Taiwan Looks To U.S. Contractors To Beef Up Defense Stockpiles

A delegation of 25 U.S. defense contractors is visiting Taiwan this week to discuss an old idea with new urgency: joint production of arms crucial for the island democracy’s security in the face of a rising threat from China.

Several factors are conspiring to create meaningful challenges to quickly standing up any coproduction. While the need for the weapons may be obvious, questions remain about who will provide them and how.

• UAVs could boost Taiwanese defenses
• Hurdles to coproduction remain

“The purpose of the delegation is to capitalize on one of the central pillars of Taiwan’s economic plan, which is the growth of the defense industrial base,” says Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council and a participant in the delegation. “Taiwanese companies would play the role of systems integrator in the defense realm, and the U.S. would provide niche technology for them to fill any gaps they have.”

Beijing has long sought to annex Taiwan, but lacked the military might to make good on its threats. No longer: The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has twice held large-scale exercises near the island in the past nine months, simulating a partial blockade.

While war is not inevitable—China would still prefer to annex Taiwan bloodlessly—the administration of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has realized that years of defense neglect have affected the island’s readiness for a conflict that becomes more probable as Beijing’s capabilities grow. The race is now on to make up for lost time, with the lessons of the Russia-Ukraine war top of mind.

Ukrainian air defenses have played a vital role in ensuring the country’s survival and the effective operation of its military. Yet for Taiwan, air defense has not been prioritized. As a result, it would struggle to fend off an onslaught by the PLA Rocket Force, which has thousands of missiles—believed to be highly accurate—at its disposal.

Leaked U.S. classified documents offer a bleak assessment of Taiwan’s air defenses, suggesting that the PLA would probably establish air superiority swiftly in a conflict.

UAVs can be used in several ways to strengthen Taiwan’s air defense, says Eric Chan, a U.S. Air Force senior strategist and nonresident fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington. For instance, UAVs could be tasked to respond to PLA incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, thus relieving strain on Taiwanese Air Force pilots. This would free the pilots to train toward the more operationally complex exercises required to defend against an invasion.

Furthermore, Taiwan could use massed loitering munitions to force the PLA to allot more resources to short-range air defense of its invasion force. “This would mean dedicating more transport space to air defense batteries, radars and personnel—and accordingly, less of a thousand other critical capabilities. The more rapidly the PLA attempts to invade, the harder these choices become,” Chan says.

“Use of massed UAVs in concert with manned aircraft as well as decoys would also go a long way toward overwhelming the PLA sight picture, by presenting an enormous number of targets,” he adds.

According to Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA), the U.S. defense delegation will include AeroVironment, which produces the Switchblade 300 loitering munition often referred to as a “suicide drone.” Ukraine has used the Switchblade 300 effectively on the battlefield against Russian forces.

According to the CNA, AeroVironment’s representatives are expected to “exchange views” about loitering munitions with Taiwan’s National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (Ncsist), the island’s main indigenous weapons system supplier. Ncsist’s own loitering munition is reportedly planned to undergo operational trials in July and begin mass production in 2024.

Finally, UAVs would help reduce the chance of the PLA using its increasingly sophisticated military exercises as cover for an invasion, Chan says. UAVs could act as a “trip wire force” that the PLA would need to destroy prior to commencing an actual invasion—which would then provide Taiwan’s defenders the indications and warning of an imminent attack.

With regards to ammunition, which is also being considered for joint U.S.-Taiwan production, the Russia-Ukraine war has underscored the importance of adequate output and supply chain resilience. Integrating Taiwanese industrial and technological capabilities into a Western defense supply chain will improve the resilience of both supply chains while addressing capacity bottlenecks such as semiconductors, Chan says.

Questions remain, however, about the feasibility of joint defense manufacturing, which is not unprecedented. “Taiwan’s indigenous defense fighter developed in the 1980s was largely a Lockheed product, so there was joint production back then,” says Ivan Kanapathy, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former China, Taiwan and Mongolia director on the National Security Council.

Progress since then has been limited. “The U.S. has proposed joint development to improve Taiwan’s sea mines and missiles,” Kanapathy says, “but Taiwan wants the U.S. to provide technology to them a la carte, which isn’t joint at all. They don’t seem to want the U.S. evaluating their indigenous systems and providing advice.”

Chan surmises that the initiative is feasible, but time is of the essence. Citing the U.S. assessment of a medium-term invasion threat to Taiwan, he says that if the U.S. and Taiwanese defense sectors can together credibly demonstrate sufficiently fast mass production capability, “then I believe the U.S. government will favorably look upon approving the coproduction as well as export licenses.”