On Dec. 27 last year, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) announced that conscription would be restored to one year for male Taiwanese born after Jan. 1, 2005. The reform won the support of the majority of citizens, while the US and Japan indicated approval of Taiwan’s resolve to boost its self-defense and deterrence capabilities.
The reform included bolstering training, raising wages for conscripts, recognizing mandatory service under the labor pension system and studying how the education system can be made more flexible to help young men effectively use their time and build careers.
The training program’s content would also be upgraded to include the use of drones, Stinger, Javelin and Kestrel missiles, and other new weapons to meet the needs of modern warfare.
This paradigm shift is laudable, but the mainstay of the policy seems to be centered on hard military skills.
Modern warfare is no longer restricted to two armies clashing. The possession of advanced weapons is a prerequisite, but warfare has become more complex, all-encompassing and diverse. Combat has spilled over from military and political warfare to “smokeless battlefields” such as the economy, finance, trade, diplomacy, public opinion, cognitive warfare, information, cyber and technology.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shown that advances in technology have ushered in a new type of warfare, and reforms should take that into account.
Cyberattacks are easy to launch, but difficult to defend. As it takes time to train professionals, the government should recruit conscripts learned in computer science for cyberwarfare training and make them members of information security teams. They could monitor cyberattacks from China, develop cyberwarfare tools, create a training environment for information security, help the public sector with information security and work with local governments to promote information on security.
As cognitive warfare is the extension of psychological warfare and political warfare beyond the battlefield, it can help boost the morale of Taiwanese.
However, if the enemy launches a cognitive attack and Taiwan does not defend it properly, there could be conflict and social unrest that could lead to social division, civil dysfunction and a stagnation of industrial development.
Similarly, the government could enlist conscripts with cognitive warfare-related backgrounds for additional training, establish a “myth-busting” team to counter China’s cognitive attacks and work with civic groups to design compelling, easy-to-follow activities to raise the public’s awareness about cognitive warfare and media literacy to spot disinformation.
Aside from those soft military skills, the government could also take other fields into account, such as electronic warfare, data analysis and big data, combined warfare with artificial intelligence, reinforcement of basic infrastructure and defense of combat supplies, natural resources, and transport systems.
As soft military skills are different from those needed in field operations, the government might have to decrease the intensity of physical training.
Tsai said that “under this new system, the one year spent in the military will not be wasted.”
Making the proposed changes, this goal can be reached. After completing service, the skills acquired in the military can turn conscripts into much sought-after talents, leaders in civic military groups or elites in the all-out defense system. The government must look into the research, planning and implementation of soft skills needed in various battlefield scenarios.
Eugene Yeh is a former director-general of the National Center for High-performance Computing.
Translated by Rita Wang
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS