The Ministry of National Defense has been hit with criticism that it was not reaching targets in its “reservist warrior” program.
The five-year-old program was designed to attract discharged soldiers with specific skills to become reservists, who would receive one weekend of training per month and take part in seven-day exercises twice per year.
The program has not attracted the numbers that were expected to meet recruitment targets, and less than 80 percent of its budget has been utilized, the Legislative Yuan Budget Center said in a report.
Meanwhile, the military reported worsening shortages in the types of service members it requires, the report said.
The program’s aim was to create one or two army battalions while attracting air force pilots and navy specialist technicians, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said on Thursday.
The ministry should review the causes of the program’s failures and renew its focus on improving the reservist brigade training by participating in joint activities with the US National Guard, he said.
Citing the budget report, Wang said the army did not list any budget for the reservist program next year for reasons that it has not yet explained.
The army component of the program could be scrapped as the service is working to extend the length of military conscription, which would make reservist combat troops redundant, he said.
A reformed air force and navy reservist program should remain in place, as the need for qualified personnel with specialist training has increased, he said.
As the threat from China surges, Taiwan should consider building a military reserve on the existing model of volunteer police and firefighters, Institute for National Defense and Security Research analyst Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said.
Taiwan’s sizeable airsoft military simulation community suggests that volunteers could be found, he said.
Su added that democracies often utilize reservists to bolster regular armed forces, such as the US National Guard, the UK military reserves and Poland’s Territorial Defense Force.
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