Plug defense gaps, Pentagon warns

The Pentagon, warning of a growing Chinese military threat to Taiwan, has urged Taiwan to develop an integrated air and missile defense system and to plug the holes in its military command and control structure that Beijing is increasingly seeking to exploit.

The warning, which echoes similar opinions voiced in Washington recently, was contained in a closed-door speech delivered by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia, Richard Lawless, at a meeting with senior Taiwan military officials in San Antonio, Texas.

The closed-door conference was organized by the US-Taiwan Business Council, whose chairman is William Cohen, former President Bill Clinton's last defense secretary. Council member companies, notably top US military contractors, were "frustrated" by Taiwan's delay in wrapping up billions of dollars of weapons purchases authorized in April 2001 by President George W. Bush, the council's president Rupert Hammond-Chambers told reporters.

The Taipei Times obtained a copy of the speech from the Pentagon in which Lawless told the meeting: "We believe it is imperative that Taiwan build upon its existing assets and acquire an integrated air and missile defense capability."

"The first task [for the Taiwan military establishment] is to address the PRC's accelerated conventional missile build-up," Lawless said. "These missiles are clearly designed to project a threatening posture to try to intimidate the people and democratically elected government of Taiwan. Without defenses, the PRC's growing arsenal of increasingly accurate and lethal ballistic missiles may have devastating strategic- and operational-level effects on Taiwan's critical infrastructure, air defenses, and naval operations."

But Lawless, who was named to his post last year, and until recently was a trans-Pacific businessman with a major office in Taipei, said that a missile defense is not enough.

"While air and missile defense are important, there should be no misconception that it is a silver bullet or invincible shield. Missile defenses are most effective if they are part of an integrated approach to defending against air and missile threats," he said.

"Taiwan also must be concerned about China's growing focus on exploiting vulnerabilities in Taiwan's national- and operational-level command and control systems ... if Taiwan's political and military leaderships are not able to direct and manage [its] force through a modern, capable information network, then aircraft will not fly, ships won't sail, and ground forces won't move," he said.

While Taiwan has maintained an edge in air, naval and ground forces, as this edge decreases Taiwan must find new competitive advances in such areas a information operations and network-centric warfare, he said. Taiwan should also spend more on readiness, personnel management, logistics, maintenance and training, while boosting its stock of munitions, he said.

Lawless praised Taiwan's democracy as a "great success story" and model for democratic progress throughout the Asia Pacific region, and repeated President Bush's commitment to do"whatever it took" to help Taiwan defend itself. Taiwan, however, "should not view America's commitment ... as a substitute for investing the necessary resources on its own defense. It is imperative that Taiwan dedicates the resources necessary to maintain an effective self-defense capability."