Wed, Apr 10, 2024 page2

• War games to counter China drill-turned-attack

  ‘GRAY ZONE’ TACTICS: Tabletop exercises from April 19 to 26 would practice how the military could speedily respond to such an eventuality, a military official said

  • By Ben Blanchard / Reuters, TAIPEI
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  Taiwan’s annual war games this year are to practice “kill” zones at sea to break a blockade and simulate a scenario where China suddenly turns one of its regular drills around the nation into an actual attack, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday.

  The nation is to start its main annual Han Kuang exercises this month with tabletop drills, extended from the usual five days to eight given the number of scenarios to be included, followed by actual combat exercises from July 22 to 26, the ministry said.

  Tung Chih-hsing (董冀星), head of the ministry’s joint combat planning department, told a news briefing in Taipei that the drills from Friday next week to April 26 would practice how to speedily respond to one of China’s drills suddenly turning into an attack, something military planners have begun to worry about, considering their regularity.

  

  Tung Chih-hsing, head of the Ministry of National Defense’s joint combat planning department, speaks at a news conference in Taipei yesterday.

  Photo: Lin Cheng-kun, Taipei Times

  The computerized war games would be conducted using the US-built Joint Theater Level Simulation platform to verify the military’s response to “gray zone” tactics, blockades and other possible Chinese invasion scenarios, Tung said.

  Those simulations would be held around the clock for eight days in a row, he said.

  How different branches of the armed forces can mount a coordinated response to a Chinese blockade would be another focus, Tung said.

  The drills are to integrate naval, air and coast guard forces, shore-mounted anti-ship weapons and drones to establish a maritime “attack and kill chain,” he added.

  “In addition, [we will] use naval and air forces and coast guard ships to jointly carry out escort operations” to ensure sea and air links to the outside world remain open, Tung said.

  During one major round of war games around Taiwan in April last year, China practiced precision strikes and blockading the nation.

  Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago, Taiwan has been looking to see what lessons it can learn and integrate into its own exercises, especially how the much smaller Ukrainian forces have been able to fend off the larger Russian military.

  Tung said those would again feature this year, along with those learned from the war in Gaza.

  For both of those conflicts, Tung said officials were looking at the use of psychological warfare and asymmetric operations in particular, but did not elaborate on how they would figure into the drills.

  President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has championed the idea of “asymmetric warfare” to make Taiwan’s forces, also much smaller than China’s, more mobile and hard to attack, for example with vehicle-mounted missiles and drones.

  Additional reporting by CNA
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