Taiwan must revamp its defensive strategy to protect critical infrastructure from uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAV), a Marine Corps officer wrote in the Institute for National Defense and Security Research newsletter.
Drones have played a significantly larger role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict than previously expected, with both sides waging a campaign of drone strikes against their adversary’s infrastructure, Lieutenant Colonel Chang Tzu-hung (張子鴻), a visiting military fellow at the institute, wrote on Aug. 8.
The conflict has underscored that UAVs possess many benefits as weapons systems, including their range, maneuverability and ability to strike from varying altitudes, Chang said, adding that the importance of anti-drone warfare has increased accordingly.
Photo: US Navy / Chief Mass Communication Specialist Shannon Renfroe via AP
Crucial infrastructure protection refers to defensive measures taken to preserve the parts of a country’s infrastructure that are most essential to the maintenance of a functioning government, the armed forces, the national economy and morale, he said.
While the Taiwanese military was apparently successful in defending key infrastructure against simulated air raids and other forms of attacks in this year’s Han Kuang military exercises, techniques still need to be refined to handle the use of UAVs in gray zone activities, he said.
South Korea, vaunted as the world’s sixth most powerful military, proved incapable of dealing with North Korean drones during a large scale incursion that took place in December last year, Chang said.
Drones from the North flew in and around South Korea’s airspace, disrupted more than 30 flights at the Incheon and Gimpo international airports and caused considerable public alarm, he said.
South Korea’s failure to respond to the drones effectively in large part stemmed from a reluctance to employ soft or hard-kill weapons against the UAVs because of the fear that downed drones could result in collateral damage in residential areas, Chang said.
This proves that defending units must have the confidence to take decisive action without delay, and be given clear guidelines with which to assess the risks associated with the loss of civilian lives and property, escalation and the threat the drone might pose to the facility being defended, he said.
The dangers of inaction have to be balanced against the dangers of action such as harming civilians or escalating the situation, Chang added.
Alarmingly, most of Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is in or near urban centers, and the authority to make security arrangements for many strategically valuable facilities falls on civilian agencies without the necessary expertise to create such guidelines, he said.
In addition, drone attacks do not need to destroy a target to achieve an effect in war, as disrupting the normal operations of a key facility is enough to undermine the adversary’s ability to conduct military operations and sustain civilian morale, he said.
In light of these factors, the armed forces’ counter-drone measures cannot be said to be reliably effective, particularly with regard to fending off attacks by small or medium-sized UAVs, Chang said.
The military is urged to explore the specific methods used for identification and tracking, threat reporting, and warning and defense fire with an eye toward shortening the kill chain, he said, referring to the response time between detecting and destroying a threat.
Integrating an algorithmic technology that can automatically identify enemy drones from the input of radar, infrared and optical sensors would be a potential solution to dealing with the UAV threat, Chang said.
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
Two Taiwanese prosecutors were questioned by Chinese security personnel at their hotel during a trip to China’s Henan Province this month, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. The officers had personal information on the prosecutors, including “when they were assigned to their posts, their work locations and job titles,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. On top of asking about their agencies and positions, the officers also questioned the prosecutors about the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, a pact that serves as the framework for Taiwan-China cooperation on combating crime and providing judicial assistance, Liang
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS