Jedidiah Royal, former principal deputy assistant secretary for Indo-Pacific security affairs at the U.S. Department of War, said in a special speech at the "2026 Taipei Security Dialogue" today (9th) that the United States must honor its delivery on the arms sales (FMS) case to Taiwan, and bluntly said that "Taipei has no better friend than Washington." He called on Washington to "listen to what it is saying" and understand that it has the opportunity to turn back the approaching "threat clock" by accelerating key arms sales, allowing the "deployed hard power" the United States hopes to appear in the most critical areas.
Royer pointed out that time and time again, the governments of the United States and Taiwan have found ways to move forward together, learning from each other, strengthening each other's security, and standing together in the face of coercion and pressure. Despite the many discussions in the past two years, he does not believe that the fundamental nature of bilateral relations has changed, and is optimistic that pragmatic reality will continue to act like a magnet to attract both sides to common feasible solutions. "I encourage the people of Taiwan to make good use of the pragmatic and mutually reinforcing elements of our relationship."
He cited his last official in the administration, Undersecretary for Policy Elbridge Colby, as saying that the indicators for diplomatic relations are "more ship launches, expanded inventories of critical munitions, real interoperability, deployed hard power, and demonstrated political will to use these forces." Royer said that all parties should accept this request, and that the United States' acceleration of key arms sales to Taiwan is fully consistent with the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, the Six Assurances, and the three communiques regulating U.S. relations with Taiwan.
Propose the integration of the Indo-Pacific defense industry and combine the comparative advantages of each country
At the regional level, Royer called on Taiwan and neighboring countries to embed domestic efforts into a set of regionally consistent strategies and cooperate in research and development, supply chain resilience, production and logistics maintenance. He bluntly stated that even if Taiwan establishes a more powerful domestic drone manufacturing engine, it will not be able to meet demand on its own. For example, he cited Taiwan as having difficulty in obtaining the capacity for sophisticated testing and evaluation, but Australia has one of the best testing facilities in the world, Japan has one of the deepest industrial depths in the field of robotics, and the Philippines has a high-skilled labor force, geographical proximity, and an increasing willingness to attract industries with preferential business conditions.
Royer pointed out that if we start organizing and activating a set of industrial cooperation paths that integrate all parties now, the Indo-Pacific region will see the vigorous development of industrial energy and its application in the national defense system, including shipyards increasing the output of naval systems, adaptive manufacturing equipment in factories running non-stop, scattered storage of spare parts and materials in strong solidified warehousing, logistics maintenance hubs that shorten communication lines and extend the time of key forces, and a new generation of maintenance manpower to ensure that joint military mechanisms maintain combat readiness.
He said that this is roughly the work of "contested logistics" and is a priority for the US military, but at least as far as he sees it, it has not yet become a priority in the political and policy thinking of regional allies and partners. Royer encouraged regional governments to incorporate more complete logistics sustainment packages into procurement decisions, operationalize joint logistics structures such as the Indo-Pacific Logistics Network, support the access of friendly forces, and be as business-friendly as possible to attract large and growing defense-related private capital for prototype development, production, testing, expansion, training, and forward sustainment in the region.
Royal admits that politics can sometimes complicate this more cooperative approach. "Encouraging companies to do more abroad often doesn't get many votes in elections, but when it improves deterrents, we have to push for it," Royer said. He also reminded his colleagues in Washington that if the United States must fight a war in this theater, "our troops will rely on a defense industrial base that is not its own establishment." Every time we talk about inventory depth, we should also pay equal attention to industrial depth. He also pointed out that existing mechanisms such as the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience (PIPIR), the Regional Sustainment Framework (RSF) and the second pillar of AUKUS are already ripe fruits for picking, and "we are not starting from scratch."
Introducing private capital to build the first island chain test range
Royer revealed that he is personally betting his future on this belief, and is currently working to establish more physical bases for transnational defense industry cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, including industrial parks to increase production line capacity, research and development facilities deliberately designed to allow governments, academic institutions and industry partners to jointly promote new weapons systems, and civilian test and evaluation ranges located in the first island chain that can improve the performance of the system in its intended use environment. He said private capital sees the value of such projects and is ready to act, "but it won't be one country at a time."
As for the prospects of the regional security architecture, Royer judged that further political commitment towards the formation of multilateral alliances is still unlikely to occur in the next few years, and the existing political architecture will probably not see substantial changes, although minor adjustments, especially at the bilateral level, are still possible. However, he emphasized that as long as active and rapid actions are taken in the above-mentioned fields and the delivery time is accelerated, the region will inevitably move towards a higher degree of integration in defense affairs.
Royer served in the U.S. government for 25 years, the last four of which were in charge of Indo-Pacific defense policy, and retired from his post in August this year. He emphasized that he takes Xi Jinping very seriously, and also takes the advancing "threat clock" seriously, but that is not the only clock. The second one is the "delivery clock". When the threat clock moves toward danger, the delivery clock moves toward deterrence and stability; the threat clock takes away time, but the delivery clock buys back time, pushing back the worst day and suppressing risks.
"We can slow down the threat clock by speeding up the implementation clock, and while we still have time to do that now, we may not in the future," Royer said.
