The surprise attack that Palestine’s Hamas launched against Israel on Oct. 7 has sent shockwaves around the world. From a strategic point of view, the event has several aspects that Taiwan should consider.
In the wake of the attack, many analysts have been talking about a failure of intelligence. They ask how Israel’s world-renowned intelligence agency, Mossad, could have overlooked intelligence about Hamas assembling its forces.
However, while intelligence agencies could collect such information, the question is whether they could make correct judgements based on their research and analysis from it.
Notably, before this conflict broke out, Israel was going through political turmoil, which makes it uncertain whether its decisionmakers could have acted correctly based on the intelligence.
The circumstances of the attack are reminiscent of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in World War II. The US military had alrady cracked Japan’s diplomatic codes. Just before the attack, it had detected Japanese warplanes by radar, and spotted and destroyed a couple of Japanese midget submarines.
Nonetheless, senior commanders did not react fast enough, with disastrous results.
In Taiwan’s case, when it detects abnormal movements by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the question is whether it could combine the information with an analysis of Taiwan’s research into the PLA to foresee its next move.
This might be one aspect in which Taiwan needs to hone its abilities.
Israel, with its longstanding policy of being a nation under arms, is able to mobilize its forces quickly.
However, when a large number of people return to their units and report for duty, it is not easy to provide them with sufficient and appropriate equipment. Israel’s ability to achieve this is another area that Taiwan could learn from. Do all Taiwanese know the roles they would play in a war? If they are mobilized, would there be enough guns, ammunition and protective gear?
Israelis living outside Israel have reportedly been visiting military equipment shops to buy items to send home.
In a time of war, would Taiwanese reservists be able to carry equipment that they have bought for themselves? Would they know where they should assemble and report for duty? These are practical questions that Taiwan needs to face as it bolsters its reservist system.
Israel’s lessons repeatedly illustrate how dangerous it is to forget about war. No matter how the situation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait has changed, China has never abandoned the possibility of using military force, so Taiwan must at all times maintain an attitude of being prepared for danger.
As well as making preparations for war, Taiwan needs to improve its research and analysis of the Chinese Communist Party and the PLA. By so doing, it could defeat the enemy before the fight begins and prevent war from breaking out at all.
Lin Ying-yu is an assistant professor at Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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