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Editorial & Opinion

Sat, Jul 18, 2026 page8

The defense firms no one hears about are critical

By Al Vigier

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Every allied capital says roughly the same thing about Taiwan. Support is unwavering. Deterrence must be credible. Supply chains must be resilient and non-Chinese. Explainable, human-controlled artificial intelligence (AI) is a procurement standard, not a preference. The rhetoric is consistent from Ottawa to Washington to Canberra to London. The delivery is not.<br>Canada, where I live and where my company is based, has no formal defense relationship with Taiwan. Washington sells arms and holds pauses.Canberra signs communiques while London writes strategy papers.<br>Meanwhile, the sensor a Taiwanese coast guard vessel needs or the decision layer a base commander requires either exists next year or it does not. Below the political radar, Taiwan’s defense-industrial ecosystem is quietly building the allied coalition Western governments say they want, company by company.<br>Taiwan’s hardware giants are recruiting allied technology partners with non-Chinese supply chains. They are signing non-disclosure agreements, running proofs of concept, and executing partnership agreements at a pace unrecognizable to those measuring activity through inter-governmental channels. Canadian, American, European, and Australian firms are showing up in Taipei, in some cases through introductions facilitated by their own trade commissioners, and finding a defense ecosystem that treats them as strategic partners rather than vendors.<br>My company signed a partnership this month with MiTAC Advance Technology Corp, part of Taiwan’s MiTAC Group, to develop counter-drone decision support, maritime domain awareness, and sensor-to-decision workflows. We are one company and one partnership, but one of many. Since Computex, allied technology firms have partnered with Taiwanese hardware leaders across counter-uncrewed aircraft systems, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, edge computing, and secure communications. The pattern is driven by two facts: Taiwan needs the capability now, and its industry has decided not to wait.

The Taiwan-led allied industrial coalition is real, but it is fragile. It exists because Taiwan’s companies are moving faster than allied governments. If Ottawa, Washington, and Canberra decide that Indo-Pacific engagement means slow, symbolic gestures rather than concrete export-control facilitation, procurement pathways, and credit for suppliers who serve Taiwan, the coalition slows.<br>Allied firms will not sustain multi-year Taiwan pursuits without support from their home governments. Existing support, such as Canada’s Trade Commissioner Service, remains quiet, technocratic and inconsistent, but could be scaled up and made durable. The model has implications beyond Taiwan: Allied democracies’ defense-industrial bases cannot meet contemporary conflict demands. Ukraine, Israel and the Red Sea have proven this.<br>The Taiwan model, where host-country industry partners with allied small and medium enterprises on commercial terms and brings governments along, offers a working alternative that should be studied and copied.<br>Taiwan’s defense-industrial ecosystem is one of the most consequential strategic assets in the democratic world, and much of what it is doing is being done by companies whose names do not appear in white papers.<br>The allied partners Ottawa and Washington keep promising are, in significant part, already here. Taiwan built them. Allied governments would be wise to notice, and to help.

Al Vigier is the founder and chief executive of Caseway, a Canadian sovereign AI company headquartered in Vancouver. He served seven years in the Canadian Army, including Joint Task Force 2 selection.

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