On August 6, Ukraine crossed its northeastern border and invaded the Russian region of Kursk. After spending more than two years seeking to oust Russian forces from its own territory, Kiev turned the tables on Moscow. Vladimir Putin seemed thrown off guard. In a televised meeting about the incursion, Putin came across as patently not in control of events.
The reasons for the Ukrainian offensive remain unclear. It could be an attempt to wear away at the morale of both Russia’s military and its populace, and to boost morale in Ukraine; to undermine popular and elite confidence in Putin’s rule; to draw Russian forces away from other fronts; or to seize territory that Kiev can later trade away in negotiations. Most likely, Ukraine’s motives are multifaceted.
What is clear is that Ukraine has succeeded in reshaping narratives about the war in its favor, at least for the time being. Those narratives can motivate Ukraine’s people to keep fighting and shape allied nations’ decisions about whether and how to continue supporting the war effort. It is perhaps not entirely coincidental that the Biden administration is now considering loosening restrictions on Ukraine’s use of western arms to strike deep into Russian territory.
A month later, pagers started exploding all over Lebanon, killing and maiming Hezbollah militants. A day after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, assault on southern Israel, Hezbollah began bombarding northern Israel. A large swath of the country’s north became uninhabitable, with the risk to residents of Hezbollah rockets too great to abide. For much of the last year, Israel employed tit-for-tat responses to Hezbollah strikes, hoping to dissuade the Iranian satellite from sustaining is aggression. That did not do the trick. So Israel got creative.
Israel assassinated Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah terrorist, in Beirut on July 30. The following day, a bomb smuggled into a Tehran guesthouse months earlier killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Then, seven weeks later, Israel (presumably) carried out its coup de pager, what New York Times columnist and former US Army lawyer David French called “one of the most precisely targeted strikes in the history of warfare.” The next day, hundreds of two-way radios exploded as well.
This string of attacks leaves Israel’s enemies wondering who among them has turned traitor, where more bombs may be hidden, what else may explode, whether any communications are secure, if any of their vendors are trustworthy. The pager operation has taken thousands of fighters off the battlefield, at least for a time. All together, these strikes on enemy leadership, communications, and foot soldiers could have significant operational effects.
What do the invasion of Kursk and exploding pagers have in common? And what relevance do they have for Taiwan? Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk was a symmetrical yet unexpected counterpunch in Russia’s years-long assault on its neighbor. Israel’s pager paroxysm was more like fiction come to life — the stuff of spy novels made real. In both cases, the aggressors were not only unprepared to counter the threat, they were unaware of the vulnerability.
Over the last decade, there has been much emphasis, in both Washington and Taipei, of Taiwan’s need to embrace asymmetric and innovative approaches to defense in response to China’s growing threat. These discussions, however, have had a fairly narrow focus: defeating invasion by targeting invasion forces. Taiwan’s armed forces may eventually embrace small, affordable, survivable platforms, but they’ll still be shooting at the pilots and sailors crossing the Taiwan Strait and at the infantrymen attempting to land on its beaches.
This is all well and good. Destroying the invaders is a time-tested way of defeating an invasion. But it may not be sufficient. Invading China won’t be a viable option for Taiwan during a time of war, nor is it likely that Taiwan’s intelligence services will be able to make Chinese soldiers’ smart phones explode on command. But Taiwan should consider other ways in which it can throw the Chinese leadership, military, and citizenry for a loop.
Taiwan’s cyber operators, for example, might take aim at the People’s Liberation Army’s ability to pay personnel. Revealing the online activities of the enlisted could cause personal strife for men and women that should be focused on prosecuting a war. Disseminating the content of communications of senior Communist Party leaders could complicate their ability to communicate and cause domestic political strife. Saboteurs could complicate PLA operations on the Chinese home front while causing societal discord.
Recent developments in the wars in Europe and the Middle East suggest several important lessons for Taipei. Taiwan will not win a war with China by remaining in a defensive crouch. It will not win by fighting on China’s terms. And it will not win without exploiting vulnerabilities within China itself.
Michael Mazza is a senior director at the Project 2049 Institute and a senior non-resident fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute.
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