These are all systems that Taiwan could use for its defense, and many are included in the $19 billion backlog. President Barack Obama’s Asia pivot in 20, the United States has delivered thousands of weapons to these five Middle Eastern countries, including 25,658 TOW missiles, 8,512 Hellfire missiles, 46 Patriot air defense systems, 2,526 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, 1,241 Javelins, 645 Harpoon missiles, 459 Stingers, 24 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), 250 Abrams tanks, 21 F-16s, and other missiles, ammunition, and military vehicles. These countries not only buy many of the systems Taiwan needs most, but they also buy these weapons in large quantities-often exceeding what has been allocated to Ukraine, from stocks or otherwise.īased on data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, between the start of former U.S. Among its biggest competitors are large buyers in the Middle East, including Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Rather than Ukraine, Taiwan has competed most directly with other countries purchasing new systems. stockpiles through presidential drawdown authority-which Taiwan only became eligible for under the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act-rather than foreign military sales, on which Taiwan has traditionally relied. Taiwan therefore has been shopping for new weapons, while Ukraine has been receiving old ones. Most of the aid that Ukraine has received has come from U.S. Furthermore, to this point, Taiwan and Ukraine have received arms through two different channels. While the war in Ukraine has received much of the blame for slow deliveries of systems such as Javelin and Stinger missiles to Taiwan, Taiwan’s weapons backlog predates the war. To meet Taiwan’s arms requirements more efficiently, the United States should redirect arms transfers that currently support large Middle Eastern buyers to Taiwan and invest more in co-production and capacity building for Taiwan’s own defense industrial base. Taiwan’s greatest competitor for many of the systems that it requires most has not been Ukraine but large buyers in the Middle East-and Taiwan is developing an increasingly capable defense sector that is able to produce a growing number of key systems indigenously. weapons production is not the best way to get Taiwan the arms that it needs. But cutting aid to Ukraine or supersizing U.S.
aid to Ukraine must be cut to allow for sufficient support to Taiwan also has many advocates beyond Capitol Hill, chief among them Elbridge Colby, the lead architect of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, and Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation.Įnsuring that Taiwan is prepared to deter and defend itself from Chinese aggression should be a priority for the United States and will require trade-offs.
competition with China, in which he also called for the use of the Defense Production Act to dramatically ramp up U.S. Ro Khanna, made this Ukraine-Taiwan trade-off explicit in a late April speech on U.S. defense industrial base that is unready for a major-power war and unable to meet demands from Russia’s war in Ukraine and a potential conflict over Taiwan simultaneously. The scale of the backlog has been widely cited by political leaders on both sides of the aisle as an indicator of a weak U.S. Mike Gallagher, the Republican chairman of the House’s recently established select committee on China, expressed concern about the pace of arms deliveries to Taiwan, including the much-discussed $19 billion backlog, telling the New York Times, “We have to prove that we’re willing to deliver.”
Returning from a visit to Taipei in February, U.S.
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