A senior Pentagon official has said he expects weapons aid packages using the Presidential Drawdown Authority to remain part of the “spectrum of tools” the department uses to meet security assistance requirements for Taiwan.
Ely Ratner, assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, reiterated to reporters on Tuesday the department’s push for appropriations to refill inventories of equipment sent to Taiwan using PDA, where weapons are pulled from current Pentagon stockpiles, similar to the funds received to replenish capabilities provided to Ukraine.
“We are going to continue to assess the ability to provide that in the future. Some of that will be based on need. Some will be based upon the funding and resources available. But I would consider PDA part of, as I said, the spectrum of tools that the administration looks forward to using to fill our commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act,” Ratner said during a Defense Writers Group discussion.
The Biden administration in July confirmed plans to provide Taiwan with a $345 million PDA package, which a Pentagon official then said included “asymmetric capabilities” for areas such as multi-domain awareness and air defense (Defense Daily, Aug. 1).
The U.S. has provided billions of dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine using PDA, with appropriations provided through supplemental spending packages used to replenish stockpiles of those capabilities.
“The Presidential Drawdown Authority for Ukraine has been appropriated against with [funds to] backfill [inventories], which is quite significant because it allows the services to be able to provide those capabilities with a lower level of risk associated with readiness,” Ratner said on Tuesday.
The fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act incorporated provisions from the Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act, to include authorizing up to $2 billion in Foreign Military Finance (FMF) grants for Taiwan from FY ‘23 to ‘27 to purchase U.S.-made defense equipment and allowing PDA packages for Taiwan, while Ratner noted no appropriations were put against the latter authority to fund refilling inventories.
The White House in late August approved the first FMF assistance for Taiwan, with plans to provide $80 million for purchasing capabilities ranging from air and coastal defense systems, drones, ballistic missile defense, cyber defense, ISR systems, command, control, and communications, and military training services (Defense Daily, Aug. 31).
“The United States has provided Foreign Military Sales (FMS) to Taiwan for decades. FMF simply enables eligible partners to purchase U.S. defense articles, services, and training through either FMS or, for a limited number of partners, through the foreign military financing of direct commercial contracts program,” a State Department official said in a statement at the time.
Ratner on Tuesday said the Biden administration’s $106 billion supplemental spending request before Congress is key to ensuring the department has the appropriations in place to fulfill security assistance requirements for Taiwan, with the measure including $2 billion further in FMF loans for Indo-Pacific partners (Defense Daily, Oct. 20).
“[Defense] Secretary [Lloyd] Austin has been on the record repeatedly saying that for the department to effectively leverage those authorities, it’s going to be required to get appropriations against them,” Ratner said during a Defense Writers Group discussion. “To the extent that the supplemental provides against the authorities that Congress has provided, that enables us to fulfill our commitments [under] the Taiwan Relations Act. That would be welcomed and consistent with what the secretary has asked for.”
Senior Pentagon officials, including Austin, urged lawmakers over the weekend to move forward on the supplemental spending request, with the White House then confirming on Monday it will run out of money to continue assistance efforts for Ukraine by the end of the year without action from Congress to provide additional funds (Defense Daily, Dec. 4).
“…It is critically important that we maintain our focus on the importance of integrated deterrence in the Indo-Pacific for the purpose of maintaining peace and stability. Our allies and partners in the region need our support more than ever, and this request provides resources to help them build the capabilities necessary to address threats from an increasingly assertive [China] and to meet emerging challenges,” the White House wrote in an October letter detailing the supplemental.