, the Beijing-based South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative said in a report released on Thursday.
“Regardless of strategic adjustments by the second [Donald] Trump administration or the evolution of other global hotspots like the Middle East, the broader Asia-Pacific region, particularly the South China Sea, will remain the US military’s most critical strategic theatre,” it said. The report added: “The frontline US military operations may become increasingly aggressive and provocative.”
Last year, America conducted just two public freedom-of-navigation operations in the disputed waters, the same as in 2024, but fewer than the six times it carried out in 2023 and the four in 2022, according to the report. Last year’s operations mainly targeted
and the
– two highly contested maritime features involving overlapping territorial claims, rich natural resources and critical global shipping lanes.
And unlike in previous years, the United States Seventh Fleet – the largest of the US Navy’s forward-deployed fleets – did not actively publicise the operations with the same intensity, the report said. In addition, the US military scaled back the frequency of its Taiwan Strait transits last year. Instead, it increased the frequency of close-in aerial reconnaissance. The US military launched 1,200 such sorties in the region last year, with the main growth spurred by drones and other aircraft coming from the Philippines’ Clark Air Base, the report said. The highest frequency happened when Beijing
,
, in November, and when the carrier transited the Taiwan Strait in December. America’s focus on these developments “escalated rapidly” and its close-in reconnaissance operations became “more frequent and bolder”, according to the report. From November 16 to 20, the US launched about five sorties of reconnaissance aircraft on average per day.
America’s Indo-Pacific reconnaissance activity is increasingly leveraging rotational access to the Philippine airbase, diversifying operations traditionally centred at Kadena Air Base in Japan.
The number of deployed US reconnaissance aircraft sorties staging from or operating near the Philippines – including P-8A anti-submarine aircraft and MQ-9 Reaper drones – reached 450 last year, with a frequency of one to two sorties per day.
The total number of launches coming from the Philippines accounted for 38 per cent of America’s total launches in Scarborough Shoal and the Spratlys. The report said the use of Clark Air Base improved the efficiency of American intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) activities, as it is located much closer to the South China Sea than Kadena Air Base.
America’s use of uncrewed aircraft also increased. Drones including the MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-4C Triton accounted for 30 per cent of all its reconnaissance flights, both crewed and uncrewed, in the South China Sea last year. The report said the uncrewed platforms had become the “core pillar” supporting the forward deployment of ISR assets within America’s “Indo-Pacific strategy”. US-Philippine cooperation in regional maritime domain awareness and ISR reflected America’s strategic intent to leverage uncrewed systems to strengthen collective monitoring and early warning under the Indo-Pacific security framework, it added. The US also boosted its alliance building and multinational military exercises in the South China Sea. Last year, America conducted 122 large-scale military exercises in the South China Sea and its nearby areas. Of these, 116 were bilateral or multilateral exercises with countries including France, Australia and Japan.
