The Ministry of National Defense (MND) rolled out Taiwan's first Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) on Monday in accordance with an amendment to the National Defense Act (國防法). With relations across the Taiwan Strait warming and calls for peace dividend growing, this forward-looking strategy document has come at the right time.
The ministry had previously published its National Defense Report every two years to keep the general public informed of what was being done to support the country's defense. The new QDR, modeled on the US Department of Defense's quadrennial study, highlights the president's defense planning guidelines and notifies the legislature of the ministry's plans for the next four years. The Legislative Yuan now has a new reference document at hand to help it better oversee defense and budget planning during President Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) first term.
Taiwan's first QDR has two main themes: prevention and transformation.
The overall modernization of the nation's defense is necessary to prevent military conflict in the Taiwan Strait, while transformation of defense is necessary to enable the military to deal with the changing nature of modern warfare, advanced weapons systems, demographic change, an aging society and limited financial resources.
For prevention, the Ma administration does not rely solely on modernizing and building up its forces, but also strives for manageable cross-strait relations and closer defense collaboration with friends and allies in the Asia-Pacific region. Shaping a peaceful environment by using a defensive strategy, Taiwan intends to adopt a combination of political, diplomatic and military confidence-building measures to minimize the threat of military conflict so that the country can earn precious time to focus more on revitalizing the economy and transforming the military.
For transformation, the ministry emphasizes reorganization, force restructuring and the need for jointness. The most ambitious reform program is changing the nearly 60-year-old conscription system to an all-volunteer force capable of meeting the future demands of high-tech warfare. By also cutting 60,000 personnel and integrating the military police, reserve force and joint logistics commands over the next four years, the Taiwanese military intends to build a smaller, elite force with joint combat capability.
Some may be concerned that aspects of the transformation roadmap laid out in the QDR, especially the all-volunteer force structure, are too complex to be smoothly implemented. However, defense reform will be much more difficult if tensions across the Taiwan Strait are high.
On defense planning, the ministry says that the existing " 10-year military development " and " five-year force planning " programs will be governed by the QDR, giving clear directions and criteria for planning and programming. This will provide lawmakers with a better long-term understanding for use in parliamentary oversight, in addition to the annual government report delivered by the premier.
The QDR said the Taiwanese military would maintain its long-standing military strategic guideline of "resolute defense and effective deterrence." Even with the political detente across the Taiwan Strait, the ministry remains committed to modernization of the military, targeting key joint capabilities through doctrinal refinement, professional military education reform and intelligent procurement. The QDR did not fully adopt the " porcupine" concept recommended by some US officials, but maintains the doctrine of keeping invasion forces from landing in Taiwan.
The Taiwanese military is encountering tremendous challenges from outside and within: the rapid buildup of the People's Liberation Army, the encouraging but not guaranteed security assistance from democratic allies, difficulties in locating suppliers for the replacement of obsolete systems, the emerging expectations for peace dividend during a time of economic hardship and domestic voices against military investment based on the assumption that peace can be reached only by " soft power. "
Nevertheless, the QDR tries to rally parliamentary and public support of the armed forces as an essential part of Taiwan's "smart power."
With the release of Taiwan' s first QDR, the ministry should now begin to work with local and international experts to formulate policy and programs and to explore monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to ensure the guidelines provided in this strategy document can be best translated into effective deliverables.
Alexander Huang is professor of strategy and wargaming at Tamkang University.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS