In its efforts to improve Taiwan's defenses against attacks or an invasion from China, the military tends to "see the forest instead of the trees," which has led to overall combat capabilities remaining at low levels despite the purchase of a large amount of weaponry from abroad in recent years, a military analyst and an official say.
"The military leadership's fallacy is to strategically highlight China's military threats to Taiwan but tactically belittle its actual capabilities," said Chang Kuo-cheng (
"One result of this fallacy is that the army's basic combat units, from company to battalion level, have combat capabilities of World War I forces," Chang said.
"The military likes to assure the public that it has the ability to counter military threats from China. But as a matter of fact, its tactical preparations for the threats are limited and weak," Chang said.
The tactical preparations are those which could be immediately effected from the bottom up in the event of an invasion.
Citing the recent theft of a rife at a Taoyuan air base as an example, Chang said the incident showed the military doesn't have the capability to handle even a minor emergency situation.
An official with the Army General Headquarters, who declined to be identified, pointed out that the military leadership appreciates only what is immediately useful, without thinking about the long term preparations needed for a war.
"Such mentality has led to the purchase of a large amount of advanced weapons from abroad in recent years. The weapons might be good, but they don't necessarily meet the current needs of the armed forces," the official said.
"The weapons were bought not because they were really good, but because they were considered to be good. The personnel responsible for arms purchase are, frankly speaking, quite limited in their knowledge about weapons, especially the latest ones," he said.
Such unprofessional practices result in many jokes, the official said. A recent one tells how the air force did not discover it had forgotten to buy beacons for its Mirage fighters until delivery of the planes. (Beacons are a radio signal-emitting device which help rescuers locate a downed plane -- two of Taiwan's new Mirages have already crashed.)
Chang says another joke revolves around college graduates who major in electrical engineering and information-related fields, serving their military duty at two major micro-computer chipmakers despite the military's urgent need of such talents.
"The punchline is that these conscripts with special talents are recruited to earn money for civilian companies, without doing anything that might be of help to the military," he said.
RSS