Defense expert backs Taiwan's 'T-Dome' air defense plan

國防專家支持台灣之盾（T-Dome）防空計劃

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Retired US Navy Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery urged Taiwan to invest in a fully integrated air-and-missile defense architecture.

President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) announced plans to form a new multi-layered air defense system called “T-Dome” during his National Day address last month. He told a visiting American Israel Public Affairs Committee delegation that T-Dome is “inspired by” Israel’s Iron Dome and the US’ Golden Dome.

Montgomery, now a senior fellow at the Washington, DC-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Taiwan cannot rely solely on high-end systems. It must also develop low-cost defensive systems to deal with less sophisticated threats. He also suggested Taiwan consider nontraditional systems such as aerostats equipped with radar and microwave or directed-energy weapons.

China could draw lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war and employ systems capable of detecting, tracking, and intercepting drones, cruise missiles, hypersonic weapons, and ballistic missiles, he said, per CNA.

In an FDD briefing published last month, Montgomery praised Taiwan’s decision to build an air defense concept modeled on Israel’s Iron Dome system. “Taiwan will need an integrated air and missile defense effort that is similar to — but necessarily much more complex than — what Israel fields because Taiwan’s adversary is significantly more capable.”

“President Lai is smart to look to Israel as a model for fighting authoritarian coercion,” he added. He acknowledged that a conflict with China “would be much different” than what Israel is facing now.

Taiwan’s defense ministry said last month that it has begun procuring new air-defense weapons and integrating existing domestic systems via an automated C5ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance). Linking various systems will create a multi-sensor/multi-shooter kill network that can select appropriate interceptors against specific threats, creating a multilayered, tightly knit air defense shield, the ministry said.