Taiwan’s military has confirmed a maintenance deal for U.S.-made aircraft parts worth US$228 million, part of an effort to extend the life of its fighter jets. TaiwanPlus spoke with Stimson Center senior fellow Kelly Grieco about what the new deal means for the country's air force.
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00:00Kelly, this latest arms sale is about $228 million worth of spare parts and maintenance.
00:07It's not the biggest sale in terms of value, but how important are these parts for Taiwan's
00:11military?
00:12I mean, it is actually very important in the sense of sustaining your ability to use these
00:17aircraft.
00:19The F-16 is an older aircraft, particularly for Taiwan.
00:24But what we've seen is that we've been able to really extend the life of these kinds of
00:28airframes.
00:29And the way that you do that is with regular maintenance and the ability to have parts
00:33that you're able to replenish, right?
00:35You can replenish parts as needed, and then you're able to really sustain the life of
00:39these aircraft.
00:40I mean, you just look at the United States with how long it's been flying some B-52s,
00:44for example.
00:45Now, Taiwan has been trying to boost its defense against China, buying fighter jets from the
00:51U.S., like F-16s.
00:52But when you look at the way that Taiwan's Air Force is structured right now, is it in
00:56a good position to protect its skies?
00:59No, I mean, I don't think Taiwan is in a good position in terms of air power, in terms of
01:04its existing investments.
01:06When you look at Taiwan's fundamental problem, it is that it is going to always be at a disadvantage
01:14quantitatively against the Chinese.
01:17That's just a reality.
01:19It is also located so close to the mainland that it's going to be under very severe missile
01:25threats.
01:26And so you can have the best aircraft in the world, but you need to be able to get those
01:31aircraft up off the runways.
01:34And even with hardened shelters, which Taiwan has some of these, I don't really see how
01:39these fighters are going to be useful, particularly early in a conflict when China has the capacity
01:45to essentially create a runways every four, eight hours for days, weeks at a time.
01:53So given that then, what should Taiwan's military be buying or what does it need to
01:57do in order to make sure that it can have a robust defense against China?
02:03And when I look at Taiwan's situation, it really needs to be able to contest the airspace.
02:10So it can't rely on fighters alone to try to provide some kind of air superiority bubble
02:17over Taiwan.
02:18In fact, that's going to be really difficult to do just because of the number of Chinese
02:23aircraft and trying to get all these aircraft in the air in wartime conditions.
02:30What it really needs is to be able to contest that airspace so China doesn't have air superiority
02:34over Taiwan.
02:35And that requires largely a different kind of air force than one that is organized primarily
02:41around a small number of high-end fighter aircraft.
02:45It needs large numbers of drones of all different types and ranges.
02:49It needs lots of anti-air missiles.
02:53And the question Taiwan should really ask itself is for every dollar that it might spend
02:57on a new fighter aircraft, is that dollar better off being spent on a small number of
03:04cheap things?