Taiwan Today

Two recent books take a closer look at
Taiwan's air and sea defense capabilities.
 

When US general Douglas MacArthur referred to Taiwan as an unsinkable aircraft carrier, he was trumpeting the offensive nature of the strategies used to contain communism during the Cold War. The US containment policy in Asia intended to wall off communism, thus denying it room to emanate outward from the revolutionary hub of Beijing. Although the name implies stasis, the containment policy hinged on a strategy of force projection. MacArthur--generally gimlet-eyed, sometimes insubordinate and deeply animated by anti-communist sentiment--imagined Taiwan as the greatest of the navy's offensive weapons--the aircraft carrier, from which anti-communist forces could be launched from the unsinkable island flattop just 120 miles off the coast of China.

This offensive doctrine received the backing of Chiang Kai-shek, longing to return triumphant to China and restore the nationalist capital at Nanking. In the early days of the Cold War in Asia, Chiang and his American supporters lobbied in the United States for support for an attack on China. Consequently, Republic of China (ROC) military planners favored the army, which would be needed to hold ground once ROC forces established a beachhead on the Chinese coastline.

The success of the effort, Chiang understood, would be dependent on US air and naval support. As early in the Cold War as 1961, however, the US decided to stop the shadowboxing with Beijing. "At this point," writes Jay Taylor, a former State Department official, "Kennedy and his advisers thought the Kabuki play had gone far enough. On June 23, at the Warsaw meeting with the Chinese, the US representative said his country would dissociate itself by word and deed from any Nationalist attack against China."

The unequivocal denial of US support essentially put an end to Nationalist aspirations to recapture China by force. In subsequent years, the US moved even further from its official alliance with Taiwan--opening relations with Beijing in 1972 and formally recognizing the People's Republic of China in 1979.

If the US and China set policy according to new realities, so too did Taiwan. After abandoning plans to retake China, Taiwan's defense needs became truly defensive in character, and the key to defense for an island nation is control of the sea and the air. No longer would the army be the primary service branch. Its function, instead, would be limited to extinguishing People's Liberation Army landings on the island of Taiwan and the offshore islands of Kinmen and Matsu. Indeed the patriotic esprit de corps of the army gave way to the highly specialized air and sea branches of the military, which relied on the formidable technological and educational foundations of Taiwan's civilian sector.

H.G. Wells in his fictional narrative The War in the Air presciently described this modernization trajectory: "The balance of military efficiency was shifting back from the many to the few, from the common to the specialized. The days when the emotional infantryman decided battles had passed forever. War had become a matter of apparatus, of special training and skill of the most intricate kind."

The modernization of Taiwan's armed forces to meet the essential, but limited, goal of defending ROC territory is the subject of two recent volumes of defense studies: Taiwan's Security and Air Power: Taiwan's Defense Against the Air Threat from Mainland China and Taiwan's Maritime Security. The two volumes are collections of papers delivered at defense studies seminars sponsored by the Taiwan government in 2002 and 2003, and follow the publication that resulted from the first of the conferences, Defending Taiwan. (See "Victory Without Battle," Taiwan Review, January 2004, pp. 36-39). The conferences and the resulting publications represent the opening of defense issues to outside defense experts from academia and foreign armed services in the hope that these studies "not only prompt and stimulate the interaction between military and civilian personnel in government, but also encourage the exchange of ideas on the more pressing issue of Taiwan's defense." Tackling those pressing problems, indeed, will rely largely on technological innovation, modernization and, in the words of H.G. Wells, "skill of the most intricate kind."

Both studies address strategic and tactical problems for Taiwan's armed forces in countering the growing military capability of the People's Liberation Army. The essays, by and large, are written in an accessible style, but the reader must prepare for the heavy assault of acronyms characteristic of defense studies. Some of these reflect the fetishistic affection for specialized terminology among defense industry wonks. OTH, one learns, stands for "over-the-horizon," and the baffling SSK is a substitute for "conventional submarine." (One wonders what deficiency "sub" suggests to the defense specialist to prompt him to proscribe it from his lexicon.) This is a minor distraction, however, in two works that help sift common defense misconceptions from the facts.

Both volumes dwell at length on the advances of China's military--perhaps the most salient feature of the shifting military balance in Asia--but the news for Taiwan is not always bad. In "Taiwan's Security and Air Power," York W. Chen, the executive editor of Taiwan Defense Affairs outlines the growth of the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). "The total number of the PLAAF advanced aircraft is increasing: after the initial acquisition of Su-27s, the PRC has already established a domestic production line of the aircraft," he points out. The bad news is that the Soviet-designed fighters are being produced in increasingly sophisticated versions and with increasing speed. In an air war in the Taiwan Strait, PLAAF aircraft would outnumber Taiwanese fighters. Despite numerical superiority, however, the ROC air force flies superior craft, including US F-16s and French Mirage 2000-5s, which supplement the Ching-kuo Indigenous Defense Fighters (IDF). ROC pilots are also better trained than their counterparts across the Strait. An air war, then, would resemble the Battle of Britain, where superior aircraft and pilots--motivated by the life-and -death struggle to defend their home islands--would likely prevail over a larger force.

The ROC air force, however, does not want to be in the unenviable position of fighting in the skies over Taiwan's cities. The ideal air victory entails destroying the majority of the enemy's aircraft while they sit on runways. This can only be achieved through superior detection and intelligence gathering capabilities. "Taiwan's Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) and land -based radars, therefore, like the eyes and the ears of the Taiwanese armed forces as a whole, play a key role in Taiwan's air defense," writes Chen. It is in the realm of intelligence gathering that Taiwan excels because of its advanced technological capabilities and access to sophisticated detection technology and equipment (such as the AWACS) from the US.

The US is required by law--the Taiwan Relations Act--to arm Taiwan for defensive purposes. Disputes over just which weapons are defensive and which are offensive, however, continue to bedevil negotiations for arms purchases from the US. The ROC navy, for example, would very much like to get hold of Aegis-equipped warships, which would allow Taiwan's navy to detect and neutralize missiles fired across the Strait and to coordinate air defenses. Not surprisingly, China has vociferously objected to the sale of this sophisticated platform to Taiwan, arguing that the system could be used for offensive postures. The US has equipped the Japanese navy with the platform--under very tight restrictions that limit even Japanese naval personnel from inspecting the most sophisticated parts of the system--and might agree to sell it to Taiwan if China continues to increase military pressure on Taiwan.

Similar problems frustrate Taiwan's other defense purchases. To counter the threat of a naval blockade in the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan has been seeking new vessels for its submarine fleet. Submarines, however, are considered offensive weapons, since their ability to move undetected and at long distances makes them suitable for first strikes. But the submarine's versatility in war exposes the difficulty in determining the offense/defense divide. Unleashing a sub force is the most effective way of breaking a naval blockade.

Even after Taiwan won US support for the purchase of six diesel-electric submarines in 2001, the plan stalled after production obstacles arose. The US is willing to build the subs, but has opened bidding to outside designers since it has not manufactured a conventional submarine since 1954. The first of the subs, moreover, will not be afloat until 2011. Acquisition of submarines under scored the political minefield that Taiwan must navigate, even with US assistance, to acquire weapons. Under fierce pressure from China, some European shipbuilders pulled out of the bidding.

The long-term solution for Taiwan is to foster an indigenous shipbuilding industry capable of meeting Taiwan's naval needs. In his essay "Taiwanese Shipbuilding Capabilities," Liang Cho-chung, director of Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering at Da Yeh University in Taiwan, points out that "Taiwan has no successful submarine construction experience and lacks the necessary background in submarine design." Despite rapid advances in other indigenous weapons programs, such as the building of IDFs, Taiwan will need at least a few decades before it can build submarines. In the meantime, it must continue to press the US government and navigate the international arms markets, securing weapons platforms where it can.

When discussing Taiwanese defense matters, it is worthwhile to remember just what Taiwan is defending. Since the end of martial law in 1987, Taiwan has evolved into a multiparty democracy with a vibrant economy. Although the Cold War is over, Taiwan is still faced with aggression from an enemy ideologically opposed to its political development. No matter what position a Taiwanese individual holds on the question of Taiwan's relationship with China, ROC citizens do not wish to abandon a political system that allows them a voice in their own governance.

The competing interests in a democracy, however, place restrictions on defense spending in a way not experienced by non-democratic governments. Under martial law, defense ranked at the top of the pecking order for state concerns in Taiwan. Today, the people of Taiwan are as interested in their economic and social development as they are in defense. In a white paper released by the ROC Ministry of National Defense, these priorities were made explicit: "Owing to increased budget demands for development of a diversified society, social welfare and overall national economic development, the proportion of national defense budget in total government budget has dropped annually."

For the authors of these defense studies volumes, the trend rings alarm bells. For example, Peter Brooks, former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, writes in Taiwan's Security and Air Power that "Taiwan's indecision on key defense needs such as increasing the defense budget . . . is giving some the impression that Taiwan does not take its self-defense seriously." Yet, voices in the defense establishment and security studies community habitually bay for higher spending, since they are afflicted by the mono mania of their field. In a democracy, however, the public good of defense must be weighed against other aspects of the national interest.

The solution for Taiwan is to capitalize on its strengths--technological sophistication, an educated population and an atmosphere of openness that allows good ideas to reach decision makers. A sophisticated, modern military force and good management can help compensate for declining budgets, while keeping air and sea forces bristling in defense of the unsinkable aircraft carrier.
 

Robert Green, a former resident of Taiwan, is presently a graduate student at Harvard University.

Copyright (c) 2005 by Robert Green.