An observation group comprised of retired US military generals attended the five-day tabletop war games phase of the annual Han Kuang military exercises this week, a source said yesterday.
They came as observers to provide suggestions on the tabletop war games, which simulated the armed forces’ defensive response to different attack scenarios, the source said, without giving details.
As in previous years, this year’s Han Kuang exercises are being held in two stages.
Photo: Taipei Times file
The tabletop war games phase was held from Monday to Friday, and the live-fire exercise is scheduled for July 24 to 28.
Institute for National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said that although the Ministry of National Defense has never confirmed the presence of observation groups, retired US military personnel have watched war games in Taiwan for many years.
With the US becoming more open about arms sales and its friendly policies toward Taiwan, it was not a surprise that the group’s members this year consisted of many high-ranking retired officers, Su said.
At the end of last month, a defense official said that the computerized war games would be conducted using the US-built Joint Theater Level Simulation platform to simulate joint, combined and coalition civil-military operations.
The simulation platform is highly informative because it incorporates data from the actual combat experiences of the US and NATO, Su said.
The parameters obtained from the recently concluded tabletop war games would be put into practice in the live-fire Han Kuang drills in July, he said, adding that this would refine future exercises.
The Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s major war games, have been held annually since 1984, in the form of live-fire drills and computerized war games, to test the nation’s combat readiness in the face of a possible Chinese invasion.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to