Runway Trap: How Chinese Missiles and Rockets Could Neutralize Taiwan’s Air Force
Chinese missiles and artillery could ground Taiwan’s F-16s for weeks. Resilient, mobile defenses are essential to contest the skies.
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Later this year, Taiwan will receive the first of its long-awaited F-16V Block 70 fighter jets from the United States. These jets will join 140 recently upgraded F-16V Block 20s, bringing the F-16 fleet to roughly 210 aircraft. Outfitted with advanced active electronically scanned array radar, modern avionics, and sophisticated electronic warfare systems, the aircraft aim to strengthen Taiwan’s air combat capabilities and signal credible deterrence to Beijing. Yet they remain vulnerable to a runway trap: Without the ability to get airborne, Taiwan’s $12.5 billion investment — $8 billion for the new jets and $4.5 billion to upgrade older ones — could be little more than an expensive but hollow symbol of strength.
China’s large arsenal of ground-launched missiles, combined with Taiwan’s geography, leaves the island’s fighter fleet concentrated at a handful of highly vulnerable airfields. Modeling repeated People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) strikes on Taiwanese runways and taxiways, using conservative assumptions and open-source data, shows that China’s DF-11 and DF-15 missiles and long-range artillery alone could keep Taiwan’s military runways and taxiways closed during the first two-to-three weeks of a conflict. Taiwan’s countermeasures — such as dispersing aircraft to civilian airfields, accelerating runway repairs, and expanding interceptor stockpiles — could reduce closure times to a few days. This assumes, however, that China does not employ more advanced systems like the DF-16 or DF-17, or aerial bombs from strike fighters or bombers, either of which would dramatically extend closure times and keep Taiwan’s fighters grounded for weeks or months.
This reality contradicts Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei’s claim in 2024 that Taiwan could maintain “absolute air superiority” over its own skies. Such confidence may boost domestic morale, but it underestimates the missile threat and the structural vulnerability of Taiwan’s air force. Taiwan should therefore shift its airpower strategy from seeking air superiority to achieving air denial. Mobile surface-to-air missiles, cyber and electromagnetic capabilities, and runway-independent platforms, including drones of different types, can keep the airspace contested. This approach offers Taiwan a stronger deterrent and more credible defense than the illusory promise of absolute air superiority.
Taiwan’s Challenge
Taiwan’s air force, limited by the island’s geography to just a handful of airfields, must defend against the world’s largest arsenal of conventional missiles, many capable of carrying ground-penetrating submunitions designed to crater runways and suppress air operations. The PLARF fields more than 2,000 short- and medium-range ballistic missiles and several hundred land-attack cruise missiles. These include upgraded DF-11 and DF-15 SRBM variants with improved accuracy and reliability, as well as the DF-11AZT and DF-15C armed with earth-penetrating warheads. Even the lower end of China’s SRBM capabilities pose a serious threat. Missiles such as the DF-11A and DF-11AZT can deliver 500-kilogram payloads to ranges up to 600 kilometers with circular error probable (CEP) of 20-30 meters — accurate enough to crater runways.
In addition, the PLA Ground Force operates the PCH-191 multiple rocket launcher, capable of firing 750-millimeter (mm) tactical missiles with 480-kilogram payloads to about 500 kilometers with CEPs of 10-30 meters, further expanding China’s ability to threaten Taiwan’s airfields from the mainland. Public estimates suggest that the PLA’s Eastern and Southern Theater Commands together operate four artillery brigades, each with a battalion of 12 PCH-191 launchers, with each launcher able to fire two 750-mm missiles. Assuming three of these four brigades are allocated to the airfield strike mission, with two to three reloads per launcher, these units could have 144-216 missiles available for reload, plus those initially loaded on launchers. Even if fewer reloads are allocated to the 750-mm missile variant, other PCH-191-compatible-rockets are more than capable of filling the gaps. The 370-mm BRE8 HE, for example, has a range that can reach the majority of Taiwan, similar accuracy to the DF-11A, and fits four rockets per pod, together carrying a payload that is 50% higher than a single 750-mm missile.
Without the ability to get airborne, Taiwan’s $12.5 billion investment modernizing its F-16 fleet could be little more than an expensive, hollow symbol of strength.
At the same time, Taiwan’s air force has few places to hide. The island’s compact size concentrates its air force at just seven major military air bases and five joint-use military-civilian airfields — each meeting the minimum operating surface (MOS) requirement of 5,000 feet long by 50 feet wide. In wartime, Taiwan’s fighter fleet could draw on only five additional civilian airfields, leaving limited dispersal options. Taiwan can operate from no more than 17 airfields with 47 usable runways and taxiways — targets that China could plausibly crater at the outset of operations, neutralizing much of Taiwan’s fighter force before it gets airborne and leaving survivors with nowhere to land (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Airfields in Taiwan with Fighter-Suitable Runways
Taiwan’s military readiness challenges compound these geographic and structural vulnerabilities. Rapid runway repair — essential for restoring fighter operations after missile strikes — remains a persistent weakness for Taiwan. While the military has invested in repair kits and trained repair crews, exercises remain limited in frequency and scale, and personnel shortages constrain operational readiness. In early 2024, Taipei also announced plans to widen the runways at seven of its air bases from 45-50 to 60 meters. While work appears to be underway at least at one site, funding and completion timelines for the broader effort have not been publicly disclosed.
Taiwan maintains a network of hardened aircraft shelters, including reinforced and underground facilities at its major air bases, that could protect fighters from initial strikes. But even if aircraft survive in their shelters, damaged runways could render them immobile. Limited dispersal options and repair capacity, combined with the likelihood that Chinese surveillance could detect and target ongoing repairs, mean that damaged runways could ground Taiwan’s air fleet precisely when it is most needed.
Modeling Chinese Attacks on Taiwanese Runways and Taxiways
To assess the missile threat to Taiwan’s runways and taxiways, this issue brief adapted a statistical model from prior work on Chinese threats to U.S. Indo-Pacific bases. Using conservative assumptions and open-source data, the model estimates Taiwan’s airfields, repair capabilities, and missile defenses, as well as the PLA’s order-of-battle and missile arsenal. The model simulates waves of Chinese missile attacks targeting Taiwan’s airfields, calculating the number of hours that Chinese missiles could render runways unusable for Taiwanese air operations.
Missiles armed with runway-penetrating submunitions deny air operations by cratering concrete at multiple points, leaving no continuous stretch of surface long or wide enough for aircraft to take off or land. At Ching Chuan Kang Air Base — home to Taiwan’s longest military runway and likely among the first targets in a conflict — flight operations depend on a single main runway (12,000 by 148 feet), a parallel taxiway (12,350 by 105 feet), and a shorter adjacent taxiway (8,000 by 75 feet) (Figures 2-4). Two well-placed cuts would be sufficient to slice the main runway into unusable sections, while two more would sever the parallel taxiway; an additional single cut would disable the shorter taxiway (not pictured). Five successful strikes would thus eliminate every surface meeting the 5,000-by-50-foot minimum required for fighter operations, grounding the base until repairs are completed.
Figure 2: Ching Chuan Kang Air Base and Fighter Minimum Operating Surface (MOS)
Figure 3: Open v. Closed Runway Crater Cuts – Insufficient Cuts
Figure 4: Open v. Closed Runway Crater Cuts – Denying Fighter Operations
The baseline model assumes Taiwan assigns six of its nine deployed Patriot batteries to airfield defense, distributing them evenly across its six primary air bases — Tainan, Hsinchu, Ching Chuan Kang, Chiayi, Chiashan, and Chihhang. Each battery has eight launchers, but these must defend multiple targets, from runways and hangars to aircraft shelters and critical base facilities. The base model in our simulation allocates approximately 120 PAC-3 interceptors, or about 30% of Taiwan’s current PAC-3 inventory, specifically to runway protection. The remaining interceptors in these batteries would defend other airfield assets while PAC-2 systems and indigenous Tien Kung interceptors are assumed to protect other high-value assets, including critical infrastructure, command-and-control facilities, and fixed radar sites.
Runways can be repaired, but China possesses the missile stockpiles to strike them again. The central question is how long Beijing can sustain repeated attacks and keep Taiwan’s fighters grounded. The model simulates attack waves targeting all airfields, with strikes timed to coincide with runway reopening. It accounts for key variables including runway dimensions, Chinese missile accuracy and reliability, Taiwan’s missile defense effectiveness, and submunition dispersal patterns. The model assumes China seeks at least a 90% probability of successfully cratering all aimpoints at each base or airfield using the minimum number of missiles necessary.
Benchmarked against an eight-hour U.S. repair standard, the model assumes Taiwan repairs military runways within 24 hours — a more realistic timeframe than Taiwan’s claimed 2.5 hours for repairing one or two large craters. Those estimates likely exclude explosive ordinance disposal, which must be completed before repairs can begin. Interviews with individuals familiar with Taiwanese military exercises indicate additional delays, as equipment positioning alone has taken up to 30 minutes, while personnel shortages further limit the ability to conduct simultaneous repairs across multiple bases. The model therefore assumes Taiwan repairs military runways within 24 hours, and China launches follow-up strikes as soon as the first runway reopens and continues attacking until missile stocks are depleted.
Key Findings
The simulation yields three primary findings. First, China can sustain missile and artillery strikes at sufficient scale to deny Taiwan fighter operations for weeks rather than days. Second, Taiwan’s existing missile defenses cannot counter this threat, as interceptors are rapidly depleted, and the cost-exchange ratio favors China in any sustained exchange. Third, a layered defense, combining faster runway repair times, maximum aircraft dispersal, and expanded missile defenses, can significantly reduce airfield closure times from weeks to days. Achieving these gains, however, requires significant and sustained investment, and, even then, Taiwan would still find its fighter aircraft sidelined during the conflict’s critical opening phase.
The Threat: Weeks Without Fighter Operations
Using baseline assumptions with DF-11 and DF-15 SRBMs, China could deny fighter operations at Taiwan’s six air bases known to host fighter jet squadrons for over two weeks (Table 1).1Baseline assumptions include a 95% missile reliability, a CEP of 20m for the DF-11A/AZT, a CEP of 5m for the DF-15B, a CEP of 15m for the DF-15C, a 60% SSPK for missile defense interception, perfect Chinese battlefield damage assessment, and a 24-hour ROC repair time for a single runway or taxiway cut. Even dispersing aircraft across all military bases with suitable runways, closures would still last just over a week.
Table 1: Threat from DF-11 and DF-15 Missile Strikes
The threat becomes even more severe if China employs long-range artillery armed with 750-mm munitions alongside PLARF missiles, extending potential closure times to nearly a month (Table 2).2The simulation approximates 750mm munition capabilities with the nearly identical DF-11A/AZT capabilities. Maximum reloads are assumed, for a total of just under 300 additional munitions in this run.
Table 2: Combined Missile and Artillery Threat to ROC Military Bases
Robustness checks varying key parameters — reducing missile reliability to 85%, submunitions reliability to 95%, and degrading missile accuracy and range — still produced closure times ranging from roughly one-to-two weeks.3The DF-11A/AZT and the 750mm artillery ranges were reduced from 600m to 350m, and the CEPs were raised from 20m to 30m. The DF-15B and DF-15C ranges were reduced from 800m to 725m. The DF-15B CEP was raised from 5m to 40 m while the DF-15C CEP was increased from 15m to 20m. /mfn] Reducing the number of long-range artillery reloads to two had an even smaller effect, lowering the shortest closure time by about 8% for both levels of dispersion. In all scenarios, Taiwan’s missile defenses are quickly exhausted, leaving airfields defenseless against sustained attacks.
Assessment of Countermeasures
Taiwan confronts an uncomfortable reality: None of the available countermeasures adequately address the combined threat from Chinese missiles and artillery. The simulation tested three potential countermeasures — dispersing operations to civilian airfields, increasing missile defense inventories, and accelerating runway repair — to determine whether defensive investments could mitigate the threat. The modeling reveals limited returns. Individual measures offer modest improvements at best, and even a combined approach that integrates all three cannot eliminate extended closures during the period when fighter operations would matter most.
None of the available countermeasures adequately address the combined threat from Chinese missiles and artillery.
Dispersal to Civilian Airfields
Dispersing operations to civilian airfields appears attractive in theory. Just as expanding from exclusively fighter bases to all viable military runways raises the demand on incoming Chinese missiles and reduces total closure times, adding civilian airfields should multiply this effect, forcing Beijing to strike more targets with the same missile and artillery inventory.
In practice, however, the benefits are limited. Taiwan has only a handful of civilian airfields with runways suitable for military operations, and these facilities lack hardened infrastructure and dedicated repair equipment.3This dispersed basing excursion only adds four additional airfields, bringing the total to 17 viable airfields with 42 usable runways and taxiways. These additions are minimal, as Taiwan already has numerous airfields that share civilian and military operations — including Taichung International Airport with Ching Chuang Kang Air Base — that are represented in the earlier dispersion cases. The model assumes a repair time of three weeks for civilian airfields — due partly to the lack of prepositioned explosive ordinance disposal equipment and crews and trained repair crews, but primarily to limited access to specialized quick-dry, high-impact concrete. Adding civilian airfields to dispersal plans reduces the shortest closure time by a mere 24 hours, leaving aircraft grounded for the first 11 days of any military conflict. (Table 3).
Table 3: Maximal Dispersal to Military Bases and Civilian Airfields
Missile Defense Investments
Increasing interceptor stockpiles is the most obvious way to counter a missile or long-range artillery threat. Taiwan is reportedly pursuing this approach, planning to acquire as many as 500 additional PAC-3 MSE interceptors with supporting launchers and radars. The modeling, however, reveals the limitations of this strategy.
The simulation tested two investment levels — a “moderate increase” and a “massive increase” — in interceptors designated for runway defense. The baseline scenario assumes 120 missiles, rising to 246 in the moderate increase and 396 in the massive increase. Even with this substantial buildup, reductions in airfield closure times are modest. A moderate increase in interceptors reduces closure times by only about 9% to 17% compared to baseline scenarios while even a massive increase achieves reductions of only 21% to 27% (Table 4). With maximum investment in missile defense and full dispersion to civilian airfields, the shortest closure period remains 192 hours (8 days).
The fundamental problem is twofold: First, China possesses a substantial missile inventory, along with a growing long-range artillery stockpile that already exceeds Taiwan’s interceptor capacity. Closing this gap through procurement would be prohibitively expensive for Taiwan. Second, the economics of this competition favor the attacker: It costs China far less to produce additional missiles and rockets than it costs Taiwan to procure the launchers and interceptors needed to defend against them.
While SRBMs like the DF-11 or DF-15 cost an estimated $1-2 million, rockets for the PCH-191 long-range artillery system cost between three and ten times less — roughly $100,000 to $600,000 per rocket.4Open-source information on the per unit costs of these systems is severely limited. The cost of a single 750mm BRE10 rocket for the PCH-191 is likely on the upper end of this range. For comparison, a PAC-3 interceptor costs approximately $3.7 million. Taiwan’s cheaper indigenous TK-III interceptors, estimated at around $620,000 per missile, approximate the high-end cost estimates for PCH-191 rockets. Under a two-shot doctrine, Taiwan would need to expend two interceptors for each incoming rocket, effectively spending at least twice as much per rocket as China. With China’s existing SRBM stockpile likely to absorb most of Taiwan’s interceptors, relatively few would remain to defend against lower-cost long-range rockets. This combination of cost asymmetry and attrition renders a missile-for-missile defense economically unsustainable.
Table 4: Additional Missile Defense Investment
Accelerated Runway Repair
Rather than trying to prevent damage altogether, Taiwan could accept that runways will be hit and focus on restoring them quickly at scale. The faster Taiwan can repair runways, the more frequently China will have to attack them, shifting the calculus of airfield attacks in Taiwan’s favor and potentially reducing the attractiveness of an airfield denial campaign to Chinese military planners. This approach assumes that China’s missile inventory is ultimately finite and costly to replenish, whereas repair capacity depends largely on trained personnel, prepositioned equipment, and specialized materials that can be stockpiled in advance.
The model shows that enhanced repair capability produces the largest reductions in closure time. If Taiwan achieves repair times like the 8-hour repair time for the U.S. military and prepositions runway repair equipment, materials, and trained personnel at civilian airfields to bring repair times down to 24 hours, closure times would decrease by 67% to 73% (Table 5). The shortest closure period with maximum dispersal would fall to 72 hours (3 days).
Table 5: Accelerated Runway Repair
Integrated Approach
Combining all three countermeasures — maximum dispersal, enhanced missile defense, and rapid runway repair — produces significantly better outcomes than any single measure alone (Table 6). If Taiwan shortened runway repair times alongside massive investments in expanding its interceptor inventory and dispersal to all military and civilian airfields, closure times drop to 56 hours (or just over 2 days), a reduction of approximately 79% compared to baseline scenarios.
Table 6: All Countermeasures Combined
The Bottom Line
Taiwan is spending billions on fighter jets that may never get off the ground. China’s missiles could keep Taiwan’s runways closed for one-to-three weeks at the outset of a conflict. Even under the most optimistic assumptions — massive investments in missile defense, accelerated runway repair, maximum dispersal — Taiwanese fighters would remain grounded in the first days of combat.
This creates an impossible choice. If Taiwan concentrates its missile defenses on protecting air bases, those defenses will be rapidly exhausted, leaving other critical targets undefended. Meanwhile, China gains air superiority — probably air supremacy — while Taiwan’s fighters sit uselessly in hardened shelters. If Taiwan instead distributes missile defenses more widely to defend other critical targets, the runways remain exposed and China craters them anyway. Either way, Taiwan loses its fighter fleet as an effective combat force during the conflict’s critical opening phase.
This matters because amphibious operations impose asymmetric airpower requirements. Attackers must achieve air superiority; defenders need only deny it. On D-Day, Allied air superiority made the Normandy invasion possible. Allied aircraft flew more than 14,000 sorties on June 6, 1944, compared to fewer than 300 by the Luftwaffe. Because the Germans lacked the ability to deny Allied air superiority, Allied airpower could protect landing craft, suppress coastal defenses, and interdict German reinforcements headed toward the beaches. By day’s end, the Allies landed 156,000 troops and secured the beachhead.
Conversely, the Luftwaffe’s failure to gain air superiority over Britain in 1940 forced Berlin to cancel Operation Sea Lion — the planned invasion of the British home islands. The Royal Air Force did not defeat the Luftwaffe outright. It needed only to deny Germany the air superiority it required for invasion — and it succeeded. Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, commander-in-chief of Fighter Command, was clear about the objective: “I was trying desperately to prevent the Germans from succeeding in their preparations for an invasion… I had to do that by denying them control of the air.”
These cases are consistent with broader empirical findings on amphibious warfare, which show that modern amphibious operations succeed only 14% of the time without air superiority. China knows this. Chinese military writings consistently emphasize that offensive operations require air superiority. If Beijing gains air superiority over Taiwan — even for the first few days — it creates conditions for establishing beachheads and landing follow-on forces before Taiwan can respond.
The question facing Taiwan is not whether it can achieve air superiority. It cannot — not against China’s fleet of 2,000 modern fighters, not when Taiwan’s own fighters depend on runways that will be cratered within hours. The question is whether Taiwan can deny China the air superiority it requires for successful amphibious operations. This is the logic of air denial.
Air denial strikes at the heart of Beijing’s invasion calculus. China’s theory of victory depends on rapidly seizing control of the air to suppress Taiwan’s defenses and facilitate amphibious operations. If Taiwan can credibly threaten to deny that air superiority — not for hours but for days or weeks — the entire invasion timeline becomes uncertain. That uncertainty strengthens deterrence, as it makes Beijing question whether it can succeed with military force and ask if the risk is worth it. The goal is not to win the air war but to make the air war unwinnable for China — or at least unwinnable at acceptable cost and time.
Air denial exploits a structural advantage favoring Taiwan as the defender. Mobile ground-based air defenses can hide in terrain, employ shoot-and-scoot tactics, and continue threatening Chinese aircraft even after Taiwan’s fighters are grounded. Flying through mostly open sky, attacking aircraft are inherently easier to locate and destroy than the mobile air defenses hunting them from terrain favorable to cover and concealment. Chinese aircraft become not just the hunter but the hunted, searching for dispersed, concealed air defense while those same defenses target them. From the “Scud hunt” in Iraq in 1991 to Ukraine today, mobile air defenses have proven difficult to find and eliminate.
To implement air denial, Taiwan should employ “volumetric defense” — defense in depth executed both laterally across ranges and vertically across altitudes. The outer layer consists of sensors, long-range mobile SAMs, and cyber and electromagnetic capabilities covering approaches from higher altitudes The inner layer includes thousands of anti-aircraft guns, short-range SAMs, drones, and loitering munitions that deny control of the air littoral. Large numbers of small drones can also saturate the air littoral, making it extraordinarily dangerous for Chinese helicopters, transport aircraft, and close air support missions. This cost asymmetry allows Taiwan to impose disproportionate costs on Chinese air operations without matching China’s defense spending dollar-for-dollar — a competition Taiwan would lose
Taiwan could invest heavily to reduce runway closure times and keep fighters operational. But that approach raises a more fundamental question: Is restoring an increasingly fragile paradigm worth the cost? Achieving the integrated countermeasures modeled here — massive interceptor purchases, accelerated repair capabilities, and extensive dispersal infrastructure — would require tens of billions of dollars. Even then, Taiwan’s fighters would be grounded for the first days of a conflict. The opportunity costs are substantial. Those same resources could field thousands of mobile air and missile defense systems, hundreds of anti-ship missiles, and tens of thousands of expendable drones — capabilities that do not depend on vulnerable runways and that directly support an air denial strategy.
Deputy Minister Po’s claim of “absolute air superiority” reflects a dangerous attachment to an outdated paradigm. Taiwan cannot achieve air superiority against China. The numbers, the geography, and the missile threat make this impossible. The solution is not to build more expensive runways or buy more expensive interceptors to defend them. The solution is to stop depending on runways altogether and build an airpower strategy around mobile, distributed, runway-independent capabilities that can survive China’s opening salvos and continue contesting the airspace throughout a conflict. That strategy is air denial.
Policy Recommendations
Taiwan should build an air force designed for air denial, not air superiority. This requires rethinking doctrine, force structure, and procurement priorities. The recommendations below outline a strategy centered on mobile, resilient, runway-independent capabilities that can survive the opening missile salvos and sustain operations throughout a protracted conflict.
Meeting this threat requires mobile, resilient defenses that can survive the first strike and preen China from gaining air superiority.
Make Air Denial the Primary Republic of China Air Force Mission
Taiwan’s air force must reorient around air denial as its primary objective. That requires fundamental changes to doctrine, training, and operations — changes that go beyond simply revising manuals or speaking the language of asymmetry.
Taiwanese doctrine should prioritize denying Chinese air superiority over achieving air superiority outright. This requires training commanders to think in terms of contested airspace rather than a decisive fight for control. Taiwan’s political and military leadership should also reset public expectations, communicating clearly to Taiwan’s public and to Beijing that Taiwan’s goal is not to win the air battle but to ensure China cannot do so either. This represents a more honest and more credible deterrent message than claims of “absolute air superiority.”
Taiwan must also align its force structure with this mission. The current force is built around platform-centric fighters dependent on vulnerable runways. An air denial force instead emphasizes mobile SAMs, distributed sensors, electronic warfare capabilities, and large numbers of drones — systems that can survive initial strikes and continue threatening Chinese aircraft throughout the conflict. Taipei should sign this strategy shift with visible exercises demonstrating that Taiwan’s air defenses are resilient, adaptive, and difficult to eliminate quickly.
Build Volumetric Defense in Depth
Taiwan should adopt a layered, volumetric air defense that exploits both the lateral and vertical dimensions of the airspace. To counter Chinese fighters and bombers, Taiwan should accelerate deployment of indigenous Tien Kung III mobile SAMs and expand medium-to-long-range systems like NASAMS, distributing them widely across the island and linked through redundant, decentralized command-and-control networks designed to function even under sustained attack.
Early warning is central to this approach. Taiwan should build a robust early warning network combining mobile radars, passive sensors that detect without emitting, and networked civilian radars — systems designed to operate independently when communication links are degraded or destroyed.
At lower altitudes — the air littoral — Taiwan should deny China the ability to support ground and naval operations. Fielding thousands of MANPADS, mobile anti-aircraft artillery systems, and short-range SAMs would create dense, overlapping engagement zones that Chinese aircraft cannot easily bypass.
Drones are central to this approach. Taiwan should field tens of thousands of systems to extend surveillance, targeting, and communications across the battlefield. A drone mesh network would also provide resilient communications when satellites are jammed. It should also develop autonomous drones that hunt Chinese helicopters while also acting as “air mines” that loiter in the airspace attacking targets of opportunity. Taiwan should leverage its advanced manufacturing base to produce these systems domestically at scale, ensuring rapid replacement and surge capacity.
As important, Taiwan must transform training to reflect the realities of contested airspace from day one. This requires a cultural shift. Air denial demands different thinking about how to remain threatening even when on the defensive, how to survive initial strikes, and how to regenerate capability under fire. Exercises should practice air denial in coordination with naval and ground operations, recognizing that effectiveness depends on remaining a persistent threat even while under attack.
Rethink the F-16V Purchase and Redirect Resources to Air Denial
Taiwan has committed billions to purchasing F-16V Block 70 aircraft and upgrading its existing fleet. This represents a massive investment in capability that depends entirely on vulnerable runways that China can neutralize with relatively cheap missiles. Taiwan should reconsider this purchase while there is still time.
In peacetime, Taiwan’s fighters counter Chinese gray zone incursions — aircraft crossing the median line, probing Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, conducting what amounts to harassment operations. But this mission does not require expensive fighters, and the effectiveness of these fighter interceptions is questionable. China flies more sorties, Taiwan scrambles to intercept, both sides return to base, and the cycle repeats. The fighters serve primarily as symbols, reassuring the public that Taiwan can defend its airspace while signaling resolve to Beijing.
But symbols are expensive. Would those billions produce more deterrent effect if redirected to hundreds of mobile SAMs and tens of thousands of drones? The answer is increasingly yes. The question is whether Taiwan’s leadership has the political courage to act. Both mobile SAMs and drones allow Taiwan to keep the airspace contested and impose costs on Chinese air operations without depending on runways that will be cratered in the opening hours. The question is whether Taiwan’s leadership has the political courage to act on it. If the F-16V contract can still be modified or canceled, Taipei should redirect those resources to air denial capabilities that can survive initial strikes and continue threatening Chinese aircraft throughout the conflict. If the purchase cannot be canceled, Taiwan should at least ensure this is the last major fighter acquisition and shift future investments to mobile, distributed, and resilient systems that align with an air denial strategy rather than undermine it.
Increase Industrial Resilience for Attritional Air Warfare
Taiwan must build industrial resilience for attritional air warfare. The defense industrial base must rapidly scale production of critical systems during conflict, especially drones, missiles, and ammunition. In addition, Taiwan should stockpile components and materials in dispersed locations across the island; leverage additive manufacturing, distributing 3D printers to produce replacement parts without relying on vulnerable supply chains; and build distributed repair facilities to reconstitute damaged systems and return them to the fight quickly.
Align U.S. Arms Sales with Air Denial Strategy
The United States should use arms sales to push Taipei toward implementing a robust air denial strategy. Future foreign military sales should prioritize mobile SAMs, drones, and electronic-warfare systems over additional high-end fighters or large airborne platforms. Washington should also withhold approval for any purchases that undermine air denial, no matter how strongly Taiwan requests them.
Recent procurement discussions in Taipei underscore the need for such a “tough love” approach. In November 2024, the Financial Timesreported that Taiwan was considering requesting up to 60 F-35 stealth fighters and four E-2D Advanced Hawkeye early warning aircraft as part of a $15 billion package intended to signal its commitment to self-defense. The United Sates should refuse both requests. Even short-takeoff and vertical-landing operations or dispersal to highways cannot solve the fundamental problem. Such fighters would be too valuable to risk, too expensive relative to their contribution to air denial, and too vulnerable to use effectively. That money is better spent on thousands of SAMs and tens of thousands of drones. Washington has resisted those requests so far — the right decision.
The December 2025 package shows what American arms sales should prioritize instead. The $11 billion package includes the sales of Altius-700M and -600 loitering munitions and supporting capabilities. This is the right direction. Washington should sustain this pressure and resist future requests for capabilities that undermine it. That means conditioning future arms sales on Taiwan’s demonstrated progress toward air denial — viable exercises, doctrinal changes, and force structure reforms. If Taipei reverts to requesting additional fighters or other runway-dependent platforms, Washington should withhold approval. Deterrence requires it.
Conclusion
The runway trap is real, but Taiwan’s response should not be to double down on an unachievable and unsustainable air superiority strategy. By embracing air denial — exploiting the defenders’ inherent advantages through volumetric defense with mobile SAMs, drones of various types, and electronic warfare — Taiwan can build a more credible deterrent and more effective defense. This approach does not offer false hope; it offers something far more valuable — the ability to deny China the air superiority it would need to mount a successful invasion. By doing so, Taiwan can undermine Beijing’s theory of victory and strengthen deterrence at a manageable cost and risk. The choice is clear: embrace air denial or rely on a strategy that cannot survive the first strike.
Header image: F-16V BLK20 Aircraft. By Wang Yu Ching / 總統府
Notes
Baseline assumptions include a 95% missile reliability, a CEP of 20m for the DF-11A/AZT, a CEP of 5m for the DF-15B, a CEP of 15m for the DF-15C, a 60% SSPK for missile defense interception, perfect Chinese battlefield damage assessment, and a 24-hour ROC repair time for a single runway or taxiway cut.
2
The simulation approximates 750mm munition capabilities with the nearly identical DF-11A/AZT capabilities. Maximum reloads are assumed, for a total of just under 300 additional munitions in this run.
3
The DF-11A/AZT and the 750mm artillery ranges were reduced from 600m to 350m, and the CEPs were raised from 20m to 30m. The DF-15B and DF-15C ranges were reduced from 800m to 725m. The DF-15B CEP was raised from 5m to 40 m while the DF-15C CEP was increased from 15m to 20m. /mfn] Reducing the number of long-range artillery reloads to two had an even smaller effect, lowering the shortest closure time by about 8% for both levels of dispersion. In all scenarios, Taiwan’s missile defenses are quickly exhausted, leaving airfields defenseless against sustained attacks.
Assessment of Countermeasures
Taiwan confronts an uncomfortable reality: None of the available countermeasures adequately address the combined threat from Chinese missiles and artillery. The simulation tested three potential countermeasures — dispersing operations to civilian airfields, increasing missile defense inventories, and accelerating runway repair — to determine whether defensive investments could mitigate the threat. The modeling reveals limited returns. Individual measures offer modest improvements at best, and even a combined approach that integrates all three cannot eliminate extended closures during the period when fighter operations would matter most.
None of the available countermeasures adequately address the combined threat from Chinese missiles and artillery.
Dispersal to Civilian Airfields
Dispersing operations to civilian airfields appears attractive in theory. Just as expanding from exclusively fighter bases to all viable military runways raises the demand on incoming Chinese missiles and reduces total closure times, adding civilian airfields should multiply this effect, forcing Beijing to strike more targets with the same missile and artillery inventory.
In practice, however, the benefits are limited. Taiwan has only a handful of civilian airfields with runways suitable for military operations, and these facilities lack hardened infrastructure and dedicated repair equipment.3This dispersed basing excursion only adds four additional airfields, bringing the total to 17 viable airfields with 42 usable runways and taxiways. These additions are minimal, as Taiwan already has numerous airfields that share civilian and military operations — including Taichung International Airport with Ching Chuang Kang Air Base — that are represented in the earlier dispersion cases.
4
Open-source information on the per unit costs of these systems is severely limited. The cost of a single 750mm BRE10 rocket for the PCH-191 is likely on the upper end of this range.
