Taiwan on Wednesday launched its largest-ever Han Kuang exercises — the nation’s premier annual military drills, now in their 41st edition — which are to run through Friday next week.
This year’s iteration features 10 days of round-the-clock live-fire training, unscripted scenarios simulating real-world combat, whole-of-society integration and the deployment of advanced weaponry, such as the US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System — a crucial weapon used by Ukraine in its defense against Russia — and the domestically built Tien Chien II (天劍二, Sky Sword II) surface-to-air missile system.
The scale, realism and complexity of the drills — including advanced “gray zone” warfare response and the mobilization of 22,000 reservists — represent a significant evolution in the military’s training, reflecting a growing awareness about the threat Taiwan faces, as well as the adoption of modern warfighting concepts and more sophisticated operational thinking.
For years, Taiwan’s top-down military decisionmaking and lack of realism in training have drawn criticism from analysts. As recently as 2021, Global Taiwan Institute director John Dotson said that the scope and structure of that year’s Han Kuang exercises — particularly their “scripted and piecemeal nature” — likely made them inadequate for preparing military personnel for the stress and unpredictability of real-world combat. A recurring critique has been that the drills were ceremonial and performative, featuring controlled scenarios and prioritized optics over operational readiness.
However, led by Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) — one of Taiwan’s first civilian defense chiefs, whose outsider perspective has helped drive long-overdue reforms — the military appears to be firmly on a pathway to reform, a shift reflected in this year’s exercises.
“Taiwan’s military establishment is populated with the most reform-minded leadership since its transition to direct democratic elections in 1996,” Brookings Institution researchers wrote in September last year.
Taiwan is heeding lessons from Ukraine, where modern warfare increasingly favors decentralized decisionmaking by frontline commanders over rigid, top-down orders by generals far removed from the battlefield.
“We are learning from the situation in Ukraine in recent years and realistically thinking about what Taiwan might face ... in real combat,” one senior defense official told Reuters. “Commanders have to think [about] what issues their troops might face, and they need to pass them down to their subordinates.”
The drills are also tailored to the operational challenges Taiwan would face in the event of a Chinese attack, testing its ability to prevail in a war of attrition, a military source told the Central News Agency last month.
Indeed, defense analysts widely believe that a conflict with China is likely to be attritional, with Taiwan’s strategic objective centered on holding out for as long as possible to allow time for the US and its allies to mobilize sufficient forces to intervene.
To reflect this possibility, the drills are to progress through realistic phases of conflict, beginning with “gray zone” harassment for the first three days, and advancing through joint anti-landing operations, coastal and beachhead combat, in-depth defense, and protracted warfare, Joint Operations Planning Division Director Major General Tung Chi-hsing (董冀星) said on Tuesday last week.
Last year’s exercises were the first to feature unscripted training, and this year goes well beyond that, incorporating “gray zone” escalation, urban survival drills and enhanced civilian-military coordination.
The evolution reflects a broader strategic reorientation in Taiwan’s defense doctrine, with deterrence no longer seen as a function of military hardware alone, but as the ability of the entire society to endure and respond to sustained aggression.
The road of reform would be long, given years of political neglect of the military, but the trend is in the right direction.
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