With China having conducted three large-scale military exercises surrounding Taiwan in two years, government agencies reporting 5 million cyberattacks a day and the China Coast Guard stepping up “patrols” within Taiwan’s territorial waters, it is clear that deterrence has eroded in the Taiwan Strait.
Some analysts say a period of maximum danger is arriving, as relative Chinese military power is expected to peak this decade before military reforms in the US, Taiwan and other nations come online in the 2030s.
Australian Ambassador to the US and former prime minister Kevin Rudd called this the “decade of living dangerously.” Academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley described this window as the “danger zone.”
Writing for War on the Rocks, Jared McKinney and Peter Harris said that “deterrence across the strait will be in a state of peak decay this decade.” In a report published by the US Army War College titled Deterrence Gap: Avoiding War in the Taiwan Strait, which surveyed sources of deterrence in the Taiwan Strait since 1949 and what needs to be done to prevent China from attacking Taiwan, McKinney and Harris wrote that Taipei’s historical contribution to deterrence has been underappreciated.
From the mid-1950s until the early 2000s, “far from depending upon Washington to provide for its defense, Taiwan has frequently played a decisive role in deterring an attack on itself,” they wrote.
Taiwanese air superiority until then meant a Chinese attack would have been easily sunk in the Strait.
Taiwan had the ability to deter a Chinese attack on its own because it had the power to ensure any attack would surely fail — known as “deterrence by denial.”
With China’s military modernization, it no longer has the power to deter by denial.
However, the authors say that Taiwan still has the power to “deter by punishment” — meaning it could ensure China would incur massive losses, which would make leaders in Beijing think twice about invading, as any victory would be Pyrrhic.
McKinney and Harris wrote that “multiple deterrents have been operative over the past seven decades,” including US power, Taiwanese power and Chinese restraint. They say that “Taiwan has deterred China in the past and can do so again.”
In the 1990s, Taiwan spent about 5 percent of its GDP on defense. That has fallen to 2 percent. Despite the government recently increasing defense spending to 2.3 percent, there is a lag between investment and procurement of military power.
By the 2030s the US is planning to deploy hundreds of next-generation B-21 planes, as well as a Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarine force.
However, the wait makes this decade dangerous.
“Unless Taiwan acts with foresight, anticipated upgrades in US offensive capabilities may create a perceived window of necessity for the People’s Republic of China, encouraging Beijing to act [this decade] or miss its chance of a successful conquest,” the authors wrote.
To deter China, Taiwan should invest in deterrents that will come online quickly, such as sea mines, drones and missiles. For the medium-term, it should be building a whole-of-society effort to deter a Chinese invasion.
Finland, with a population of 5.5 million, can mobilize 600,000 refresher-trained reservists in the event of a Russian attack. Taiwan, with a population of 24 million, can only muster 200,000 with questionable training.
With the political will, Taiwan could mobilize a massive reserve force that would threaten significant costs on an invading force — even the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
Reforms would go a long way to fulfilling Taiwan’s responsibility to provide deterrence. It did so before, and it can do so again.
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