About two weeks have elapsed since the tragic earthquake in Hualien County, which as of the time of writing, was known to have killed 12 people with many more still missing.
While relatively small, especially compared with the Jiji Earthquake in September 1999 that killed more than 2,400 people, it occurred in a somewhat remote area and disrupted transportation and other services on the eastern coast of the country, stranding hundreds of people.
Taiwan has experienced many natural and human-caused disasters over the years. Its people and society are resilient. I have no doubt that they will persevere and that they will incorporate the lessons learned into future disaster mitigation, preparations, response and recovery.
Initially, however, the scale of the potential destruction was not known and believed to be larger. Taipei, itself, shook badly and witnessed damage in many areas, including to the MRT’s Yellow Line, which has made morning commutes and evening returns from work and school challenging.
As someone who experienced the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake near Kobe, Japan, in January 1995 and who helped lead the US’ response, known as Operation Tomodachi, to the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in March 2011, I know both perspectives — victim and responder.
Victims seek assistance as early as possible and responders wish to help as quickly as possible.
In the recent quake in eastern Taiwan, in the interest of responding quickly and with as much assistance as possible, I was hoping to see the government request assistance from US forces in nearby Okinawa.
In particular, I believe a request for several MV-22 Ospreys, which have been based at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma since October 2012, would have provided immediate and tangible help to the victims in the disaster area who might have been cut off from other assistance.
In a disaster, particularly when victims are frightened, alone and without the means to help themselves, such assistance is very welcome and needed, not only to meet physical needs, but also psychological ones as it gives them hope.
The reopening of Sendai Airport in the middle of March 2011 in a matter of days rather than one year as Japanese authorities initially estimated was not only meeting a functional need, but also lifted the spirits of the millions of victims in the area and the nation as a whole.
We did not have the MV-22s in Japan at that time, so the response was slower than I would have hoped. As readers probably know, the V-22s, which fly like planes, do not need a runway to land or take off, as their tilt-rotors allow them to vertically rise and descend like helicopters.
Their payloads are also a huge advancement compared with their predecessors, the CH-46s used since the 1960s. They are also very fast and can be refueled in the air.
Were other compatible US Navy or Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ships in the area, they could act as floating gas stations to refuel aircraft that are providing relief operations, not to mention, floating warehouses for relief supplies, and floating hospitals to assist injured people or those needing medical attention.
Doing all of this (ship-to-shore) from off-shore reduces the burden on the local area.
Their payloads are also a huge advancement compared with their predecessors, the CH-46s used since the 1960s until early 2010s, which could not be refueled in the air and were as slow as can be. (They took three days to fly from Okinawa to Sendai in 2011, where an MV-22 could do the 1,800km trip in about three hours.)
I am unsure if the Taiwanese government considered asking the US for assistance, but it should have. And if it did, but it was unreported, the US should have given it the proper consideration it deserved.
There is a process by which the US considers such requests for aid. It must meet three conditions: Does the affected country desire it? Is the scale of the disaster beyond the response capabilities of the affected country? Is the provision of aid in US interests?
Obviously, were the Taiwanese government to make the request, questions 1 and 3 would be answered in the affirmative. The answer to No. 2 might be “not necessarily,” but inherently in any decision on foreign policy and humanitarian assistance, there are elements of politics involved and thus a rationale could likely have been made.
This was done in Kumamoto in April 2016 when the Japanese government requested the assistance of the US by deploying some of its MV-22s to the stricken area, despite the limited scale of the disaster.
As someone who flew on the very MV-22 that was sent to Kumamoto two years prior to that during a disaster response exercise in Wakayama Prefecture, where we did ship-to-shore operations at the request of the local community and the Japanese government, I was very happy to see it being dispatched.
On the flight to Wakayama from MCAS Iwakuni, I sat in the cockpit area in the jump seat behind the highly capable pilots. One of them had participated in the response to Super Typhoon Haiyan in the southern Philippines in the fall of 2013.
It was the first time for Okinawa-based MV-22s to deploy for a disaster.
By this point, there were two squadrons in Okinawa, with the second one having arrived in August 2013.
The pilot told me how important the cycle of exercises and actual responses were. In other words, an exercise allows the pilots and crews to practice their skills, which are then employed in real-world situations.
Having participated in actual disasters, they can then use that knowledge and experience to make the future exercises more realistic and worthwhile, which then translates, hopefully, to a better response.
Taiwan and the US military missed an opportunity to call on the MV-22s to assist eastern Taiwan during the recent quake. US pilots and crews missed the chance to assist an ally and friend in the humanitarian field, and local Taiwanese authorities and military the opportunity to work with those providing international assistance.
Moreover, of course and most important, local residents who have had their lives upended have to wait even longer for a sense of normalcy to return.
Leaders need to think out of the box during disasters or else they will not know how to do so during even larger contingencies.
Robert D. Eldridge is a 2024 Ministry of Foreign Affairs Taiwan fellow affiliated with Tamkang University, author of the book Operation Tomodachi (in English and Japanese), and a former political adviser to the US Marine Corps in Japan and Hawaii.
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