Eric Gomez
Eric Gomez and Benjamin Giltner
August 2024 was a very active month for arms sales with 22 new Foreign Military Sales (FMS) cases announced. However, the Taiwan arms sales backlog was unchanged from last month with no new sales announced or deliveries completed. Taiwan is waiting for $20.5 billion of US weapons. Although none of the new FMS cases directly affect the Taiwan arms backlog, it is worth taking a look at how these sales overlap with the sales that Taiwan is awaiting.
Figures 1 and 2 show how the backlog is divided between munitions, asymmetric capabilities, and traditional capabilities. Table 1 shows an itemized list of backlogged capabilities.
According to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency’s archive of major arms sales announcements, which goes back to April 2008, August 2024 was the busiest month for new FMS cases. Of the 22 sales announcements, 10 overlap with the Taiwan backlog. Table 2 shows all the August 2024 sales, with check marks indicating sales that overlap with capabilities that have been sold but not delivered to Taiwan. The dollar value of the 22 August FMS cases comes to $32.6 billion.
The United States has seen a significant increase in FMS cases since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. According to the Department of Defense, “In fiscal year 2023, the US did more than $80 billion in business through the foreign military sales system. That is a record.” In fiscal year 2022 this figure was $51.9 billion. Conflicts in Europe and the Middle East and growing concerns about China’s military power are prompting this rapid increase in FMS. Foreign countries want to buy US weapons, and Washington is happy to oblige.
However, surging demand for US weapons may not be good news for Taiwan, at least not immediately. The US defense industrial base has started increasing its production capacity across many highly sought-after weapons. » Read More
https://www.cato.org/blog/taiwan-arms-backlog-august-2024-update