Basic Secretary Xi Jinping clearly needs to organize China for a struggle over Taiwan. The measures he takes to prepared its people, economy, legal system, and especially its military are clear for everybody to see. The best way to dissuade him from really rolling the iron cube is for Washington and Taipei to work collectively, as a result of neither can cease Beijing on their very own. It might be a fool’s errand for Taiwan to withstand a Chinese language army onslaught with out its chief patron and protector. And the USA wants Taiwan to hold on and hold out lengthy sufficient for the U.S. army to reach in decisive pressure.
Sadly, that is simpler mentioned than carried out. Many Taiwanese residents query whether or not America will really defend them. Washington’s lengthy standing posture of strategic ambiguity is clearly one supply of skepticism. However even strategic readability towards Taipei won’t resolve the issue. The very fact is that Washington and Taipei have a long and complicated relationship. Taiwanese voters know the USA has a long history of turning its back on them of their second of want.
Thus, there isn’t a query that the USA ought to take steps to handle Taiwan’s comprehensible lack of religion in America’s dedication. A smart first step is to handle the backlog in arms deliveries to Taiwan, as two Kuomintang legislative staffers recently argued in these pages. And there are a selection of different issues Washington can do to show that it is serious about Taiwan.
However growing Taiwanese religion in American credibility is barely a part of the answer. The Taiwanese individuals should additionally consider that they’ve what it takes to face up to a Chinese language onslaught. Neither sooner arms deliveries nor greater protection spending will instill this a lot wanted self-confidence.
So, what is going to? Reworking the tradition of the Taiwanese armed forces, particularly its officer corps. As a former marine who skilled Taiwanese models and a retired Taiwanese naval officer educated in the USA, we understood all too nicely that Taiwan’s army stays a profoundly unserious group. It’s not ready to wage war. And the Taiwanese individuals realize it.
Due to this fact, any effort to boost cross-Strait deterrence should begin with the tradition of its officer corps. Taiwan wants uniformed leaders who’re prepared to handle laborious truths, embrace innovation, and place strategic considering above parochial curiosity, legacy programs, and bureaucratic comfort. To get from right here to there, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te should trim the bloated ranks of his basic and flag officer corps and demand that the army lastly produce a coherent blueprint for mounting a real, uneven, whole-of-society protection of Taiwan. The Lai administration ought to insist on — and the Kuomintang-dominated Legislative Yuan might want to assist — the creation of institutional mechanisms to boost civilian management over the army. Washington can and will assist by addressing the arms backlog, if solely to forestall Taiwan’s Ministry of Nationwide Protection from utilizing it as an excuse; firming down public demands for dramatically greater protection spending; making it clear that different types of assist are conditional on efforts to handle these cultural issues; and serving to the Lai administration develop a coherent blueprint for uneven protection.
A Potemkin Pressure
Taiwan’s army is grappling with a variety of persistent issues, most of that are simple to identify by anybody (in Washington, Taipei … and Beijing) who’ve bothered wanting. Some of the pernicious challenges is that Taiwan’s army doesn’t have sufficient individuals. Its military — the most important of Taiwan’s armed forces and its final line of protection in a struggle — suffers from an endemic personnel shortage. Shortfalls are significantly acute in frontline infantry, armor, artillery, and marine fight models, which are sometimes as much as 40 percent understrength. This isn’t merely a recruiting situation. It reveals a elementary misalignment in how the army organizes and prioritizes its assets. The discrepancy between fight unit manning ranges and whole personnel ranges, which hover round 80 %, is telling in that it underscores the diploma to which Taiwan’s army prioritizes administrative staffing over operational readiness. For years, the Tsai administration (2016 to 2024) tried to handle the issue by bettering pay and advantages for the volunteer pressure. When that effort proved too expensive, President Tsai Ing-wen lastly relented and (re)prolonged conscription from 4 to 12 months. The military inducted the primary batch of 12-month conscripts in January 2024. Sadly, it should take at least five years for this scheme to get absolutely up and operating. Even then, the plan is to ship most one-year conscripts to models tasked with offering rear area security. Volunteer troops will nonetheless comprise the majority of most frontline fight models, which implies the primary line of protection will stay understrength. Worse but, the military has but to determine the way to prepare all of those conscripts, as we focus on under. It’s due to this fact solely doable that the scheme will merely “rework” untrained conscripts into undertrained ones.
Sarcastically, the one factor Taiwan has sufficient of are generals and admirals: 308 to be precise. The ratio of basic and flag officers to servicemembers is roughly 2.5 occasions greater than that discovered within the U.S. army (which is criticized by its personal secretary of protection for being too top heavy.)
Even when the Ministry of Nationwide Protection magically solves its personnel shortfalls, it should nonetheless wrestle to coach the ensuing inflow of recent troops. A part of the issue has to do with infrastructure. It’ll take time (and cash) to purchase and construct barracks and firing ranges in a spot already brief on house. The larger situation is that the armed forces do not need a tradition of reasonable and rigorous coaching. Most workouts are scripted with preordained outcomes. Though political leaders now prefer to tout spontaneous maneuvers, it comes throughout as a case of “the girl doth protest an excessive amount of.” As an alternative, most high-profile maneuvers stay extra “canine and pony present” for the media and American onlookers than a severe try to check and enhance warfighting capabilities. Having skilled this manner for generations signifies that Taiwan doesn’t have enough non-commissioned officers and junior officers who’re themselves sufficiently well-versed in decentralized fashionable fight ways, strategies, and procedures to coach tens of hundreds of recent troops every year.
The listing goes on: The companies nonetheless lack a coherent, overarching doctrine and related operational ideas to information the whole lot from procurement to coaching to warfighting (and no, the most recent Quadrennial Defense Review doesn’t fill this gap). Reserve coaching is still inadequate. And regardless of efforts by the Lai administration and civil society organizations like Forward Alliance and Spirit of America, makes an attempt to organize Taiwanese society for struggle stay incomplete. In fact, a giant obstacle to civil readiness is the truth that the Ministry of Nationwide Protection refuses to embrace civil protection as a core mission.
Worst of all, there’s a profound hole between the Taiwanese army and the society it’s sworn to defend. Many older Taiwanese — particularly these aligned with Lai’s Democratic Progressive Get together — view the army with suspicion as a result of many officers determine with the opposition Kuomintang Get together and due to the army’s legacy because the enforcement arm of Chiang Kai-shek’s authoritarian regime. In the meantime, one want solely strike up a dialog with youthful Taiwanese to search out that many think about army service a waste of time. That is partially as a result of they know the way unserious their coaching can be, even at 12 months, and partially as a result of they rationally choose to pursue the next paying job that may enable them to maneuver out of their mother and father’ dwelling.
A Dereliction of Responsibility
How did the rot get so dangerous? Culpability rests squarely on the shoulders of Taiwan’s officer corps. It goes with out saying that officers lead the army and are due to this fact accountable for the whole lot that occurs — or fails to occur — on their watch. However on this case, the failures characterize a elementary dereliction of responsibility. It was the officer corps’ duty to trace the shifting cross-Strait army steadiness and to regulate its posture and preparations accordingly. This primary mandate demanded vigilance, proactivity, creativity, curiosity, and adaptability. The Taiwanese officer corps demonstrated none of these items. In consequence, it’s simply now coming to grips with a variety of profound, however sluggish shifting, political, technological, and demographic traits.
Take, for instance, the best way Taiwanese generals and admirals “responded” to Taiwan’s declining birthrate. Whereas they now routinely level to this situation because the root cause of their personnel shortages, they’ve been conscious of this pattern for greater than two decades. But regardless of having ample time to adapt, the officer corps acquiesced to politically engaging choices — such because the transition to an all-volunteer force and the shortening of conscription — with out bothering to develop and provide a severe alternative plan for sustaining readiness. Much more troubling, the officer corps managed a dramatic downsizing of the pressure with out making any significant try and additionally streamline its inner organizational construction. Taiwan’s army now has roughly the identical variety of command layers supervising 160,000 uniformed servicemembers because it did when it was half a million strong.
The identical goes for Taiwanese doctrine, pressure construction, and pressure posture. As an alternative of responding to overwhelming proof that Chinese language army modernization had rendered their long-standing choice for small numbers of pricy, standard, and high-profile American made ships and jets by looking for change, Taiwan’s officer corps insisted on extra of the identical. Even now, senior officers throughout the Ministry of Nationwide Protection continue to push for extra fixed-wing fighters, amphibious assault ships, and expensive and unsure indigenous submarines. In the meantime, they sideline extra survivable options like cellular missile programs, small and quick boats working from civilian harbors, and territorial defense.
The Roots of Dysfunction
To remedy an an infection, a physician should first discover its supply. Equally, if Washington and Taipei are severe about making ready Taiwan’s army for struggle, they should determine and take care of the underlying reason for its dysfunction. We consider that all of it begins with organizational tradition.
The scholarly literature on military change and effectiveness is evident on this level: culture matters. A wholesome army tradition — one able to adapting in peacetime and in wartime — cultivates flexibility, curiosity, and trustworthy inner debate. Subordinates should really feel empowered to problem assumptions. Senior leaders should worth — or at the least not punish — dissent and suggestions whereas additionally remaining delicate to top-down, political input.
Taiwan’s army tradition reveals nearly none of those attributes. It’s inflexible, hierarchical, risk-averse, and allergic to outdoors affect. Maybe probably the most telling symptom of this dysfunction is the rising variety of retired generals who now appear on television to diagnose systemic flaws — issues they made no effort to repair once they held the ability to take action. This sample displays a deeper cultural malaise: certainly one of deflection, inertia, and institutional self-preservation.
Like all cultures, this one is the product of a fancy interaction of things. Three are price inspecting intimately: an id constructed round a army academy and ethos modeled after the Soviet army; enduring isolation from the remainder of Taiwanese society; and, after 1979, a scarcity of publicity to accomplice militaries.
Whampoa-Centric Institutional Id
To know how the Taiwanese officer corps understands and defines itself, one should begin with the Whampoa Army Academy. Established in China in 1924, the Nationalists modeled the Whampoa Army Academy after the Soviet Crimson Military (Moscow even despatched certainly one of its personal, Pavel Pavlov, to function the academy’s first chief advisor).
Practically a century later, Whampoa’s cultural genetic material persists all through Taiwan’s army establishments such that Taiwanese army tradition additionally stays deeply Whampoa-centric. To bolster this shared id, each cadet from each service academy should attend boot camp at Whampoa (renamed the Republic of China Army Academy after it relocated to Kaohsiung). Yearly, the service academies additionally take part within the Pu Guang Yan Xi (“Glory of Whampoa Train”) to commemorate the academy’s anniversary. Final 12 months, Lai even joined in on the festivities. This symbolic centralization reinforces the dominance of army-centric values and considering, typically to the detriment of joint pressure improvement and innovation. This “cult of the Whampoa” has come at a excessive worth for Taiwan’s army by reinforcing norms and values that privilege patronage over competence, political connections over advantage, and loyalty above all else.
Home Isolation and Cultural Entrenchment
Internally, the army’s aforementioned cultural isolation from Taiwanese society has deepened its resistance to reform. For generations, army service has carried a unfavorable social stigma, encapsulated by the outdated saying: “Good males don’t develop into troopers; good iron doesn’t develop into nails.” Practically 4 many years of martial legislation solely served to strengthen this alienation on condition that Chiang and his son used the army as a tool of political repression and authoritarian control.
Beneath the Kuomintang’s one-party rule, Chiang indoctrinated the army within the concept of the “trinity of enemies”: Chinese language Communists, Taiwanese independence supporters, and home conspirators. In fact, these latter two teams ultimately evolved into the Democratic Progressive Party, which rose to political energy by means of the democratic course of. Nonetheless official the Democratic Progressive Get together might have been within the eyes of Taiwanese voters, its place atop the federal government created a deep sense of cognitive dissonance throughout the officer corps, as a result of their historic “enemies” had been now in cost.
Past orienting Taiwan’s senior uniformed generals and admirals in opposition to their Democratic Progressive Get together leaders, cultural isolation had one other insidious impact: it allowed the officer corps to protect outdated traditions from the Chiang period. Officers who assume in a different way or problem the “established order” are sometimes marginalized, if not forced out altogether. This sense of being disrespected and misunderstood by broader society has solely entrenched the officer corps additional right into a defensive, inward-looking posture that resists exterior scrutiny and reform.
Worldwide Isolation and Stagnation
Nor can we ignore the function that worldwide isolation performed when it comes to shielding the officer corps from the strain to embrace cultural change. Earlier than the USA severed formal diplomatic ties with the Republic of China, U.S. army personnel within the Taiwan Defense Command offered helpful interplay and coaching alternatives. Sadly, these exchanges had minimal cultural affect on condition that they occurred below the shadow of authoritarian rule and largely did not problem entrenched norms.
After 1979, worldwide army exchanges nearly ceased overnight. Other than occasional (and purely transactional) arms gross sales, Taiwanese officers had been minimize off from their international friends. It was not till the Third Taiwan Strait Disaster within the late Nineteen Nineties that the USA started to reassess the readiness of each its personal forces and people of Taiwan. Key U.S. officers equivalent to Kurt Campbell and Randy Schriver launched renewed efforts to reengage Taiwan by means of army coaching and advisory applications within the late Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s. However, the twenty years of isolation previous to that had already solidified a conservative, insular management tradition.
As we speak’s senior army leaders got here of age throughout these misplaced many years. In a Confucian society the place seniority is usually equated with knowledge (the upper the rank, the higher the presumed information), difficult authority isn’t solely discouraged however typically seen as insubordination. The notion {that a} junior officer — or worse, an outsider — might need a greater concept is inconceivable to many throughout the higher ranks. This cultural rigidity continues to impede the adoption of progressive ways, uneven methods, and reforms crucial for contemporary warfare.
To Change an Military
This tradition has confirmed remarkably resilient and resistant to vary. It stays steeped in custom, constrained by hierarchy, and guarded in opposition to outdoors affect and persists even within the face of renewed U.S.-Taiwanese military-to-military safety cooperation. The tough actuality is that even in 2025, Taiwan’s army nonetheless has extra in widespread with a Soviet mannequin than it does fashionable, Western armed forces.
Cultural change is difficult. Fortunately, it can and does occur. However Taipei and Washington mustn’t wait round for Taiwan’s army to vary itself. Listed below are 3 ways the Lai and Trump administrations can start to handle a few of these challenges.
First, Lai must articulate a transparent imaginative and prescient for a way he expects his officer corps to function. Earlier than doing so, he and his prime advisors might want to immerse themselves in the details of contemporary warfare and the nuances of the Taiwanese army paperwork — subjects Taiwanese politicians in each events have lengthy been far too joyful to elide. Though students of army reform disagree about plenty of issues, there’s a clear consensus that adaptive military organizations ought to possess a culture that nurtures innovation, initiative, and introspection. Senior officers must actively encourage questioning, tolerate dissent, empower subordinates, and embrace classes from historical past and reasonable coaching workouts. And so they should show the humility to think about new approaches and to ask and reward enter from under.
Second, Lai ought to cull the herd of Taiwanese basic and flag officers. The most important supply of resistance to vary has lengthy emanated from the senior-most ranks. In any case, there are just too many generals and admirals. With practically one for each 500 troops, this top-heavy equipment naturally exacerbates a bloated and overly centralized command construction and deeply ingrained bureaucratic inertia. Lai ought to in fact minimize his basic and flag officer corps with a scalpel, not a broadsword, as a result of there are those that assist reform.
As an alternative, Lai might want to act with precision, sending generals and admirals who’re clearly “retired on energetic responsibility” in addition to those that actively subvert uneven protection transformation (he is aware of who they’re), out to pasture. As an alternative of changing them with the subsequent highest-ranking officer in line, Lai must be prepared to determine and promote pro-reform leaders to the highest echelons of command, no matter their present rank.
To supervise implementation, Lai and the Legislative Yuan might want to work collectively to create institutional mechanisms to assist future presidents extra successfully monitor and steer the army. Regardless that President Lai took the vital step of placing a profession civilian answerable for the army, Minister Wellington Koo nonetheless lacks an institutional equal to the Workplace of the Secretary of Protection by means of which he can successfully monitor the Ministry of Nationwide Protection. Civilian oversight suffers in consequence.
Third, whereas the USA has a horrible monitor report of facilitating cultural change in accomplice militaries, there are nonetheless methods it might probably help from the sidelines. For instance, Washington ought to make it clear that cultural change of the type we name for on this article must precede different reform efforts lest they fail to take root. America ought to, in fact, take affordable steps to cut back the prevailing arms gross sales backlog, if solely to preempt the Ministry of Nationwide Protection’s “go to” excuse that late deliveries are stopping it from doing its job.
Past that, Washington ought to put new arms gross sales on the backburner whereas downplaying requires Taiwan to dramatically improve its protection spending. We acknowledge that pushing Taipei to spend extra on protection performs nicely in Washington and that spending is vital. Nevertheless it bears repeating: All of the arms and all the cash on the planet can’t resolve a basically cultural downside. Even military-to-military coaching is unlikely to work absent a deeper, cultural reform. Generations of tactical and operational reform makes an attempt by international advisors — starting from Joseph Stilwell to U.S. Army Help Advisory Group officers and at present’s U.S. Military and Marine Corps trainers — have repeatedly did not take root, largely as a result of the tradition itself has not been conducive to vary.
Worse but, with no change in tradition, extra arms and extra spending would possibly really backfire. Many Taiwanese already think about U.S. arms gross sales as a corrupt type of protection money. In consequence, the extra weapons the USA sells to Taiwan, the much less incentive the Taiwanese individuals have to supply for their very own protection, as a result of they assume the USA will now be “on the hook” to defend them. It ought to go with out saying that pouring more cash into an inefficient and dysfunctional system is a blueprint for waste that may solely serve to additional alienate Taiwanese taxpayers from their guardians.
Washington may assist pro-change civilians and officers put together a transparent roadmap for reform. Protection transformation is a fancy endeavor that essentially entails numerous authorities companies, personal firms, and nongovernmental organizations. An overarching blueprint, with agreed-upon milestones, will assist each side orchestrate their efforts. It’ll enable Washington to measure progress and tailor its assist, whereas giving Taiwanese civilian officers a device for sustaining oversight. The one most vital milestone on this plan — one on which the subsequent administration ought to insist — is the dissemination of a army doctrine for defending Taiwan asymmetrically. Taiwan’s armed forces haven’t had such an overarching uneven plan to coordinate operations, coaching, and acquisitions since rejecting Adm. Lee Hsi-min’s Overall Defense Concept.
The state of affairs is dire, not hopeless. Absent a elementary shift in army tradition, even the perfect methods, budgets, and applied sciences might fail to translate into actual readiness. As Taiwan faces an more and more assertive and succesful adversary throughout the Strait, time is operating brief to shut this cultural hole.
Yuster Yu is the senior government advisor of Octon Worldwide and a senior advisor of the iScann Group. A retired Taiwanese naval officer, he served on Taiwan’s Nationwide Safety Council and as a naval attaché to the USA. He’s a graduate of the Virginia Army Institute, the U.S. Pacific Fleet Anti-Submarine Warfare Officer Course, and Johns Hopkins Faculty of Superior Worldwide Research.
Michael A. Hunzeker (@MichaelHunzeker) is an affiliate professor at George Mason College’s Schar Faculty of Coverage and Authorities, the place he additionally directs the Taiwan Safety Monitor. He served within the Marine Corps from 2000 to 2006.
Picture: Taiwan Presidential Workplace through Wikimedia Commons
