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The Indigenous Defense Submarine (IDS) prototype is expected to undergo a harbor acceptance test in September, a sea acceptance test in February next year and, if it passes, be delivered to the navy in the first half of 2025 instead of November 2025, defense officials said yesterday. The goal of the IDS program is to create a fleet of nine to 11 domestic diesel-electric submarines that would defend the waters around Taiwan, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The boat would be 70m long, 8m wide and 18m high, including the conning tower, and have a displacement of 2,500 tonnes to 3,000 tonnes, the officials said. It would have a pair of stabilizing fins on the sides of the conning tower and an X-shaped tail rudder, they added. The submarine’s weapons would include 18 MK 48 Mod 6 heavyweight torpedoes and an undisclosed number of Harpoon missiles, they said.

Whether or not this Taiwanese “indigenous” submarine program began as such, it is now best understood as a subset of AUKUS+Japan. Someday someone ought to write a book using the decades of back and forth between Taiwan and the US re: submarines – as a microcosm to illustrate the self-contradictory positions the US has taken regarding the status and future of Taiwan.

For 2023, the key facts are these. Decades of observing major Taiwanese military projects, given the nature of Taiwanese domestic politics and sustained information warfare sponsored by the Chinese Communist Party, I have never witnessed a Taiwanese multinational, complex, major military project that has leaked as little, and, for now, sustained as few charges of graft and irregularities, as this submarine project. During the democratic era of Taiwanese national history, President Tsai is the first democratically elected president who managed significant control over the national security apparatus.

These Taiwanese submarines also reflect a broader change in US-Japan-led vision for the Indo-Pacific – changes in military thinking and the status of Taiwan yes – less commented upon but just as significant as the revolutionary changes in multinational industrial policy. In this perhaps the size of the China Threat coupled with the lessons from Ukraine have finally forced leaders in the global democracies to rethink decades of “neoliberal” orthodoxy – free market, invisible hand, creative destruction – fascinating theories, important forces in world history, but there are realms in public policy, pandemic abatement, public health, national security, where one must sacrifice efficiency for resilience and reliability.

And so, while the AUKUS nucular submarines are the big ticket system to illustrate changes in thinking, many many other systems weave a complex global re-think in national security supply chains. From semiconductors. To HIMARS munitions. To 155mm rounds. To AMRAAMs and Patriots and AGM-158s and Javelins and Stingers and Mk.46s and Mk 48s. Looking for a new balance between national security, and responsibility to shareholders-the market, while ensuring there is enough global manufacturing, storage capacity, and resilience to respond to the challenge China poses. And, related to this overall concept, how to stretch out the R&D and small batch production lifecycle of each weapon, across time and nations, to sustain improvement and capacity while improving global resilience.

Sometime this past week it was reported that it will take the US another five years to increase its annual production rate for its attack submarines from 1.5 per year to 2. Modern wars are industrial wars. This is the weak link among the democracies, as they navigate populism and elections, how to remain democratic yet sustain important, not particularly popular national security public policy projects over the decades. 2.4.2023 Taipei, Taiwan.

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〔記者羅添斌／台北報導〕為因應中國軍事威脅，軍方加速量產各型國產飛彈，大幅增加戰備及庫儲飛彈，高層人士今天指出，中科院以16條生產線全面生產各型飛彈，去年的飛彈總產量合計超過800枚，預估今年明年將達到產能高峰，可達年產量1000枚飛彈的階段目標。國防部以「海空戰力提升計畫採購特別預算」，委由中科院量產包括劍翔無人攻擊載具丶萬劍彈丶雄昇飛彈丶天弓三型防空飛彈丶陸射型與艦射型劍二飛彈丶增程型空射劍二飛彈丶雄三及增程雄三反艦飛彈等，中科院先前投資興建的飛彈量產廠房順利運作，目前各型飛彈的生產線，已開到16條之多，可說是能量全開。

Without a breakdown of which missiles are produced in what quantity annually, it is difficult to assess the significance of “1,000” – though it is a good sign that Taiwan Republic, Japan, and US are all addressing the logistics of a war against China. Taiwanese “indigenous” missiles are a product of the peculiar stage in Taiwan-US-China relations – a product of compromise and the fictional One China status quo. I wonder if policymakers in DC have seriously studied and throught through the implications of having the Taiwanese continue this dual track – purchasing/importing US-made missiles while investing in domestically manufactured missiles. Perhaps the blurb from the recent US-Taiwan military talks about “enhancing munitions coproduction” is a way to discuss this issue – from economies of scale, to whether NCIST missiles are more vulnerable to Chinese communist infiltration and sabotage, to obstacles to interoperability with Japanese and American units. An example: during the war can the US-made Patriots efficiently coordinate with the Taiwanese TK2 and TK3 surface-to-air missiles? How about Taiwanese naval units using American Harpoons and Taiwanese HF series? Or Taiwanese artillery units using Taiwanese MLRS and soon-to-be imported American HIMARS?

A final observation: while it is good that Taiwan’s CSIST is moving away from the “handcrafted” model of manufacturing missiles into the modern mass assembly, one of the many chasms between the Taiwan military and Taiwanese democracy is in this island nation’s economic dynamism and know-how, and how isolated the military remains. Simple question: should a quasi-state military research entity like CSIST even manufacture missiles? Or would it be best to adopt the model from Israel, or Singapore, or South Korea, or Japan, have CSIST coordinate strategic level priority weapon systems research, and subcontract manufacturing to private or public-private corporations? 10.2.2023

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〔記者洪定宏／高雄報導〕台船公司今天發布新聞稿指出，總統蔡英文交付台船執行史無前例的「潛艦國造」任務，雖然過程中外界多所揣測、評價，無論正面肯定抑或是曲解錯誤認知，台船仍全力、全工時趕工，目標明（2023）年9月下水。據了解，國造潛艦原型艦的設計藍圖即有700多份，並採用雙殼、部分單殼的混合艦殼，以及Ｘ型尾舵的構型設計，總排水量2000餘噸，可搭載MK48 MOD6 AT重型魚雷及潛射魚叉反艦飛彈，有效反制中共水面艦艇。

Even though Taipei appears full of doom and gloom over President Tsai’s electoral defeats during the recent local elections, future historians will study this ‘indigenous’ Taiwanese submarine project as an example of her administration’s success.

If the project proves successful, President Tsai and her team would have overcome decades – since the 1960s – of American, Chinese communist, China KMT interference and sabotage against a Taiwanese submarine fleet. No doubt rapidly shifting geopolitical realities enabled the change in American policy. This shift then brought along critical technology from other democratic allies, the UK, maybe South Korea, maybe Japan, and others. I remain fascinated and a bit confused at the relatively muted reactions from the Chinese communists and their allies inside Taiwan – is this because they have other problems and crises to deal with, or do they have other angles?

What remains true is this, if we compare the three democratically elected Taiwanese presidents, Lee, Chen, and Tsai – a bureaucracy of Taiwan’s central government, particularly the national security establishment, ensconced in decades of China KMT party-state external authoritarian occupation, a similar project under Presidents Lee and Chen that did not leak like a sieve would have been unimaginable. The relative success of the Tsai administration in preventing the vestiges of the authoritarian bureaucracy from sabotaging this project has been a noticeable success in Taiwan’s democratic consolidation.

As to whether or not these ‘indigenous’ (even a global empire like the US can no longer manufacture high-end weapons without global supply chains and know-how, much less Taiwan ….) submarines will deter and defeat a Chinese invasion – are eight enough? Should they be paired with unmanned underwater vehicles? Should they be armed with defensive and offensive ordinances? Are they linked with other Taiwanese military units as well as US and Japanese units? Maybe the first step in a genuine democratization of the Taiwanese military is to have an open national debate on why the Taiwanese Navy has been circling in step since the 1990s – unable to match the surface nor subsurface fleets of the region? In this, I suspect advice and know-how from American and Japanese officers will play a critical role in ensuring the money invested in hardware such as submarines will be properly deployed during a future war to defend Taiwanese sovereignty and democracy – a kind of AUKUS+ regional submarine chain – Australian and Japanese long-range submarines plus smaller Taiwanese and others to contain the China threat. This is also where the significance of the US NDAA is never about money or hardware/weapons per se, but the infusion of American expertise into the stagnate and reactionary Taiwan national security establishment. 27.12.2022

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MILITARY GRANTS ADDED: Ten US officials per year are to study Mandarin and local issues, and return to Washington to bolster understanding of Taiwan’s needs. The US Senate on Thursday passed the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which is to set up a fellowship for US federal employees to work in Taiwanese government agencies, in addition to greenlighting US$2 billion in annual military grants to Taiwan. The first year is to be spent studying Mandarin and related topics, followed by a year working in a government agency, legislative office or approved organization related to their field of expertise, the Taiwan Fellowship Act says. At least 10 fellows from the three branches of the US government — executive, legislative and judicial — are to be selected annually. In the first two years of the program, no fewer than five fellows are to be selected, the bill says. Returnees would be required to continue serving in the US government for at least four years after completing the program, with the goal of enhancing understanding of Taiwan’s central government and regional issues, it says. The American Institute in Taiwan would be required to begin negotiations with Taiwanese agencies within 30 days of the bill’s enactment. The legislation is modeled after the Mansfield Fellowship Program between the US and Japan. Under that program, established in 1994, US government employees are provided more than one year of Japanese-language education and placed in a Japanese agency, where they work full-time for 10 months alongside Japanese colleagues.

While the headlines and focus will be about the amount of US military aid to Taiwan Republic, and the weapon systems transferred, to me this is the most significant breakthrough in this year’s NDAA. Ten American officials per year to Taiwan is not significant – the mental-psychological breakthrough on the part of DC – the real pivot to the Indo-Pacific, understanding the China threat, and realizing the nature of the Chinese threats against democratic Taiwan – those are decades in the making. And one suspects once the breakthrough occurs, more will (and should) follow.

Even just the simple yet monumental step of normalizing the interactions between these two democratically elected national governments of America and Taiwan – official to official, bureaucracy to bureaucracy.

If the billions in direct military aid authorized by the NDAA are funded, and if the Biden administration does not waste more time fighting Congress, then I would expect more American advisors and officials to follow that money. I cannot find a previous case where Congress authorized large military foreign aid without request from the foreign party – nor was such an amount being transferred without direct US involvement (advisors, etc.) Because humans always refer to the most recent historical experience as a template, I have read many articles referring back to the US-RoC Mutual Defense Treaty/US Advisor era. Times change, the nature of the governments are different, and characteristics of modern warfare shift – the era of large contingents of US and Japanese troops stationed in Taiwan makes little sense. Rapidly rotating in units for realistic training and coordination – advisors in key units, teams from the US and Japan to help locate and fix weakest links in Taiwanese strategic and tactical planning, intelligence and counterintelligence, logistics, civil defense, sabotage, and infiltration, etc., in 2023 these will make more difference to the security of the Indo-Pacific and countering the China threat than anything else.

Five Notable Items for Asia Watchers in the National Defense Authorization Act

美參院83：11壓倒性通過// 挺台國防授權法案 送拜登簽署

美參院通過國防授權法案 提供台灣百億美元軍援

U.S. Senate passes annual defense bill with Taiwan provisions

US bill features up to US$10bn for Taiwan security

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The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorizes up to US$12 billion in grants and loans to Taiwan to buy US weapons over the next five years. The bill passed the Democratic Party-controlled House on a 350 to 80 vote. It is expected to clear the Senate next week before being sent to the White House for US President Joe Biden to sign into law. The act would authorize up to US$2 billion in annual grants from next year to 2027, and an additional US$2 billion in loans for Taiwan to use to bolster its military capabilities with weapons from the US. It also authorizes a regional contingency stockpile for Taiwan that consists of munitions and other appropriate defense articles costing up to US$100 million a year for use in the event of a conflict.

Have we ever had a case in American history where a designated aid nation did not request aid, and US Congress generously, voluntarily provide such a massive amount? And instead of debating whether this is good policy, perhaps the first prudent thing to do is to ponder what is going on in this moment of world history that such an unusual move has been taken.

Novices and bad actors will focus on the dollar amount, while experts and those with a sincere desire to protect democracy in the Indo-pacific will notice that the direct military aid is only the tip of a very large spear against the China threat — technology, education, trade, democracy, law enforcement, intelligence, and counterintelligence, etc. are other realms where this global struggle are occurring.

The most important part of the NDAA is Congress forcing a lumbering executive branch to pivot to face the China threat for real — i.e., increasing production of critical munitions, money for base protection, a stockpile of critical munitions in the region, etc. Novices and bad actors will focus on allegedly “provoking” the Chinese communists and rising tensions even though the communists are experts at self-provocation — they will fuss about budget and deficit, and they will spread lies that the Taiwanese prefer to surrender. Experts from this point on will avoid focusing on weapons sold and transferred, and see if Congress is able to force the executive branch and the Pentagon to do real interoperability — i.e., to abandon the idiocy of Jimmy Carter and invite the Taiwanese military to participate in US-Japan-Australian-NATO exercises. I wonder, and this is speculation on my part – would the US government voluntarily grant this massive amount of foreign military aid without sending American military advisors? Taiwan’s archaic and dated military leaders require a push and a nudge re: modern warfare – rapid pace, technology-centered, intelligence-counterintelligence, modern logistics, and creativity. What the Taiwan military leadership requires most, and perhaps this is where American, Japanese, and European advisors can best provide, is the lesson of Ukraine – a national military divorced from the democracy of its nation cannot and will not fight. Taiwan’s national security establishment requires democratization so that it can absorb and adhere to the strengths of the democracy it is suppose to protect.

I am against large US military presence in Taiwan, having nothing to do with the easily hurt feelings of the Chinese in China and the Chinese in Taiwan — but that it makes little tactical and strategery sense. Quick and thoughtful public and routinized rotations of American and Japanese units in and out of Taiwan to work on interoperability and training, with a small officer-advisor corp in Taiwan as advisors to the Ministry of National Defense and Taiwan’s democratically elected civilian leaders, and massive munitions and platforms depot in the area ready for the fight immediately are hopefully enough to deter the communists.

Now that the American aid is here, Taiwan must increase its annual war budget by the same amount — we have to increase our war budget so that our American congressional allies will have cover from domestic bad actors, united front fellow travelers. All multinational policies regarding the China threat is to prevent Beijing from even considering starting a war of annexation against Taiwan.

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