If a major conflict were initiated, China now has the capability to destroy all of Taiwan’s aircraft at their bases, except those that can
be hidden in Taiwan’s two mountain shelters—but those protected aircraft might provide little solace because, although the aircraft might
be safe in these caves, Taiwan cannot use them from those shelters for sustained combat operations. Thus, Taiwan needs to rethink how it
can accomplish its air defense goals in a major conflict without heavy reliance on its fighter aircraft.
Fighter aircraft are not the only element of Taiwan’s air defense; surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) are the other major element. Here
we see more promise, if Taiwan can both use its SAMs to their best advantage—that is, against aircraft and cruise missiles, not primarily
against ballistic missiles—and employ them in a way that increases their survivability—that is, by operating them for short periods of
time, followed by rapid teardown and movement. Used in this way, Taiwan’s SAMs could become an important contributor to the defense
of Taiwan and a difficult capability for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to easily counter.
Still, air defense in a major war is only one possible category of demands for Taiwan’s air defenses. A variety of more-limited military
conflicts could draw on air defense capabilities. We found that, in these coercive situations, if the level of violence is relatively high,
the PLA could check Taiwan’s fighter aircraft if it chose. However, in coercive scenarios that feature very constrained use of force, Taiwan’s
fighter aircraft can play a role in countering aggression. The question is whether maintaining that limited capability is worth the major financial
investment that it entails.
This report analyzes Taiwan’s options for allocating future resources for air defense capabilities. We describe the essential air defense problem posed by the PLA, characterize the current capabilities and level of funding that Taiwan invests in air defense, and then develop several alternative investment strategies. We then test those investment strategies in three vignettes that span the range of conflict, from quite limited coercive uses of force to a full invasion.
