Taiwan raises doubts about own defense; U.S. at center of collision course

Second of two parts.

SEOUL, South Korea — America’s mission to defend Taiwan is shaping up to be a lonely one.

NATO, the formidable Western military alliance, will not take part, while Taipei’s own forces are underpowered and have limited experience operating with U.S. troops in a time of war.

Following February’s Chinese spy balloon brouhaha, Wednesday’s planned meeting between Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is likely to further infuriate Beijing. The steadily deteriorating relations between Beijing and Washington have shone a light on an unexpected question: In a region where countries have complex, at times contradictory relations with both the U.S. and China, which countries will fight and which will sit it out if war breaks out over Taiwan?

The strait between China and Taiwan was, for decades, a simmering fault line between communism and democracy. Recently, multiple issues have raised the stakes.

Politically, the rise to power of two opposed figures  — Xi Jingping in Beijing in 2013 and Ms. Tsai in Taipei in 2016 — has put the two governments on a collision course, even as Beijing steps up its rhetoric and its military preparations to reclaim land it considers part of its sovereign territory.

Economically, semiconductors have emerged as a key weapon in Washington’s tech war with Beijing. While the Biden administration works to cut off the supply of high-end computer chips to Chinese customers, it is Taiwan that hosts the world’s leading chip foundries.

And geopolitically, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised fears that, if Moscow succeeds in its war aims, Beijing would be tempted to follow suit in Taiwan and to learn from its ally’s initial mistakes.

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SEE ALSO: Asia game-plans for China-Taiwan shooting war as U.S. troops increasingly isolated

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President Biden has repeatedly insisted that the U.S. will fight for Taiwan – a posture notably more definitive than that of any of his predecessors. Some believe Mr. Biden’s rejection of the approach of “strategic ambiguity” built into the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act is recognition that Washington’s statements prior to the Ukraine invasion rejecting a direct U.S. military role in the fighting only encouraged Russian President Vladimir Putin to green-light the invasion.

Opinions vary on how imminent a military move against Taipei might be.

“There is talk of 2025 and 2027, but imminence is conditional on political and military variables,” said Russell Hsiao, executive director of The Global Taiwan Institute. “I don’t think they are there yet.”

A slew of U.S. defense officials have leaked warnings, prompting a more cautious Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley to state last month that “rhetoric itself can overheat the environment.”

For Gen. Milley and the U.S. military brain trust, one massive variable that must be calculated is just who could — and would — help Taiwan defend itself. No regional democratic coalition along the lines of NATO, NATO itself has no frontline role, and China has its own economic and diplomatic strings to pull in capitals across East Asia.

Questions also loom over Taiwan itself, and whether the island democracy has the means and will to fight in its own defense against a far larger and far better armed opponent.

NATO: Backfill, not frontline

NATO has been promoting east-west linkages in recent years and Britain, France and even Germany have announced Indo-Pacific strategies and rotated troops and equipment into the region to train.

In addition to signing a long-term nuclear submarine deal with the U.S. and Australia, the British government plans to dispatch its new aircraft carrier, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, to the Asian theater for training and exercises. France, which considers itself an Asian power because of its territorial holdings in the region, dispatched the nuclear-powered attack submarine FS Emeraude to the Western Pacific recently.

European powers and the European Union also are stepping up their diplomatic visibility in the region.

“You are seeing more parliamentary delegations visiting the island,” said a defense industry source, speaking on background. “The cross-strait issue has been an outlier since 1979, but now countries realize a change in the status quo would be detrimental to their interests.”

That means vocal support.

“On the diplomatic and economic sides, the [European Union] would be essential to develop tools to deter Beijing that could tip the balance in making Beijing think twice about an invasion,” Mr. Hsiao said.

But in a shooting war, he admitted, “NATO and the EU would, at most, backfill.” That would see NATO forces possibly taking over U.S. Atlantic roles, freeing the American military to concentrate on the fighting in the east.

Could Taiwan fight?

Wednesday’s planned meeting between Ms. Tsai and Mr. McCarthy, hotly protested by China, proves “Taipei is successfully internationalizing Taiwanese security,” said the defense source. “The second issue is creating a force capable of responding.”

But questions hover over Taipei’s means and will to fight. There exist “long-standing disagreements within the Taiwanese defense establishment,” Mr. Hsiao acknowledged.

Western defense industry analysts express their surprise at Taipei’s reluctance to arm up, given the menacing rhetoric and aggressive military exercises coming from China in recent months. “There is concern and discomfort about the U.S. pressuring Taiwan to buy better and more arms,” explained Geoff Cain, a senior fellow at the Lincoln Network who recently visited the island. “Taiwan is worried about sparking an arms race.”

Perhaps because of that fear, Taiwan’s F-16 fighter jets boasted — until new U.S. arms packages announced this year — just two air-to-air missiles per airframe, a defense source revealed.

In the Pentagon, there is a belief that Taiwan needs to become, from China’s perspective, a “prickly porcupine” that would be painful to attack. That is de facto acceptance that the island’s forward defenses will be overwhelmed. That makes the key struggle for air/marine landing sites, which are limited in number.

Though a cross-strait assault, for meteorological reasons, is only feasible for around four months every year, [the Taiwanese] are going to lose the war at sea and in the air,” stated the defense source. “On land they have the advantage — they can attrite Chinese vessels from [15 miles out], but they need defense in depth.”

That requires appropriate weapons.

“Some think they have the wrong arms,” said Mr. Cain, suggesting a smaller, lighter mix than the current warships, jets and tanks. “They need Javelin [missiles], which are deadly and easy to learn to use, and armed drones.”

Regarding the island’s will to fight, Taipei in December extended conscription from four months to one year, but a key component that adds troop numbers and local knowledge is still lacking. In the Ukraine war’s early phase, territorial militias armed with anti-tank weapons and backed by precision artillery played a major role in shattering invading Russian forces targeting Kyiv and other major cities.

“You want Taiwan to be a little bit Switzerland and a little bit Hezbollah,” suggested Grant Newsham, author of “When China Attacks.”

No such transformation is underway.

“They are not where they need to be from the civil defense perspective,” said the defense source. “And are they making investments in electric-grid resilience? No. It’s shockingly bad.”

Private Taiwanese companies are catering to surging public interest in survival: how to take cover, evacuate, conduct first aid, etc., noted Mr. Cain — but not in tactical training to repel an invader. Taiwanese society “is fervently anti-gun ownership and that impacts any militia.”

There has been “discussion about creating a national guard, but there are major failings in these programs,” said Alex Neill, an adjunct fellow at Pacific Forum. “And demographics in Taiwan are a shrinking pool of young men, so it is not a very rosy picture.”

That puts American troops in the hot seat to deal with a determined Chinese attack.

Mr. Neill recalled a conversation with a top U.S. Republican security official, who observed, “Israel would fight to the last man, but Taiwan would fight to the last American.”

Can America fight for Taiwan?

Complicating the defense of the island and its nearly 24 million people, joint capabilities between the U.S. and Taiwanese militaries are questionable. Interoperability is hugely complex, far beyond language barriers. Command roles must be assigned, communication and intelligence nets must be synchronized, as must countless electronic systems and weapons guidance systems.

Mr. Neill said it is an open question whether the Taiwanese would command U.S. forces; whether U.S. warships can be effectively linked to Taiwanese defense networks; and whether Taiwan’s F-16s are networked to supporting U.S. warships.

“The level of engagement between the U.S. and Taiwanese forces is not fully understood, as it is under wraps — it’s a gray area,” he said. “The U.S. is sending out messages that it is enhancing capabilities with the Taiwanese military, but not on the scale of war games with Korea and Japan.”

Tens of thousands of GIs stationed in Korea and Japan have practiced interoperability in joint drills for decades. But with Washington following the “One China” policy, there is no such program of close cooperation with Taiwan, and only a few hundred American troops are believed to be stationed on the island.

“U.S. policy appears to be ‘wing it’ if China does something,” Mr. Newsham, a retired U.S. Marine colonel, said, calling the situation “disgraceful.”

“Successive U.S. administrations deserve blame, and it’s not as if Indo-Pacific Command commanders have resigned or even threatened to resign,” he continued.

Given these complications, “The U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force would probably prefer it if the Taiwanese got out of the way,” opined the defense source, making the war even more of a direct clash between the U.S. and China.

Still, Taipei has a hole card. If Taiwanese cruise missiles struck China’s Three Gorges dam, they would effectively flood much of the country. But the defense source dismissed that possibility.

“They claim to have strike-forward capabilities with domestic cruise missiles,” the source said. “But if Taiwan used those, their island would be destroyed in retaliation.”

Read part one of this series here.