8 minute read
Embracing Change
Strategic Vision vol. 8, no. 43 (November, 2019)
Taiwan must adopt a more asymmetric defensive posture to counter China
Advertisement
Tobias Burgers
ROC President Tsai Ing-wen thanks US Admiral Samuel Locklear for his efforts in enhancing Taiwan-US military exchanges.
photo: ROC Presidential Office
In a recent report for the Center for New American Security (CNAS), researchers Robert Work and Greg Grant (2019) argue that China has excelled at beating America at their own game: Using technological advancements to counter an existing military superiority. In their review, they outline how China has over the last two decades, cleverly used new technological innovations to contest American military superiority in East Asia. From the famed DF-21 D, better known as the carrier killer, to innovations in cyber and other information technologies, China has been able to develop a new array of weapon systems that have gradually enabled it to challenge US dominance in the Pacific region.
Whereas during the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, the United States illustrated its dominance and superiority by sailing two carrier strike groups unopposed in the region of the Taiwan Strait, now 23 years later, such an outcome would be unlikely. China’s increasing asymmetric military power has enabled it to challenge and contest US dominance within the First Island Chain, and to some extent, through the development of long-range strike projection capabilities, even toward the Second Island Chain, through the deployment of its anti-access, area-denial (A2/ AD) strategy. China is now able to effectively counter American naval and aerial dominance in what Beijing calls the “Three Seas:” the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and the Yellow Sea.
China has arguably challenged US forces through the use of an A2/AD strategy which focuses heavily on the use of long-range weaponry and integrated intelligence systems. US military bases in Guam, as well as aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific, could become subject to long-range bomber attacks and missiles strikes. While the United States has far from lost its dominance and can still be regarded as the primary dominant military actor in the region, the CNAS report makes clear how technology—the driving factor behind US post-Cold War military dominance—can be applied to create novel asymmetric power capabilities which seriously threaten the status quo.
Indigenous offset strategy
While the report is aimed at an American audience, there is a clear lesson to be learned for policymakers and planners in Taiwan. Somewhat ironically, it could learn from China’s approach of the last decades and apply this to beat China at its own game. Taiwan should understand and copy China’s tricks, and apply these in its cross-strait military dynamics. It should seek to develop an indigenous offset strategy that would enable it to counter Chinese military superiority. This could be valuable as Taiwan has by no means the economic and military means and capabilities to contest China’s growing military resources, power, and its ability to project power, just like China initially didn’t have the economic or military means to challenge American dominance.
One might expect that China, having executed such a successful offset counter-balancing strategy, would learn from its own lessons. However, in this case, the opposite seems to be the case. Whereas in its relationship with the United States, China has been developing asymmetric capabilities, it has, in its military relations with its regional neighbors, pursued a much more conventional approach, seeking to improve its military competitiveness via the development of classical instruments of military power such as the development of a series of aircraft carriers, an amphibious corps, and numerous vessels for the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), as well as other power-projection tools.
The argument for developing such classical instruments of military power projection, as opposed to asymmetric tools, is logical: Not faced with adversaries who have a robust military dominance, it can afford to develop classical non-symmetric power projection capabilities. Furthermore, whereas Beijing seeks to contest US operations and dominance, in the case of its military relations with Taiwan, China needs a significantly different approach. Rather than pursuing a denial approach and anti-access strategy, China, in this case, needs offensive abilities that cannot only contest (in
this case, Taiwanese dominance) but foremost to control and to dominate. To achieve such, what is needed are more conventional military capabilities, such as naval and air assets that can patrol, as well as logistical forces that can transport land-based forces. Long-range bombers and missiles are ideal systems to contest territories, but they do not lend themselves to the goal of controlling and dominating.
An impressive armada
Moreover, China’s military buildup in the Taiwan Strait is of a much more general nature. It has sought to develop an impressive armada. In the last five years, it has built more vessels than the entire British fleet. Between 2015 and 2017 alone, it has, according to an International Institute for Strategic Studies’ report, developed nearly 400,000 tons of vessels, ranging from submarines to destroyers, support ships, and amphibious vessels. A fleet able to easily counter Taiwan’s naval capabilities, but possibly soon as able to transport China’s new 30,000 strong amphibious marine force. In the aerial domain, it has embraced an impressive buildup. As the US Department of Defense noted in its annual report on China’s military strength, it now has more 4th generation fighter jets than the total inventory of all airplanes of the ROC air force.
Prestige capabilities
Faced with this threat, and the growing inequality in hardware and systems, Taiwan has successfully accelerated its defense procurement and development. Nevertheless, it still seems too focused on acquiring conventional US military resources. From the F-16V to its desire to build submarines with Washington’s help, as well as its US$2 billion procurement of Abrams tanks, the majority of these resources are conventional, high-end military resources that require significant economic and industrial resources: Resources Taiwan doesn’t have. Analysts Colin Carroll and Rebecca Friedman Lissner have aptly called these “prestige capabilities ... with no tangible benefit in deterrence or war.”
Surface-to-air missiles, such as this SA-13 in the Yukon Training Area in Alaska, contribute greatly to air defense.
photo: Isaac Johnson
Moreover, with Taiwan’s government cutting military pensions, and unable to offer a competitive salary to attract volunteer soldiers, it raises the question of why Taiwan’s defense and political establishment seeks to purchase expensive military hardware that surely will look nice during military parades, but in the event of an invasion would be nothing more than overpriced sitting ducks. In this, as Tanner Greer notes in a recent article for Foreign Affairs, there seems to be a potent political domestic and foreign element: The matter of prestige and the idea that Taiwan can still lead on military matters, as well as the idea that military sales from the United States strengthen Taipei’s relationship with Washington.
Helicopters crowd the deck of the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp as it enters Sydney Harbor for a port visit.
photo: Benjamin F. Davella III
A simple look at the dynamics of military hardware, and as well various studies by US defense think tanks, however, illustrate that with the current military framework, Taiwan would not be able to withstand an invasion, even in the short term. A hypothetical discussion about if and when US forces could come to the aid of Taiwan in the case of invasion only makes sense if Taiwan demonstrates the capabilities to hold out against an invasion in the first case. With the current defense framework and resources, this seems highly unlikely, essentially making such a debate about Washington’s role moot.
Asymmetric approach
If Taiwan is serious about defense, survival, and the ability to withstand an invasion long enough for outside help to arrive, it should give up pursuing costly military systems that have moderate defensive abilities. Instead, it should focus on an asymmetric approach. As the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments noted in several studies, modern technology favors the defender. Indeed, whereas China would need to invest in highend, costly, extensive, and highly vulnerable military invasion resources, the ROC armed forces have a much simpler goal: ensuring that any of these systems that carry the invasion force would be neutralized or paralyzed before such systems would be able to deploy their invasion force.
Instead of using existing or future high-end systems, as discussed above, it should seek to accomplish this goal with cheap, agile, and smaller systems. To achieve such, Taiwan should foremost seek to further strengthen its missile program. The development of long-range missiles would offer deterrence against possible Chinese strikes and the ability to inflict damage on Chinese civilian targets, as well as supporting military structures needed for a possible invasion, such as naval bases.
It is the short-range missiles that have the most utility, however. Land, airborne, and naval-based missiles such as the recent Yun-Feng land attack missile and Wan Chien air-to-ground missile (if deployed on more advanced systems), combined with the existing ballistic missile arsenal (e.g., Tien Chi and Hsiung Feng II, IIE and III short-range-missiles) would offer the ROC armed forces a sizeable deterrence capability.
Beyond these, it should also develop smaller kamikaze-style drones. Based on existing systems, these small drones would prove challenging to counter, mainly if operated with swarming tactics. It should also seek the development of unmanned systems in the maritime domain through the development of small, agile kamikaze-style UUVs and USVs. Such systems could produce a sizeable deterrence against Chinese naval forces. Such resources will not be a game-changer in the military balance across the Taiwan strait during peacetime (for this Taiwan would need more large, manned vessels), but it would provide the ROC navy and air force with lethal unmanned capabilities that could threaten a PLA invasion force.
In sum, the disparity between Taiwan and China has only increased in recent years and will only increase further. Ironically, it seems that China’s effort to counter American military dominance in the region offers a possible insight into how Taiwan might also better defend itself against the aggressor. Taipei should take a page from the playbook of the Sino-American power competition and seek to apply it across the Taiwan Strait. Technology by itself cannot win conflicts, but it can offset the increasing advantages that China now holds in the Taiwan Strait.
Helicopters crowd the deck of the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp as it enters Sydney Harbor for a port visit.
photo: Emily Kenney
Tobias Burgers is an assistant professor at the Cyber Civilization Research Center at Keio University. He can be reached for comment at burgers@zedat.fu-berlin.de
