Taiwan should change its military thinking and figure out how to make sure it has the ability to safeguard continued peace and stability both across the Taiwan Strait and within the Indo-Pacific region, a US official said on Tuesday.
David Helvey, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, made the remarks at the US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference in Annapolis, Maryland.
According to a transcript of the speech provided by the Ministry of National Defense, Helvey said that in strengthening its armed forces, Taiwan is developing sufficient conventional capabilities to meet the peacetime needs of a military in a rough neighborhood.
However, he warned that Taiwan could not “afford to overlook preparing for the one fight it cannot afford to lose.”
In the face of China’s growing military threat, Taiwan should respond by improving its national defense, which means innovation, smart investments and leveraging asymmetries to its advantage, he said.
To achieve that, the features should be incorporated into Taiwan’s need for a credible, resilient and cost-effective deterrent, Helvey said.
To be credible, Taiwan’s “acquisitions, training and doctrine” need to “address the vulnerabilities of a potential adversary that spends more and fields faster,” he added.
Resilience means that Taiwan’s forces and systems are maneuverable and can operate autonomously while facing cyber, electronic, missile and air attacks, Helvey said.
Being cost-effective means retaining conventional capabilities, but focusing on “research, development, procurement, and maintenance on affordable and scalable asymmetric capabilities that are integrated into a multidomain defense,” Helvey added.
“If Taiwan’s military makes these changes to its force structure, it is equally important that Taiwan continue to make progress on how it trains and organizes its forces,” he said.
“The [US] Department of Defense has been helping Taiwan to think through how to increase joint capabilities while operating in a decentralized environment,” which would enable Taiwan to deploy mobile systems without central command and control, Helvey said.
Given the capabilities the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could bring to bear in a blockade or outright amphibious invasion, including information control, Taiwan’s progress is key, he added.
Achieving that goal would require developing and empowering junior officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs), Helvey said, adding: “Leaders at senior levels must trust that their junior leaders — officers and NCOs — are capable of performing their mission.”
The changes in thinking, procurement, planning and training are needed because of the magnitude of China’s threat, he said.
“Taiwan cannot count on Beijing’s forbearance for its security,” Helvey said, adding that there is no indication that China is preparing to renounce the use of force to bring Taiwan into its fold, now or in the future.
The US Department of Defense’s National Defense Strategy has highlighted this concern, as China leverages military modernization, influences operations and predatory economics to coerce neighboring countries to reorder the Indo-Pacific region to its advantage, he said.
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS