Taiwan Arms Backlog, October 2024 Update: New Air Defense Sales and Javelin Delivery
Eric Gomez and Benjamin Faber
In October 2024, Congress received notification of two new arms sales for Taiwan, and the Ministry of National Defense (MND) confirmed the final delivery of Javelin anti-tank missiles. The net value of the US arms sale backlog to Taiwan increased by $1.86 billion, bringing the backlog’s total value to $22.39 billion.
Figure 1 shows the current composition of the backlog by category of weapons system. Toggle between the tabs of Figure 2 to see how the composition shifted from September to October 2024.
All US arms sales to Taiwan in 2024—including the last five in a row—are for asymmetric capabilities best suited for fighting off a Chinese invasion, showing that US arms sales to Taiwan are heading in the right direction. This recent focus on asymmetric capabilities means that the proportion of the arms backlog represented by traditional capabilities is less than 50 percent for the first time since January 2024 when we started releasing monthly updates to this dataset.
Per Table 1, which shows an itemized list of capabilities in the backlog, the proportion of traditional capabilities, asymmetric capabilities, and munitions is now 48.6 percent, 39.6 percent, and 11.9 percent, respectively. Put differently, the United States is selling better types of weapons to meet Taiwan’s most pressing security threat, which is good news for Taiwan’s self-defense despite a growing backlog dollar value.
New Air Defense Sales
The most significant development in October 2024 was congressional notification of two new arms sales for asymmetric air defense systems for almost $2 billion—$1.16 billion for three National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) and $828 million for an unspecified number of mobile radar systems.
NASAMS is a ground-based air defense system that can use multiple types of missiles against aerial drones, cruise missiles, helicopters, and fixed-wing aircraft. The United States has sent Ukraine a handful of NASAMS batteries, which have reportedly enjoyed considerable success against Russian cruise missiles and drones. Compared to the Patriot system, which Taiwan has also purchased from the United States, NASAMS has a shorter range and cannot intercept ballistic missiles. While NASAMS is a formidable asymmetric air defense system, some analysts have noted that $1.16 billion is a steep price for three batteries.
Both the NASAMS batteries and the mobile radar systems have asymmetric capabilities. The mobility of these systems will help them survive in an intense conflict by making it harder for China to fix their location and strike them. Ukraine’s success at denying Russia air superiority despite having a much smaller air force is due in large part to mobile air defense systems like NASAMS.
Updated MND Report Confirms Javelin Delivery
The second major development in the Taiwan arms sale backlog in October 2024 was the publication of an MND document with updated information on the status of US arms sales. An earlier version of this document, published in June 2024, was an important data source that contradicted other sources of information about weapons deliveries. This prompted us to add several arms sales back into the backlog that other sources suggested had already been delivered.
The October 2024 MND document indicates that the July 2019 sale of 400 Javelin anti-tank missiles was fully delivered to Taiwan in July 2024. According to the MND report, several Javelin missiles were test-fired in the annual Han Kuang exercise. This delivery reduced the value of the backlog by $129 million.
Finally, the new MND report provided new information about two delayed arms sales: TOW-2B anti-tank missiles and F‑16 Block 70 aircraft. Taiwan is still waiting to receive 1,700 TOW-2B anti-tank missiles that were notified to Congress in 2015 (769 missiles, later reduced to 460) and 2019 (1,240 missiles). Delivery of the TOW-2Bs was supposed to happen in 2022. However, production problems and quality control failures delayed delivery. The October 2024 MND document claims that the missiles have passed quality control testing and that full delivery should occur by the end of 2024.
The MND report also states that delivery of newly built F‑16 Block 70 aircraft—notified to Congress in 2019 and the largest arms sale in the backlog valued at $8 billion—is a year behind schedule. The MND was expecting the first aircraft to leave the factory in 2023. However, it now expects to receive its first fighter planes by the end of 2024, with final delivery occurring in late 2026.
