Rising security threats worldwide are fueling national discussions — from Poland to the UK to Taiwan — about military reform and preparing societies for an increasingly perilous global landscape.
In Poland, there is talk of shifting the nation from a peacetime mindset to one that embraces its historical role as a defender of Europe, including through promoting military service as a civic duty and expansion of the military. In the UK, debate is ongoing about defense spending and economic trade-offs, and how to encourage greater willingness among young people to serve.
In Taiwan, the debate is over how much the nation should spend on defense and what trade-offs society should make to enhance national security.
President William Lai’s (賴清德) recent announcement of his intent to raise defense spending to 3 percent of GDP via a special budget — up from earmarked spending of about 2.45 percent — demonstrates a deepening national consensus on the need for increased defense spending, but among the medium-term challenges is ensuring that spending stays above 3 percent, and even tops 3.5 or 4 percent of GDP.
However, while raising defense spending in absolute terms is important to enhance capabilities, boost deterrence, and signal resolve to allies and adversaries, the military faces deeper challenges. A declining birthrate and public reluctance toward military service threaten troop levels, undermining force readiness. As Wang Kai-chun (王鎧均), senior policy adviser for the office of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯), writes on today’s page: Personnel numbers in the nation’s armed forces have declined to 152,000 as of June last year from 162,000 in 2019, with the staffing rate at 88.57 percent in 2020 compared with just 82 percent last year.
The decline in enlistment is in contrast to evolving public sentiment — polls show a growing awareness of China and a rise in willingness among Taiwanese to defend their nation.
However, the polls are not translating into military service, revealing a critical gap between support for national defense and confidence in the military as a viable means to do so. Factors influencing this perception include overworked personnel, training ineffectiveness — with conscripts and volunteers enduring outdated drills or menial duties, not combat-focused training — outdated equipment, poor leadership, and military service lacking the prestige it holds in places such as the US, Singapore or South Korea. This is exacerbated by leading pan-blue politicians denigrating Taiwan’s ability to resist China, which demoralizes service members and undermines the military’s prestige.
The KMT has recently proposed measures to address the problem, including increasing pay for volunteer personnel, and increasing overtime pay and combat unit allowances, ideas that the Ministry of National Defense is reviewing.
The measures are needed and should be welcomed, but as Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said earlier this month, the government already has plans to increase military pay and benefits, suggesting that the KMT has an ulterior motive to politicize the issue. Indeed, the KMT’s track record of opposing defense budget increases, along with its conciliatory rhetoric toward China, make many people rightly skeptical about the intent behind its proposals.
Boosting military wages and benefits without a corresponding increase in the overall defense budget — which the KMT is not calling for — would inevitably reduce funds for weapons procurement — a policy the KMT has long favored.
If the KMT is serious about improving national defense, it should address how its rhetoric on China and fiscal conservatism on funding contribute to undermining military prestige, and work in collaboration with the Democratic Progressive Party to ensure that these efforts do not come at the cost of crucial modernization initiatives.
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