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Military commits to joint plan

After over two years of study, the Ministry of National Defense has decided on a joint-operation mechanism for the years to come, the ministry said in a recent written response to inquiries from a lawmaker

The joint-operation mechanism is to be established according to lessons learned from the Hankuang No. 18 last year and Hankuang No. 19 exercises this year's, the ministry says.

"Thanks to the two exercises, the joint-operation mechanism for the future has been determined. It is to be divided into two parts: joint-operation command and operation support," the ministry said.

"As a compliment to the new joint-operation mechanism, the current division of the country into separate war zones will be abolished. Instead, the whole country will be taken as one war zone, with all armed forces to be deployed and dispatched in joint modes," it said.

The ministry released the statement in response to a recent article by ex-navy commander in chief and People First Party (PFP) Legislator Nelson Ku (顧崇廉).

Ku's article ideas that might become the centerpiece of a defense white paper to be adopted by the PFP and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the campaign for next year's presidential elections.

With the statement it would appear that the ministry is committed to have a joint-operation mechanism.

The joint-operations system is comprised of two main pillars: a joint-operation command based on the office of the chief of the general staff and an operation support that is to cut through service barriers.

In the Hankuang exercises, the joint-operation command structure was put to test. The new structure features a direct command of combat troops by the office of the chief of the general staff, bypassing the commanders-in-chief of the three armed services.

For the new command structure to be enforced, the general headquarters of the three armed services would first have to be downgraded or eliminated, a direction already prescribed in the National Defense Law (國防法).

The commanders in chief of the three services would also drop in rank from three-star to two-star generals and become staff or advisers to the defense minister.

Ku's idea is to transform the office of the chief of the general staff into a structure similar to the joint chiefs of staff of the US military.

The ministry does not object to Ku's suggestion, saying the ministry's National Defense Law and the Organizational Law (國防部組織法) have to be amended first.

A defense official, who spoke in private, said as the ministry maps out the vision for the future, it might forget to inform the public that the road ahead is still full of obstacles.

The joint-operation mechanism, for instance, is to become operable only after the construction of a cross-service command, control, communication, computer, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) system, the official said.

"The US military has pointed out that much of the failure of the Hankuang No. 19 exercise was due to the absence of information sharing between services. Information sharing is one of the functions of the C4ISR system," he said.
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