October 23, 2026: America has long been Taiwan's primary source of weapons. The order backlog is currently nearly $30 billion. Six months ago, a meeting between U.S. and Chinese leaders led Americans to reconsider their commitment to defending Taiwan. The current U.S. leader has expressed doubts that Taiwan could withstand a Chinese attack. The Americans are negotiating with China for concessions on its cooperation with Iran, Russia, and other nations. China will do just about anything to prevent the $30 billion arms sale to Taiwan. In the 21st century, Taiwan has obtained nearly 90% of its weapons from the United States. The rest came from Russia, Israel, and a few European nations. Russian exports have halted, except for spare parts. The Israeli contribution is largely technology transfers between the two nations.

Even when the sales program resumed, some U.S. items are delayed because of aid to Ukraine and the need to maintain American strength to counter a possible Chinese move in the western Pacific. Yet an American law, the Taiwan Relations Act, obliges the U.S. to provide Taiwan with all the defensive weapons it can afford. The current deal includes $8 billion worth of the latest F-16 model, including recon and surveillance pods; $4 billion worth of M109A7 self-propelled 155mm howitzers; 60 ammunition carriers; 13 recovery vehicles; and more than 4,000 precision-guidance fuze kits that turn unguided shells into guided ones. Another $4 billion funds HIMARS vehicles that fire multiple guided rockets.

The plan also includes $2.3 billion in Harpoon anti-ship missiles and land-based launchers, plus over $1 billion in NASAMS (National Advanced Surface-to-Surface Air Missile Systems). Another $1,1 billion is for 1,554 ALTIUS-700M loitering munitions and 478 ALTIUS-600M ISR drones. Nearly a billion is for Patriot PAC-3 ballistic missile interceptors.

Orders also include Javelin fire-and-forget anti-tank or bunker missiles, many TOW anti-tank missiles, and the Volcano Anti-Tank Mining System. The order also includes Switchblade 300 Loitering Missile Systems, AGM-84H SLAM-ER anti-radar missiles, Mk 48 Heavyweight Torpedoes for the Taiwanese-built submarines, AGM-154C air-launched long-range missiles, and AIM-9X heat-seeking air-to-air missiles. Several hundred million dollars went toward command-and-control upgrades as well as detection/tracking/fire control radars.

Increased Chinese aggression is the reason for all this. Over the last few years, China has been unusually active, carrying out air and naval operations near or around Taiwan. At the rate of about once a month, Chinese forces move menacingly near Taiwan. For example, China carried out military exercises that encircled Taiwan using 111 aircraft and 46 warships. This was seen as practice for a rapid blockade of Taiwan. There was no sign of how Taiwan would deal with an actual encirclement and blockade.

Taiwan has a powerful ally and protector in the United States. The Americans passed laws obliging them to continually supply Taiwan with new weapons and direct military assistance if Taiwan is attacked. American allies South Korea and Japan, together with the American Pacific Fleet, match, and probably exceed the capabilities of the new Chinese fleet.

Taiwan has a small navy of four destroyers, 22 frigates, three corvettes, 37 patrol boats (some armed with anti-ship missiles), and four submarines. The U.S. Navy always has two or three carrier task forces in the Western Pacific. Each Task force is based on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (CVN), plus three or four escort ships and an unseen nuclear attack submarine (SSN) that periodically sends a communications float to the surface to send and receive encrypted messages about the SSN's status and any useful information it has recently obtained. Incoming information includes new orders for the SSN and when it should surface next.

SSNs carry passive/listen only sensors that let them track activity on the surface. These sensors can distinguish between warships and commercial ships and even identify warship types. While SSNs are largely invulnerable to attack if they move slowly and keep quiet, the carrier task forces have several types of Chinese ballistic and cruise missiles aimed at them.

If China attacked Taiwan, they want to avoid war with the United States if possible because a prolonged US naval blockade of China would weaken the Chinese Communist Party's control over China. A blockade would halt oil imports, which are essential to keeping Chinese industries operational. Food imports are not essential to prevent starvation, but they do let Chinese people enjoy a more varied and pleasing diet. Returning to a bland diet after decades of much better cuisine would cause some anger, but no serious anti-government action.

On the other hand, food rationing will be necessary within a month of the invasion of Taiwan. Such a rationing program is problematic because of the Communist Party’s size (8-9% of the total population) and corruption. They’ll immediately steal far more than their fair share and, worse, not merely to eat more themselves, but to sell on the black market to offset the loss of their normal peacetime corruption income. That will be both obvious and create real hunger among ordinary Chinese, who are exceptionally fearful of mass starvation due to China’s history. National food rationing systems require public acquiescence to work. That won’t be present in China within a year of rationing's onset, and the food rationing system will quickly collapse as nearly everyone tries to grab more just to survive. This is the most likely scenario for the Chinese Communist Party's collapse.

During the last few years, Xi has made mistakes that caused economic problems. His anti-corruption campaigns had mixed results, as did his efforts to reform the equally corrupt armed forces.

Despite these problems, the Chinese navy has become increasingly aggressive in the South China Sea. The Philippines is taking most of the punishment from aggressive Chinese naval activities. There have been injuries among Filipino sailors. The Philippines and the United States have a mutual defense treaty, but Filipinos have told Americans they want to handle China themselves. China knows about the mutual defense treaty and doesn't want to trigger it. The Filipinos consider their treaty with the Americans as a last-ditch option. The threat to implement the treaty means the Chinese must be careful how far they push the Philippines over control of the South China Sea,

While Chinese naval and air forces are a major presence in the West Pacific, the US Navy could intercept almost all Chinese sea trade from well beyond Chinese naval and air range. A war would halt that trade, hurting China more than the rest of the world. Taiwan knows this and understands that China wants to avoid disrupting seaborne trade, because even a few months of blockade would cause significant economic and internal political problems. While China is still a communist dictatorship, the government is not as all-powerful as it once was and fears widespread violence if there are widespread and intense economic problems.

Any Chinese attack on Taiwan would have to win quickly so the Chinese could declare a ceasefire and demand that the United States negotiate. To avoid that fate, Taiwan has developed tactics that employ thousands of small, armed drones with explosives attacking the Chinese fleet closing in on Taiwan. These drones would navigate autonomously until they encountered Chinese warships, then switch to an attack guidance system. China is seeking ways to disrupt such attacks, but Taiwan is always developing new countermeasures. For example, Taiwan initially discovered that the manufacturer of the small drones it needed was Chinese, so it had to find another supplier. It did, but the supplier needs time to ramp up production to deliver the large number of drones required for the armed swarm.

James F Dunnigan