TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) on April 30 announced that a new contract has been awarded to Raytheon Missile Systems for US$419 million dollars to develop, test, and install an array of upgrades for for the AIM-9X Block II “Sidewinder” missiles for military forces of several nations, including Taiwan.
According to the DOD announcement, the portion of the total contract funds that will go towards equipping Taiwan’s missile defense systems is only estimated to be about .04 percent of the total funds, or US$ 147,000.
Almost 60 percent of the total contract funds have been designated for domestic equipment upgrades for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force.
The contract includes funds for a wide variety of potential upgrades from the Raytheon corporation, including “advanced optical target detectors, guidance units (live battery), captive air training missile guidance units (inert battery), Block I and II propulsion steering sections, Block II electronic units, tail caps, containers, and spares.”
However, the contract does not include details of which upgrade components are specifically designated for Taiwan or other nations.
In addition to Taiwan, other nations included in the Raytheon contract are Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Morocco, Oman, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.
Recently, in early April 2019, the U.S. DOD also granted contracts to Raytheon to provide Taiwan with a radar refurbishment package (US$ 50 million) and an upgrade for Taiwan’s Patriot Missile Platforms (US$ 9 million).
