Raytheon has won a $412 million contract to provide hundreds of advanced medium range air-to-air missiles to the Air Force and foreign partners, the Department of Defense announced May 28. Under the terms of the deal, the company will supply 98 AMRAAM AIM-120D missiles to USAF, along with associated training, test, and support equipment, and 213 AIM-120C-7 foreign military sales models and associated equipment to undisclosed nations. As of February, Congress had approved C-7 sales to Greece and Taiwan. The D model is said to have increased jam resistance in the face of adversary electronic attack systems as well as a two-way datalink and GPS-aided navigation.
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…