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| Type 214 submarine (Image: Wiki Commons) |
By James R. Holmes
A European country must sell Taiwan the diesel submarines it needs to save itself from its predatory neighbor.
So let’s have one, or maybe two, hearty huzzah!s for last week’s announcement that the United States will help Taiwan construct a fleet of diesel submarines. The Taiwan Navy can integrate these denizens of the shallows into a people’s-war-at-sea strategy that’s sure to give any invading force fits. Inventively deployed alongside shore-based anti-ship missiles and fleet-of-foot surface craft like the navy’s new Hsun Hai and Kuang Hua VImissile boats, subs can add that (mostly) missing undersea dimension to Taipei’s offshore defense. Up, down, and out! as U.S. Navy surface-ship mariners used to say. Gee … I wonder why no one thought of this before?
The concept, then, merits a cheer. Its execution, not so much. The reality is that putting the concept into effect will take a long time and demand wrenching cultural change within the Taiwan Navy. The hour is late to get started with an enterprise of this scope and ambition.
Why the delay? Eight diesel boats comprised part of the weapons package the Bush administration offered Taipei all the way back in 2001. Yet Taiwan’s Nationalist Party held up the sale in the legislature for no apparent reason except that President Chen Shui-bian wanted it. Narrow partisanship between KMT lawmakers and Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party thus needlessly retarded the Taiwan Navy’s efforts to reinvent itself for new realities. And guess what? Had the sale gone forward back then, Taiwanese submariners might be plying the seas girding the island by now. Its defense lags. Thanks, folks!
Read the full story at The Diplomat