Biden administration to ask Congress to approve $1.1B arms sale to Taiwan- Politico: Geostrategery and Taiwan Republic 台灣国 classrooms

“The package, which is still in an early stage, includes 60 AGM-84L Harpoon Block II missiles for $355 million, 100 AIM-9X Block II Sidewinder tactical air-to-air missiles for $85.6 million, and $655.4 million for a surveillance radar contract extension, the people said. The Sidewinder missiles will arm Taipei’s U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets.”

Is this ‘porcupine’/asymmetrical or not? …. Not sure what the radar contract is (PAVE-PAWS?). The Taiwanese Air Force will need 10x the Sidewinders and AMRAAMs, and 400 Harpoons are still on backorder. Long story short: cannot count on the Chinese communists being as incompetent as the Russians invading Ukraine. Communist China is far larger than Taiwan. And Taiwan Republic does not have a nice protected land neighbor like Poland to slowly dribble supplies in during the war. The Sidewinders are not enough to put two on each of their existing F-16Vs, not to mention the 66 F-16Vs on backorder.

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