A more focused chatbot called eVorog or eEnemy, with more than 344,000 Ukrainian subscribers, lets citizens inform the army on Russian locations to target. Elsewhere, volunteer Ukrainian “IT Army” hackers have disabled Russian websites and the hobbyist group Aerorozvidka has used 3D printers and e-cigarette batteries to build do-it-yourself drones that report Russian positions, deliver ammunition and attack adversaries with grenades. Other apps provide air raid warnings, coordinate refugee housing, track escape routes and counter Russian propaganda – and deliver their own.

The proliferation of apps and social media campaigns offers additional lessons. On one hand, they have become an instrumental tool for disinformation, mobilisation, morale and coordination in the hands of tech-savvy Ukrainians. On the other, they increase the vulnerability of civilians increasingly breaching the divide between warriors and non-combatants.

The spread of relatively inexpensive civilian and military hardware often directed by smartphone apps – from commercial drones, satellite imagery and encryption to shoulder-held missile launchers and highly effective “tank-killer” TB2 drones – has shifted the advantage away from large, expensive weaponry to scrappy defensive forces.

Determining what lessons the PLA will draw from Ukraine is difficult, analysts said, given its secretive nature. One lesson that PLA officers say in informal discussions that they have gleaned – namely that the US will aid but not fight for a non-treaty partner – may be wishful thinking tied to any future Taiwan conflict, said a former National Security Agency official.

That said, Ukraine’s ability to hold off a far larger force with widely distributed, inexpensive tech tools would seem to favour an asymmetric “porcupine strategy” for Taipei, which Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has supported.

“One of the huge lessons China should draw from Ukraine is that invasions are very hard. They require lots of very large platforms, especially seaborne platforms for resupplying forces and conveying forces,” said Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “Those platforms are going to be vulnerable in much the same way tanks are vulnerable, except these things are a thousand times larger.”

US touts Taiwan ‘porcupine’ strategy to thwart Chinese threat

The porcupine strategy is getting easier given technology advances, although it is still challenging, added Cooper, a former Pentagon official. “It doesn’t mean that Taiwan and others are doing enough. But at the end of the day, this is advantaging countries or entities like Taiwan more than its advantaging China.”

Another lesson is the growing strategic and policy influence of commercial tech companies. These include Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet system, which has frustrated Russia’s bid to cripple Ukrainian communications; the use of Cloudflare in protecting sensitive online data; Palantir’s targeting technology; and Amazon Web Services’ role in transferring vulnerable Ukrainian government data to the cloud.

Musk says he cannot fund Starlink in Ukraine indefinitely

The past year has seen Google disable its live traffic feeds showing crowded roads of potential strategic value in Ukraine. And moves by Starlink’s mercurial owner could fundamentally affect the war’s outcome.

Musk has not only suggested that he might discontinue the space-based internet service in Ukraine, a lifeblood for its society and military, if it keeps losing money; he has also set de facto boundaries on the conflict by refusing to allow the system’s use in targeting killer drones out of concern the combat could “lead to World War III”.

“Tech companies are kind of independently shaping the war in real time by deciding which capabilities to supply and manufacture and how much risk they’re willing to assume,” said Samantha Howell, a researcher at the Centre for a New American Security in Washington. “The upside to tech companies having more of a stake in more affairs is that it may make the timeline of innovation faster. … The downside is, private companies are hard to control and their interests might not always align with the government’s interests.”

China’s tech crackdown moves into new year with fines on Alibaba, Tencent

This shifting power balance raises questions about China’s relationship with its tech giants in any future conflict. While the US and European Union are starting to rein in “Big Tech” on antitrust grounds, Beijing has gone much further, blocking initial public offerings, levying huge fines and forcing companies to drop business lines. The Post is owned by Alibaba, one of those targeted.

Some argue that this allows the PLA and militaries in more authoritarian countries to focus without commercial “distractions”; others say it blunts innovation and bureaucratic reform.

China’s command-and-control system and technology integration is largely untested. Its last war was in 1979 against Vietnam, while the US honed strategies during its “endless” Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

But as other militaries graft new tech, AI and related capabilities onto old bureaucratic structures, the PLA created in 2015 a new Strategic Support Force combining space, cyber, political and electronic warfare disciplines under one roof to fight “informationised conflicts”.

“The PLA could actually have an advantage because it’s building lots of new systems,” said Nicholas Wright, the founder of Intelligent Biology, a conflict and human behaviour consultancy. “But equally, I could do the counterfactual and say that because China is a more authoritarian country and there is less debate on ideas, that could also limit their abilities. The proof is going to be in the pudding.”

Another key takeaway is the inordinate role of social media in Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky has set the standard, messaging in Russian, English and Ukrainian, nudging allies for more support, countering Russian claims – fanned by China – including that US-funded chemical weapon facilities operated in his country and targeting Russian soldiers using their social media feeds and unencrypted cellphones.

Analysts expect social media to become an increasingly pointed weapon and poorly defined ethical frontier as artificial intelligence advances. Drawing on hacked phone contacts, Russia has messaged enemy soldiers’ family members of their death followed by artillery strikes targeting soldier’s phone signal, according to a 2021 Pentagon report written by Wright.

Vulnerabilities are huge. Amazon and data brokers have vast troves of consumer information. And TikTok is used by 48 per cent of Americans aged 18 to 29, the Pentagon report added, many with financial stress, mental health issues, marital and other life problems easily “leveraged”.

In related moves, China reportedly hacked a large US government personnel database in 2015. And Facebook and Twitter removed several fake accounts last year, reportedly used by the Pentagon for pro-US influence campaigns.

Elon Musk, the Ukraine war and what it all might mean for US-China ties

The flattening of hierarchies and technologies and proliferation of social media likely contributed to Washington’s unusual decision to go loud with its normally classified intelligence about the Russian invasion, rather than sharing it quietly through diplomatic channels. “You’re very successfully using information as a weapon” to blunt Russian propaganda and surprise-attack aspirations, said Wright.

While tech is important, however, experts stress that integrating it into lumbering armed forces takes time, even as warfare’s fundamental nature remains largely unchanged. As Russia has shown, for instance, forces can look good on paper but falter in battle, while weaker players can unexpectedly hold off attackers with resiliency and grit, truisms dating back millennia.

“If there were a Taiwan contingency, how much will to fight would the Taiwanese have, how aggressively would they fight and how long would they fight for, which to some extent are unknowable questions,” said Wright. “And that’s not a technological question. That is a psychological and social question.”