The Liberty Times reported on Monday that more than 150 items in this year's defense budget have yet to be unfrozen. The budget was sent to the Legislative Yuan in mid-September, and the report named two frozen items: spare-parts procurement for the M1A2T tank, and funding for the Taiwan Tactical Network (TTN) and the Troop Awareness Kit (TAK).

The article carries no formal statement from the Ministry of National Defense and gives no dollar figures for individual items. The reason for the freeze, the timetable for lifting it, and the specific positions of the ruling and opposition parties in the legislature cannot be confirmed from this report alone, so this article focuses on the fact of the freeze and the expert analysis.

Logistics and Maintenance Hit First

Su Tzu-yun, director of the Defense Strategy and Resources Research Institute at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the freeze could affect combat readiness rates and create a vicious cycle. Armed forces logistics and repairs would feel it first, he said; beyond the M1A2T, some fighter-jet components and missile maintenance parts would also be affected.

Su said the later an order is placed, the further back it falls in the queue, and some equipment may end up waiting for materials. Delays could also raise prices, he said, citing the earlier M1A2T price increase caused by changes in the Taiwan dollar-US dollar exchange rate. Once a price changes, the ministry must report to the Legislative Yuan again, delaying parts further.

Tactical Network and the Signal to Washington

If TTN and TAK funding is held up, Su said, joint combat capability in grassroots Army units would weaken. Those systems rely on a shared picture of the battlefield, so a long freeze could cut command-and-control efficiency and delay the integration of new unmanned vehicles. He added that the freeze also carries a specific political signal for the United States.

Su recommended raising the share of domestically made weapons alongside foreign purchases, arguing this would soften the impact of changes in arms sales, help build a domestic defense industry and send a positive signal to Washington. That is one expert's view; the positions of the government and the opposition do not appear in the report.

Whether the items are unfrozen depends on the outcome of Legislative Yuan deliberations. How the ministry responds, and by what process the parties will discuss unfreezing, remain to be seen in follow-up reporting.