The US might offer to sell refurbished AV-8B Harrier Jump Jets to Taiwan, the magazine Defense News said.
“The Harriers will be offered to Taiwan through the Pentagon’s Excess Defense Articles (EDA) program under the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency,” the magazine said in an article written by Taipei-based correspondent Wendell Minnick.
The article quotes US government sources as saying the Harriers would be offered after the US Marine Corps begins replacing them with F-35B stealth fighters.
The Taipei Times was unable to confirm the story with Pentagon sources on Sunday.
Other sources said the story could have been leaked in the immediate aftermath of Taiwan’s elections because of president-elect Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) promise to increase defense spending.
“For over a decade there has been debate in Taiwan over purchasing the vertical and/or short take-off and landing [V/STOL] Harrier,” International Assessment and Strategy Center senior fellow Richard Fisher said.
Fisher said a modified AV-8B Plus could carry the AIM-120 medium-range anti-aircraft missile, and if further enhanced with the helmet display-sighted short-range AIM-9X missile, the Harrier would be “very competitive” in dog fights.
He said that while the aircraft is not as advanced as the F-35B, Harriers would provide flexibility at a much lower price and would also provide valuable experience to prepare for a later purchase of the F-35B.
“China is expected to destroy Taiwan’s air bases within the first few hours of a war with its estimated 1,400 short-range ballistic missile arsenal, and the Harrier’s V/STOL capability will allow the Taiwan air force to maintain air operations by hiding the aircraft in the mountainous interior,” the Defense News report said.
The air force wants the more advanced F-35B fighter, but it is highly unlikely that Washington would sell that aircraft to Taipei.
While China would protest the sale of Harriers, Beijing would consider the sale of F-35Bs to be crossing a “red line” that could trigger something far more extreme.
The aging Harriers would need extensive work to bring them back up to combat standards, they would be expensive and difficult to maintain, and even then they might have less than 10 years of active service left in them.
Nevertheless, Fisher said that they would offer “asymmetric opportunities.”
“Convert a medium-size container ship into an inexpensive landing helicopter dock and Taiwan has a Harrier carrier,” he said. “It would be vulnerable to anti-ship ballistic missiles, but in the meantime it would give Taiwan a military-diplomatic tool for the East and South China Seas.”
“Such a platform would also give Taiwan much needed operational depth by providing a mobile platform from which to launch defensive strikes,” he added.
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