ROC had GDP roughly similar to Sweden. From my, albeit very limited viewpoint, it seems that it's trying to operate a far too large military for it's economy with too large mission spread.
In terms of PPP Taiwan's GDP is considerably larger.
In any case, Sweden chooses to spend only a small proportion of its wealth on defence (something like 1.5% of GDP). On the other hand Taiwan is currently spending about 2.5% of GDP - it would increase to 3% this year assuming nothing is cut. That's quite sustainable.
And I have rough time seeing why a primarily SAM based air defense system would be less credible than one based in quite old fighter planes.
Taiwan's F-16s and Mirage 2000-5s are far from "old", and they have some very modern armaments.
SAM's can defeat (or try to defeat) both TBM's and air breathing threats, while interceptors can be used against air breathing threats only.
SAMs are static defences that are vulnerable to air-strikes. If they were as wonderful as you say, countries without "offensive" doctrines wouldn't bother with airforces until they'd developed a nice SAM network.
I don't see point in maintaining Perry's, Knox's and Lafayette's.
ASW and ASuW - the Keelungs can't do that by themselves.
But if ROCN cannot defeat Chinese blockade and in the future, probably it's heavy units will have hard time operating in the straits, what's the point of having a balanced fleet?
A blockade would have to extend all around the island - it's easier said than done. Additionally, again, we go back to the issue of dettera
For offensive uses, subs are much better.
*Sigh*
Taiwan has been trying to order submarines for the last 20 years or so. China's opposition has made this very difficult. If it were as simple as popping over to the local 7/11 Taiwan would have already done that.
looking from the map the HF-III can close the Straits already, what else is there to do, really?
The HF-III isn't in widespread service yet. How could Taiwan have developed a strategy based on a weapon that was still under development?!
Subs can also act as defensive element, as well as try to do counter-blockade against PRC.
And Taiwan has only two of them that are combat ready! Future orders will take time, assuming the US plan works out. So in the meantime it needs other vessels.
Do you even know anything about Taiwan's situation?
On air superiority, what's it good for if against SAM's the attacker cannot operate her own aircraft?
So, again, I ask the question - why do countries bother with airforces of any significant size when they don't have huge SAM networks?
If you're still not convinced about why countries should have an airforce over massive SAM networks, please raise a general question on a new thread. This is not a thread for "the theory of everything".
What percentage of GDP is ROC pumping into defence these days? Whenever I read this thread there seems to be news of yet another multi Billion Dollar arms deal.
If they went ahead with all of them, they would surely be putting a higher proportion of earnings into defence than the DPRK!
Sampan, I think you're getting forgetful in your old age. We discussed this some months ago, where I told you that Taiwan is expanding its defence budget at a sustainable pace.
As Pointblank has demonstrated, Taiwan's spending as a proportion of GDP is quite balanced. North Korea spends around 23% of GDP on its military - almost ten times more than Taiwan does proportionately. Equally, how many multi-billion orders have received congressional notice and been discussed on this forum? Just one - the P-3C Orion deal.
Maybe if you kept yourself better informed you wouldn't get yourself into a pickle over Taiwanese defence spending.
