US, Taiwan teams discuss war games

The US military sent a delegation to Taiwan last week to discuss details of joint exercises that the two countries are to hold in two years, defense sources said yesterday.

The US delegation made a briefing to the military, primarily representatives of the army, on how the joint exercises are to be conducted. The joint exercises will be the first since the end of official diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1979.

In order for the exercises to become reality, all the branches of the military started making preparations about a year ago.

The army is especially enthusiastic about the planned exercises with the US, since it would be the major player on the Taiwanese side.

A defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the types of joint exercises that Taiwan is to have with the US have yet to be decided on since the militaries of the two countries have a lot of differences.

"The US military has the ability to operate jointly, while we do not. In maneuvering with the US military, the first problem that we will face is a lack of interoperability among the armed services," the official said.

"Another problem is that the joint operation mechanism of the US military does not necessarily fit the situation in Taiwan. We still have a lot to do to be able to do exercises with the US military," he said.

Last Wednesday, the US military delegation held a discussion of these issues with army leaders, but results of the discussions were not made available to reporters.

The army is expected to face greater difficulties than the navy or air force in its preparations for performing joint exercises with the US military.

The main problem for the army lies in its command, control, communication, computer, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) system.

C4ISR will be of crucial importance in joint operations but the army's C4ISR capabilities are considered backwards.

That situation is expected to change for the better in the next few years, as the army will be the major beneficiary of a planned data link construction project.

The data link, to be provided by the US, is to connect all of the three services' weapons platforms and enable them to share information with each other in real time.

For the moment, most of the weapons platforms of the three services are operating independently, without interoperability or interconnectivity.

One of the major advantages that the data link system under construction will offer is the capability to distinguish more effectively between friends and foes.