“Washington gains nothing by delaying the sale of new F-16s to Taiwan. Selling new F-16s with modern subsystems will more quickly prepare the Taiwan Air Force for what it really needs, a version of the fifth-generation F-35. Depending upon the equipment package, upgrading Taiwan’s early model F-16s can sustain a low level of parity, but that will not keep pace with a Chinese threat that grows every day,” Fisher said.
“For Washington, no amount of mil-to-mil contact with the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] is worth allowing deterrence on the Taiwan Strait to decline to the point of inviting a catastrophic war,” Fisher said.
“Regardless of the DW News story’s veracity, the Obama administration risks projecting that it values the former more than preventing the later,” he said.
RSS