Minister of National Defense Lee Jye (李傑) is about to promote a new duty roster for military personnel similar to regular office hours. This is a follow-up from Lee's speech in the legislature last September in which he said that voluntary military service would begin early next year and that the length of compulsory service would be reduced to 10 months.
From this we may infer that senior officers within the ministry are striving to shorten compulsory service and offer more benefits. In future, personnel at the level of "commanding officer" and above will be able to choose their place of service and be able to request not to serve on outlying islands. This clearly marks a trend toward "vocationalism" in the armed forces.
US military scholars Morris Janowitz and Charles Moskos started a debate over "professionalism" and "vocationalism" in the armed services during the 1970s, emphasizing the correlation of increased vocationalism in the military with the erosion of professional training and military spirit. This remains an important issue.
As far as military education, training and management are concerned, the US military continues to spare no effort to uphold the importance of inculcating professionalism and exerts itself to the utmost to prevent vocationalism.
"Professionalism" in the military is defined by Samuel Huntington in terms of the virtues of sacrifice, contribution, diligence and responsibility. G.R. Rubin of the University of Kent studied the conflict between vocationalism and professionalism in the military, and this has been given serious consideration by the British government.
Irrespective of whether conscription or voluntary enlistment applies, very few advanced democratic countries favor vocationalism in their armed forces. After all, vocationalism reduces the differences between the military and other professions.
In Israel, everyone has to do military service on reaching 18 years of age, with men doing three years in either the army, navy or air force, and women serving one-and-a-half years. This three-year requirement is essential if Israel is to maintain a capable defensive force to face its enemies and tackle terrorism.
It is of the utmost importance to establish a professional military. There is no compulsory draft in Britain, which has a voluntary enlistment system. This system requires the infantry to serve four years, including three months' training in the field and six months' basic infantry training. The British armed forces are the effective defense force they are today because of this long training period.
Now we turn to China's People's Liberation Army. The vast majority of recruits are conscripts. Every year sees something like 10 million Chinese aged between 18 and 22 eligible for military service, but only 10 percent of these are selected to serve. According to the conscription law, those in the army must serve three years, while those in the navy and air force serve four.
Merely in terms of the amount of time spent on training during military service, China has a better record, devoting over three times as much time in this area as we do. Not only is the average Taiwanese soldier doing less military service, he gets more money and has more time off. If one also throws in the number of hours soldiers are expected to be on duty, we can see that our armed forces are moving more and more toward "vocationalism" and further away from "professionalism."
If this continues, the system of voluntary service will be characterized best in terms of a high salary for little work and the ability to be stationed near home.
Johnny Shieh is an assistant professor in the department of business administration at I-Shou University.
TRANSLATED BY LIN YA-TI AND PAUL COOPER
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