To prepare for a possible all-out war with China, Taiwan should focus on fielding significant quantities of cheap, mobile and survivable weapons, a former senior Taiwanese defense official said.
Taiwan currently faces two types of conflicts – what experts and officials call China's “grey zone” activities that fall just below the threshold of war, and the potential threat of war. full scale Chinese invasion. To counter both, a whole arsenal of weapons is required.
IN Hudson Institute At a think tank event earlier this month, retired admiral and former Chief of the General Staff of Taiwan's Defense Ministry, Lee Si-Ming, said Taiwan needed to prioritize the existential threat of a Chinese invasion. Gray zone activities, such as frequent aircraft incursions, drain resources and stress assets and troops. The other option could be disastrous, as war games have shown.
“We need a large number of distributed, mobile, survivable and lethal” weapons, Lee argued, and these systems must be cheap, bulky and highly survivable in combat, he added.
Asymmetric warfare is a strategy that uses large numbers of low-cost, mobile, and hard-to-reach systems such as drones, missiles, and dispersed units to negate the advantages of larger military forces, denying them easy targets and inflicting massive damage. Think of drones blowing up tanks in Ukraine or sinking Russian warships.
Lee argues that Taiwan's survival in the war against China depends on such a strategy.
China's gray zone activities include regular military exercises to practice blockades and invasions of Taiwan. GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images
Taiwan is aggressively pursuing a strategy focused on weapons that meet these requirements, including different types of dronessensors, jamming devices, as well as anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems. Broader elements of increased investment in asymmetric warfare plans include preparing Taiwan's civilian population for a potential Chinese invasion and how the Taiwanese military would use urban warfare to deter Chinese forces.
That doesn't mean conventional platforms and advanced weapons don't have value, especially in helping Taiwan contain daily activities The Chinese military is involved, for example, in aggressive operations in the air and at sea, as well as in large-scale exercises regularly held nearby. However, he said, “we need weapons that are scalable” and “reasonably smart.”
“If we're fighting a protracted war, sometimes quantity means quality,” Lee said. “If we only have a small number of advanced, sophisticated platforms, I think we will be in big trouble if China decides to attack Taiwan.”
Similar lessons are drawn from the war in Ukraine. Soldiers, veterans and drone makers said limited arsenal of sophisticated systems not suitable for a long war. The need for large volumes of cheap weapons. In the war sustainability is key. Over-engineering and cost overruns are simply not acceptable in a high-end battle.
Lee previously advocated asymmetric warfare and more mobile, unmanned weapons and systems in his “Total Defense Concept” rather than buying more conventional weapons such as fighter jets and tanks.
In 2020, he wrote in an article for Diplomat that this idea is based on the premise that China will continue to view claims to Taiwan as a national and existential priority, and Beijing will continue to pour out money and resources into its armed forces, which are vastly superior to Taiwan.
Taiwan has stepped up military exercises aimed at defending the islands, including a major one earlier this year. Anadolu/Anadolu via Getty Images
Taiwan's government defense budget has increased substantially in recent years, and it continues to purchase missiles, air defense systems and drones from the United States and other allies and partners.
But given the significant differences between China's and Taiwan's militaries and capabilities, “Taiwan must abandon the notion of a traditional war of attrition with the PLA.” [People’s Liberation Army]” wrote Lee and co-author Eric Lee, then a researcher at the Project 2049 Institute.
Taiwan faces a significantly stronger adversary and thus “takes an effective asymmetrical defensive position and the inclusion of tactical asymmetric capabilities could compensate for Taiwan's disadvantage on paper and prevent the PLA from taking action on the ground,” they argue.
For now, Taiwan relies on a combination of capabilities. This month, the US announced its largest-ever arms sale to Taiwan, worth $11 billion. It includes Highly mobile artillery missile systemsArmy tactical missile systems, Javelin missiles, howitzers and drones.
Taiwan's Defense Ministry said the weapons help strengthen its self-defense and deterrence capabilities. China's Foreign Ministry said the sale violates agreements between Beijing and Washington and poses the risk of a military confrontation with Taiwan.
An important part of Taiwan's asymmetric strategy is rapid investment in domestic drone production, building on lessons from Ukraine and cooperation with American and European firms. Taipei aims to produce 200,000 drones annually by 2030 and is investing billions in other defense systems, including a new air defense network known as T-Dome.
