Selling Weapons to Taiwan

Taiwan Treads International Thin Lines In Keeping Up its MilitaryWhen is selling weapons essentially an act of aggression? When it is the U.S. selling them to Taiwan.

Why? Quite simply, China doesn’t want Taiwan to have new weapons. So why are we doing it? Because we signed a treaty to sell weapons to Taiwan.

And because we are a country now built on the scaffolding of a military-industrial complex.

Side note: (If you haven’t seen Why We Fight, a great look at how we got from Dwight D. Eisenhower saying in 1960: “We now stand 10 years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations- 3 of which have involved our country. We have been compelled to create a permanent arms industry of vast proportions.  3.5 million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment.

Now, this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is NEW in the American experience. We recognize the imperative need for this development, yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications.” [emphasis mine]

So Obama sent Congress a note about a $6.4 billion package of arms sales to Taiwan.

As Reuters says: “The Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency proposed five separate sales, including 60 UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters, 114 Patriot "Advanced Capability-3" anti-missile missiles, and a command-and-control enhancement known as Multifunctional Information Distribution Systems. The United States also would supply 12 advanced Harpoon missiles capable of both land-strike and anti-ship missions, plus two refurbished Osprey-class mine-hunting ships, the security agency said in notices to Congress.”

Um, ok. Lots of war stuff.

When was the last time Taiwan was in a war? Do they contribute troops to things? What are they going to do with 60 Black Hawk helicopters? And what is a Multifunctional Information Distribution Systems? Is that the new Malcom Gladwell novel?

China is of course going to be angry about this. They consider Taiwan part of China and the fact that we recognize Taiwan, let alone sell them billions of dollars in weapons, means that they don’t like us. They won’t like it when Obama meets with the Dalai Lama either. They hate it when we call them out on the Google thing.

China’s government doesn’t like our government. I don’t think we like their government either. We need everyone to start from there and just work things out in the financial sense- that is the only thing we have in common. And China is going to eventually kick our butts, so we better squeeze everything we can from right now.

Taiwan needs weapons to keep up with China’s military, at least enough to defend their island. Obviously, if China wanted to invade and take over they could. It would just be brutal, deadly and not at all popular with anyone. Taiwan needs to have an up to date military just to keep itself current. And the U.S. signed that treaty in 1979. And we could use the money.

It’s really in China’s hands to respond angrily or shrug it off. Last time this sale got proposed they stopped military to military relations with the U.S. So, we’ll see what happens this time.

Photo Credit: Fishtail@Taipei (via Flickr under CCL)