The Pentagon has awarded Raytheon, the former employer of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, a $68 million contract to supply Taiwan with air-to-surface glide bombs.
The contract is for 50 AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapons (JSOW), which can be fired by Taiwan’s fleet of F-16s and have a range of up to 68 miles. The 50 bombs are part of an arms deal that was initially approved by the Trump administration in 2017.
The glide bombs are not expected to be delivered until 2028. They will be mainly manufactured in Tucson, Arizona, the home of Raytheon Missile & Defense.
According to The South China Morning Post, the deal for Raytheon is the first weapons supply contract for Taiwan announced by the Pentagon since the island’s presidential elections.
Vice President Lai Ching-te of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party won the election and will be inaugurated in May. He is expected to continue moving closer to the US, following the policies of the current president, Tsai Ing-wen, although the mainland-friendly Kuomintang secured the speakership in Taiwan’s parliament, the Legislative Yuan.
China is strongly opposed to any US military support for Taiwan, including weapons sales. The US has sold weapons to Taiwan since severing diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979 and began providing unprecedented military aid in 2023. The arming of Taiwan and new US diplomatic support for Taiwan is being done in the name of deterrence, but the policies have significantly increased tensions.
The share-holders of War Inc have grown accustomed to billions or trillions, but they will still be tickled pink by some millions..
I don’t think $68 million will even get the attention of Raytheon (now RTX). shareholders. It amounts to something like one-tenth of one percent of annual revenue and it’s tiny in comparison to other orders from the Pentagon.
But if you have enough $68 million sales, eventually they’ll add up to real money, so they certainly won’t complain.
People are starving,in poor health and sleeping on the streets and the Defense Corporations and contractors are making a fucking fortune from killing human beings. What is wrong with this picture? Nothing if you are named Joe Biden.
He can talk it over with Mitterand. Maybe President Lincoln has tips too.
Biden tells crowd he recently met with Mitterrand, former French president who died in 1996
https://news.yahoo.com/biden-tells-crowd-recently-met-234625101.html
And just imagine, he’s only 81. It’s not like he’s going to improve when he’s 82 or 83 or 84…. But lucky for us, the republicans are running with a guy who brags about being able to remember 5 words in a row. That’s right, in a row. Man, we are fucked.
We don’t elect the real rulers. Who TF would’ve signed up for Nuland or Bolton?
Perhaps he forgot to say he met with his spirit…!
Few companies have raped the American taxpayers like Raytheon.
True, there aren’t many. But Raytheon is a distant second to Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, Northrup Grumman and General Dynamics, together, are sucking in probably twice as much taxpayer money.
Of course, I don’t want the following to happen but if Biden attacks Iran, China is likely to invade Taiwan. …Before you start yelling. It’s a feeling. Biden could be right. We can start war with multiple nations at the same time just because, “We are the USA.” If we do, we’ll finally find out if we’re going “to be or not to be, that is the question.”
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan represents a technical problem dependent on many factors other than just “what the US happens to be preoccupied with right now.” The PRC is in the process of building a navy well suited to the specific task of safely moving lots of troops across 100 miles of unfriendly water to beachheads or airheads established on unfriendly territory, but it’s not there yet.
It’s a cost versus benefit equation. Do you do it before they are all ready and armed to the teeth in Taiwan? Or do you wait until they’re all finished being ready for you like they did in Ukraine? One thing that’s in our favor is the Chinese are all just as dumb as Putin. They just sold me a fantastic refrigerator for too cheap, knowing that my country would love nothing better than kill everyone of them.
I would bet on not to be.
The headline is just clickbait BOMBS BOMBS BOMBS
“The 50 bombs are part of an arms deal that was initially approved by the Trump administration in 2017.
The glide bombs are not expected to be delivered until 2028. They will be mainly manufactured in Tucson, Arizona, the home of Raytheon Missile & Defense.”
A Foreign Military Sales from 2017 for expected delivery date of 2028.
All I needed to read. Move on, China sales Weapons too all over the world.
Lloyd Austin doing favors for his old employer – Raytheon. That’s how it works.
It’s not just favor…! He has a lot of shares in the company…!