Clara Ferreira Marques
Taiwan’s decision to shake up compulsory military service — extending it to one year, among other measures — has prompted generous commentators to argue that Taipei is finally getting serious about self-defense and deterrence, seizing the window of opportunity provided by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to make a necessary but politically difficult move. The less magnanimous pointed out that the change has been a long time coming, and behind-the-scenes US arm-twisting may have focused minds.
Either way, in the face of an increasingly assertive China, this is at best a first step. From genuinely overhauling conscript and reservist training to adjusting military procurement and addressing critical vulnerabilities like energy supply, Taiwan has far more to do if it is to adequately prepare for catastrophic conflict with its giant neighbor. And, ideally, avert it.
Taiwan has for years been urged to change its approach to a potential confrontation, as the shift in military balance with China alters Taipei’s options. Instead of preparing to tackle Beijing’s forces (and vastly larger budget) head-on, US officials and others have encouraged Taipei to focus on making the most of the defender’s advantage, denying the enemy its strategic objectives and wearing it down. An asymmetric defense relying less on flashy equipment, or “porcupine” strategy, is championed by former military chief Lee Hsi-min as the “Overall Defense Concept.” And yet that plan has struggled to gain traction, even as Taiwan’s civilians headed to first aid and resilience courses or shooting ranges.
The war in Ukraine has begun to change the official conversation. That, and growing pressure from China, in the form of economic coercion and an increased number of military aircraft flying close to Taiwan, especially since Nancy Pelosi’s visit in August when she was still US House speaker. With a presidential election due in Taiwan in 2024, those and other “gray zone” tactics from Beijing will only increase.
An actual Chinese invasion may be less imminent. We can’t know what goes on behind closed doors, but Beijing’s assessment of its own preparedness appears less confident than that of Washington’s hawks, including when it comes to the economy. President Xi Jinping is well aware that his country has no modern combat experience, having fought its last war in 1979. There’s plenty of hardware, but a lot of work left to do to turn weapons into capability, and zero room for failure.
But that doesn’t mean that Taipei can sit back. Ukraine has shown the difference citizen-soldiers can make, and Taiwan’s army is ill-prepared. Its military service, which shrank to four months in more mainland-friendly times, far less than either South Korea or Singapore, has long been mocked as a waste of time, a period taken up by menial tasks and of little practical use.
The announcement last month, then, is a signal to the US, China and Taiwan’s people. Still, Michael Hunzeker of George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, who has written extensively on Taiwanese military reform, explains that while longer conscription starts to ameliorate the manpower problem, quantity is only a small part of the issue. How rigorous and realistic will the training be? Will it actually prepare for asymmetric warfare? Not to mention that Taiwan will also have to deal with expanding numbers while also adding necessary infrastructure and kit — effectively building the aircraft while it’s flying.
The jury is still out, as he argues, but time is also running out.
The comparison between Ukraine and Taiwan is not always a helpful one — but Ukraine’s war did create an opportunity to show proof of concept for many of the arguments being made to Taipei. With the help of lightweight Javelin anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft Stingers, rather than F-16 jets, the defending force has been able to hold back Russia against the odds. Western support has been steadfast. It’s changed minds in Taiwan’s neighborhood, too, with even pacifist Japan embracing a strong military.
The problem for Taiwan, with an improved but still relatively anemic budget, is how it now gets from the theory to building an effective defense. Its territory is smaller than Ukraine and there’s no land border with a friendly nation. Unlike Ukraine, Taiwan also has complex questions of civilian-military relations to navigate, as political scientist Chong Ja Ian of the National University of Singapore argued to me. The military, implicated in the excesses of martial law from 1949 to 1987, has some way to go in winning more public trust, even after decades of democracy. And it suffers, as he points out, from considerable bureaucratic inertia.
Washington can help, not least by encouraging military procurement and spending that supports a more realistic approach. But there’s plenty Taiwan itself can and must do, carrying over lessons from resilience against natural disasters into practical preparations for a potential blockade and hybrid war tactics, like building redundancies into critical infrastructure, civil defense and stockpiles. It will, in the event of a conflict, have to deal with all the same attacks on power, water and food supplies as Ukraine has.
The catch is that Taipei shouldn’t learn only from Ukraine’s successes. There are lessons in Russia’s mistakes, too.
Putting young men in uniform can’t mask underlying problems with strategy and equipment. President Vladimir Putin’s “partial mobilization” in September was a desperate act disguised as a show of strength that would turn the tide. But it rapidly ran into instruction, infrastructure and equipment bottlenecks, not to mention the consequences of years of corruption and ignoring reservist training. Potemkin reforms are great — until tested. Russia’s efforts to overhaul its military after 2008 were supposed to have created an effective fighting machine, its readiness enhanced by operational experience from 2014 in Ukraine, and Syria. Invading Ukraine in 2022 revealed every shortcoming.
Taiwan can’t win or even deter China alone. To convince Beijing war is simply too costly, it needs allies and partners, and for the United States to focus less on performative moves and more on preparation. But the final lesson from Ukraine is not to attempt to second-guess an enemy by treating it as an actor weighing up rational costs and benefits. It was clear from the start that a Russian invasion would be disastrous — and Putin did it anyway. Xi is at the start of a third term that will almost certainly lean more heavily on nationalism.
Taipei has a chance to heed the lessons from Ukraine’s successes and Russia’s mistakes, and it must. Because China certainly will.
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