Indo-Pacific FONOPs
Tom Yang
Drone Warfare
Moh’d Ali Khawaldeh
Trends in Middle East Power Rebalance
Osama Kubbar
South Korea’s Cross-Strait Concerns
Ashton Cho
Taiwan Learning From Ukraine
Dmytro Burtsev
Targeting China’s Strategic Weaknesses
Guermantes Lailari
Tom Yang
Submissions: Essays submitted for publication are not to exceed 2,000 words in length, and should conform to the following basic format for each 1200-1600 word essay: 1. Synopsis, 100-200 words; 2. Background description, 100-200 words; 3. Analysis, 800-1,000 words; 4. Policy Recommendations, 200-300 words. Book reviews should not exceed 1,200 words in length. Notes should be formatted as endnotes and should be kept to a minimum. Authors are encouraged to submit essays and reviews as attachments to emails; Microsoft Word documents are preferred. For questions of style and usage, writers should consult the Chicago Manual of Style. Authors of unsolicited manuscripts are encouraged to consult with the executive editor at xiongmu@gmail.com before formal submission via email. The views expressed in the articles are the personal views of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of their affiliate institutions or of Strategic Vision. Once accepted for publication, manuscripts become the intellectual property of Strategic Vision. Manuscripts are subject to copyediting, both mechanical and substantive, as required and according to editorial guidelines. No major alterations may be made by an author once the type has been set. Arrangements for reprints should be made with the editor. The editors are responsible for the selection and acceptance of articles; responsibility for opinions expressed and accuracy of facts in articles published rests solely with individual authors. The editors are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts; unaccepted manuscripts will be returned if accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed return envelope. Strategic Vision remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover photograph of a US marine in a parachute operation during Exercise Eagle Resolve over Qatar is courtesy of Christopher Stone.
Editor
Fu-Kuo Liu
Executive Editor
Aaron Jensen
Editor-at-Large
Dean Karalekas
Editorial Board
Chung-young Chang, Fo-kuan U
Richard Hu, NCCU
Ming Lee, NCCU
Raviprasad Narayanan, JNU
Hon-Min Yau, NDU
Ruei-lin Yu, NDU
Li-Chung Yuan, NDU
Osama Kubbar, QAFSSC
Rashed Hamad Al-Nuaimi, QAFSSC
Chang-Ching Tu, NDU
STRATEGIC VISION For Taiwan Security (ISSN 2227-3646) Volume 12, Number 55, April, 2023, published under the auspices of the Center for Security Studies and National Defense University.
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The editors and staff of Strategic Vision would like to wish our readers well as we continue to follow the events that shape the security landscape in the region, and in the world.
We open this issue with an examination of the large and growing internal desire for change across the Middle East, and how this represents a shift in the traditional forces driving change in that region, in an article by Professor Osama Kubbar, a senior policy advisor and analyst at the Strategic Studies Center of the Qatari Armed Forces.
Next, Guermantes Lailari, a visiting scholar at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University and National Defense University, offers his thoughts on Dr. Edward Luttwak’s recent proposal that Western planners should, in the event of a cross-strait war, target Beijing’s unique weaknesses. After this, security analyst Ashton Cho analyses the second-order consequences of a war in the Taiwan Strait from the perspective of South Korea.
Next, Moh’d Ali Khawaldeh, a lecturer at the Royal Police Academy in Jordan, examines the rise of combat and reconnaissance drone usage in the Taiwan Strait, and how the effectiveness of these tools has yet to be determined. Dmytro Burtsev, a visiting scholar from Ukraine, offers his thoughts on some of the parallels between the situation in Taiwan and that in his country. Finally, Tom Yang, a student in the Graduate Institute of International Security of the ROC National Defense University, offers an analysis of the US Navy’s Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) in the Indo-Pacific region.
We hope you enjoy this issue, and that our coverage helps to develop an understanding of the events that unfold in the AsiaPacific. We look forward to bringing you the finest analysis and reporting on the issues of importance to security in the Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific region.
Dr. Fu-Kuo Liu Editor Strategic VisionArticles in this periodical do not necessarily represent the views of either the TCSS, NDU, or the editors
For the past five decades, since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the Middle East has been going through so much geopolitical transformation, mainly as a result of external influence. However, the events of the last decade have seen changes to the region come increasingly from within. Since 2010, internal elements have been the key forces driving geopolitical change, with a great degree of influence coming not from the elites, but from the citizenry of the region, especially its youth.
External forces are still involved, of course, but there is a large and growing internal desire for change across the region; from Morocco in the west up to the Levant, and including the Gulf region, as well as Turkey and Iran, due to their tangled interrelationship and historical ties with the greater region. To get
a sense of what is driving this metamorphosis, and whatever trajectory this is likely to put the region on in the future, it is critical that we examine how the Middle East has evolved up to this point. The region has been under brutal, dictatorial regimes for many decades, marked by severe human rights abuses, assaults on basic human dignity, and serious discrimination. The argument advanced herein is that the rise of a new, fearless generation of activists, coupled with the US retreat from the region, are the key factors triggering a rebalancing of power.
Despite claims of regional unity under the umbrella of the Arab League, the reality points to the fact that the region is divided into three main blocs. These three blocs are geographically associated, and they share a lot of common traditions, history, and cul-
ture, with ties among tribes and families crossing borders. These three blocs are the Levant, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and the Arab Maghreb Union.
The political history of the region shows that Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Sudan, and Oman never belonged to any single bloc, although they have been associated or linked with one or another. All of these countries do act according to their own political agendas. Also, the traditional blocs—the Levant, the Gulf, and the Arab Maghreb—are classified based on proximity and common cultural roots, and not on political harmony. For example, the Algeria-Maghreb are entangled in a long dispute that has threatened military escalation a few times. While the same can be said about the Gulf region, with the Gulf diplomatic crisis—the Qatar blockade—being a good example.
Historically, the region has been under the influence of three countries, Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, which represented the traditional triangle of power and balance. This was especially true in the period following the end of the Second World War. However, this triangle has collapsed, or at least been seriously weakened. Egypt was frozen out of the region due to its peace accord with Israel in March of 1979. Iraq has been subject to plots and stress, both internal and
external, since the first Gulf war in 1991, and eventually it collapsed with the US-led invasion in 2003.
Likewise, Syria has been weakened due to its long and ongoing civil war, as well as the Arab Spring protests, uprisings, and rebellions in 2011 in the Middle East and North Africa, which fundamentally changed the relationship that citizens have with the state. Meanwhile, external forces have worked through a calculated plan to dismantle the region and reshape it in accordance with what has been euphemistically called a “new Middle East,” which would see Israel integrated as a key player in the region.
Washington has played a key role in the region since at least the 1991 first Gulf War, aimed at liberating Kuwait from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Since then, the United States has been the sole security provider for Gulf countries, and the security broker for the region at large. However, with recent developments in the international strategic environment and landscape, especially with the rise of China and the assertiveness of Russia, the United States has embarked on a new national security agenda with new set of priorities, starting with the “Pivot to Asia” initiative launched by former US President Barack Obama. This initiative entailed the refocusing of US attention to the Asia-
Pacific, and retreating or significantly reducing its commitments to the Middle East and surrounding countries. The US retreat has created a power and security vacuum in the Middle East, and resulted in the rise of a new power triangle that competes for regional superiority and dominance.
This new power triangle consists of Turkey, Iran, and Israel, each of which is capable of making a difference whenever it intervenes. While these countries are capable, in terms of military power and otherwise, ethnicity-wise, they are considered outsiders in a region predominantly made up of Arab nations. Add to this the dimension of religion, which plays a key role in the tangled relationships among the regional countries, with a long-rooted history of hatred and contention between Islam and Judaism, along with the Palestinian issue, as well the inter-Islam schism due to the often bloody dispute between Sunni and Shi’i.
For example, while Ankara is officially secular, Turkey’s population is predominantly Sunni, whereas Iran is a Shi’i theocracy, with Tehran’s vision and policies based on Shi’i supremacy and domination of the body politic. As such, these differences create a very complicated and heterogeneous strategic envi-
ronment, and results in a dysfunctional and disharmonious power triangle. As a result, the countries making up that power triangle are incapable of acting as a source of stability or a peace broker unless they agree on a workable plan that meets their interests, and the long-term interests of the region as well, as much as the latter can be agreed upon.
Other regional powers aspire to play a key role as well, in particular Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and to a lesser degree the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar. Egypt is an important country in the region, due to its location, population, and history, while Saudi Arabia is the spiritual capital of the Muslim world, along with its outsized economic power. The UAE and Qatar have strong soft-power tools—diplomacy, economics, and the media—and are using these to play influential, albeit different, roles in the region, however, they find themselves in supporting roles to other regional powers and allies. It is important to highlight that, among the countries in the new power triangle, Turkey is the closest to the regional
countries, since Turkey is a Sunni country and it is the inheritor of the long history of prosperity and cooperation seen during the Ottoman Empire. This makes Turkey the closest and most logical ally to the region compared with Israel and Iran.
This, along with the new power triangle in the region, has led to the emergence of a stability triangle consisting of Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, which has the potential capability of bringing peace and stability to the region, provided their leaders can agree on a collective formula that will fulfill their ambitions, interests, and the collective aspirations of the region.
These three countries have a lot in common in terms of sharing the same religious sect (Sunni) and a deep history, and all are capable of wielding both hard and soft power. Regional differences between Iran and Israel have deep roots and are difficult to resolve.
The countries of the aforementioned stability triangle—Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia—exhibit a difficult dynamic that is hindering these three from coming together and preventing any real, meaningful rapprochement. Turkey aspires to be a key international actor, and Ankara is certainly capable. While Egypt and Saudi Arabia each aspires to the
role of regional hegemon, they are sorely lacking in hard power, military strength, and the other necessary attributes that such a role demands. They lack a strategic vision and proficiency in planning, and there is a shortage of trust in their intentions and good will in the region.
In addition, external forces are also working against bringing Ankara, Cairo, and Riyadh together, as such a rapprochement would not be in the interests of Iran or Israel. With all these conflicting interests and interference, it is very difficult to envision a stable and prosperous Middle East region in the foreseeable future. The region does not own its destiny.
Many of the political developments and competition unfolding in the Middle East can be attributed to the balance of power theory in international relations. Today, the Middle East is torn between three competing geostrategic expansion projects, with different aims. Turkey, Israel, and Iran carry on serious, calculated, and well-thought-out plans for regional expansion that serve their long-term objectives of
economic growth and political influence. With the lack of a regional geostrategic “Arab Project,” the region has no choice but to join one or another of those competing projects. This has resulted in the existence of three competing blocs, each of which is led by a non-Arab state.
As a result, three opposing coalitions in the Middle East define the rivalries that prevent the region from the aspired stability. As competition for dominance intensifies, the confrontation between Iran’s network of state and non-state actors, and a counter-front of traditional Western allies—centered on Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel—is becoming the region’s central battleground. The third emerging bloc is led by Turkey, with Qatar as the only genuine strategic partner. The rivalry between the Iran- and Israel-led blocs is a zero-sum game, while the Turkeyled bloc has different ambitions, focusing primarily on economic partnerships and prosperity.
It is important to mention that the Israel-led bloc is gaining greater momentum since the Abraham Accords: Six Arabic nations—Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan—have normalized relationships with Israel, and collectively are working
on a comprehensive partnership plan that includes defense, political, and economic dimensions. It is expected that more Arab nations will join this bloc, with the jewel in the crown for Israel being the Saudi Kingdom. Israel and Saudi enjoy a good relationship, and they coordinate at all levels; however, the kingdom has yet to officially ratify the Abraham Accords.
It is very difficult to see Iran expanding beyond its current domain of influence in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. While the Turkey-led bloc might add Kuwait, Oman, Libya, and Algeria, it is difficult to see this happening soon. We should also acknowledge the fact that the United States and its Western allies are backing the Israel-led bloc, which will give a great advantage to this bloc.
This is simply the current situation in the Middle East, and it will likely feature in the upcoming era for the region. The Middle East is embarking on a period that is completely different than what it has seen thus far, and this signals the end of what has been called the Arab Era, with the region opening up for other partnerships and expansions beyond its borders. This may be a regional symptom of another new paradigm currently in ascendance, the New World Order.
Unfortunately, the leaders in the region are disjointed to the point that they have no real answers for how to face these enduring challenges. However, the majority of people in the region have remained resolute to make extraordinary progress on many fronts in recent years. The level of awareness at the individual level has reached a critical point, breaking the fear barrier of the dictatorship regimes, and led to grassroots revolutions.
The people demanded a change from the era of dictatorships, and aspire to a new era of democracy, in which the people of this region might finally be allowed to govern their own destiny. Are these transformative changes being recognized in the West? Unfortunately, the West has failed to live up to the expectations of the people of this region, and resisted any transformations whose outcomes they cannot control.
In short, the old, traditional motivators in the Middle East have given way to new mobilizers that are driving the current trend of change in the region. Generational transitions across the region bring new perspectives to the public debate in key countries.
New, younger, and more digitally attuned generations, unburdened by the politics of the past, are coming to the fore of the political scene in the region, and forcing change at all levels.
Regional powers aspire for new roles, both regionally and internationally. Economic changes in the region have opened the door to economic cooperation in new fields. Many regional governments are working hard to diversify their economies in order to reduce their dependency on oil. With this comes other economic opportunities for cooperation with foreign countries and companies.
The potential consequences of these balancing and counterbalancing dynamics for the future of the Middle East are grim. These dynamics further complicate the prospects for reaching a political solution to key regional issues, De-escalation between IsraelIran and Iran-Saudi is very important, while encouraging a proper dialogue between Turkey-Egypt-Saudi is very important for the region’s future.
The United States, Russia, and increasingly, China, will have influence in shaping the region as well, either directly or through their regional allies. Already we have seen China’s endeavor to fill the influence vacuum left by a retreating America, in the Beijingbrokered deal to restore relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This represents big face for China as a global power player, and a black eye to the United States. Moving forward, the onus will be on the regional powers to reconcile, and find common ground protecting the interests of these outside powers.
There is no doubt that the Middle East is moving out of its traditional cultural outlook, and is entering a new era that will see its influence expand beyond its traditional borders. This New Middle East has yet to be defined, but already polarization is forming around the new power triangle of Turkey, Iran, and Israel. The final face of the region will depend on how far these three regional powers can agree on a workable plan for regional stability and prosperity. n
Many experts have written about the Taiwan Strait flashpoint, especially comparing it to the ongoing war in Ukraine. Most of the analysis is based on standard military comparisons of the two countries’ military order of battle—weapon systems and numbers of soldiers. However, in the words of General Omar Bradley, “Amateurs talk strategy. Professionals talk logistics.”
One such professional is Dr. Edward Luttwak, a strategy consultant to the US government. On December 7, 2022, Dr. Luttwak gave the keynote speech at Japan’s National Institute of Defense Studies (NIDS) International Symposium on Security Affairs called “Can China Fight a War?” Most news outlets
did not cover the NIDS conference, and almost none mentioned his speech. This was a missed opportunity to highlight some of the most important strategic weaknesses of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)—weaknesses that should be ferociously pursued to defend against a military operation against Taiwan. The following article outlines Dr. Luttwak’s presentation as delivered in that keynote.
There is ample precedent showing that leaders of countries are capable of starting wars that, in Luttwak’s words, “they cannot possibly win.” The 2003 war in Iraq launched by US President George W. Bush, for example, and more recently Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. The view
Guermantes Lailari is a visiting scholar at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University and National Defense University. He is a retired US Air Force Foreign Area Officer specializing in strategy, counterterrorism, irregular warfare, and missile defense. He can be reached for comment at glailari2023@gmail.com
that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would be foolhardy to engage in military adventurism across the Taiwan Strait, and therefore Taiwan’s preparations for such a contingency need not be overly rigorous, is a dangerous position to hold.
Even short of Kinetic military action by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the CCP has demonstrated the willingness and ability to leverage its diplomatic and economic influence to achieve its territorial aims, even at the risk of losing said influence. For example, in 2010, Beijing forced a neutral Japanese government into being more pro-American due to a minor diplomatic conflict over fishing rights. Later, in 2020–2021, the CCP pushed New Delhi into the arms of the West through PLA aggression against India in Ladakh.
In both examples cited above, decision-makers in Beijing were quite happy to win the short-term contest at the expense of long-term interests, by further entrenching their regional neighbors into the Western orbit, and hence they further isolated China from the international rules-based order. This makes it more likely that Beijing will be willing to make a play for Taiwan, despite the long-term risks involved. This is especially true if they anticipate a quick victory.
The events playing out in Ukraine, however, would suggest that a quick victory may be more difficult to achieve than Beijing hopes, which begs the question: how long can China sustain a military campaign to annex Taiwan? In Luttwak’s estimation, if the war against Taiwan continues more than several months, the CCP would be in trouble. He bases this estimation on two key PRC strategic weaknesses regarding sustainability: food supplies and dead soldiers.
China lacks sufficient food to feed its population. Despite straining its domestic food-production ca-
pacity to the limit to feed the 1.4 billion Chinese people, who represent one-fifth of the world’s population, the PRC is a net importer of food, annually importing several hundred million tons, mostly for animals. According to a 2023 report by the Council on Foreign Relations, China’s food self-sufficiency ratio plummeted between 2000 and 2020, dropping from 93.6 percent to a mere 65.8 percent. Meanwhile, in 2021, the import-dependency ratio on edible oil approached 70 percent—almost as high as China’s dependence on energy imports. This represents an exposure to Western sanctions that China does not share with the Russian economy.
This makes Russia’s war more sustainable than China’s will be, at least according to the numbers and Luttwak. In contrast to China, Russia does not import much food. According to a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, while uncertainties exist over Russia’s capacity to export food under the sanctions regime—Russia exports barley, sunflower seed, fertilizers, and wheat—it is unlikely that the war will impact Russian crop production. Moreover, food and fertilizers are exempt from those sanctions.
China does not share this food self-sufficiency. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ China Power Project, China’s food imports between 2003 and 2017 swelled from US$14 billion to US$104.6 billion, leaving the country in a food trade deficit against its exports of US$59.6 billion. Imports of soybean alone reached US$38.1 billion in 2018, making the PRC the world’s largest importer of soybean and exceeding the production
capacity not just of Brazil, but of most of the world. At present, US production makes up the difference— a fact that gives Washington some leverage.
This is a vulnerability for China, should the CCP launch even a small war that trips sanctions on the part of G7 countries. Once countries such as the United States and Canada stop loading ships full of soybean and other food staples destined for China, leaders in Beijing will have about three months before the country will have to start killing the domestic pigs, chickens, mutton, and beef to feed its population. As Luttwak noted, “There’ll be a lot of meat eating in China, but then it ends.”
The Chinese leadership failed to ensure that the PRC would continue expanding local sources of food. About 10 years ago, the CCP passed laws that prevented converting agricultural land to housing or industry. Regardless of this law, the PRC lost another six percent of its available agricultural land, primarily due to land erosion, industrialization, and urbanization.
The Chinese leadership appears to be aware of this
vulnerability and is trying to take steps to shore it up. In 2020, Xi Jinping launched a “clean your plate” campaign to stop what he saw as a growing habit of wasting food. During the CCP’s 14th five-year plan (2021-2025), food security was one of the key features, and the plan referenced a food security law that the CCP was to implement.
More recently, Nikkei Asia reported that China’s food stockpiles have hit historically elevated levels, with a network of state-owned food processing companies such as COFCO Group storing beans, grains, and other staples in hundreds of huge silos, to be distributed when needed. According to the report, China’s soybean, maize, and wheat imports have ballooned over the past five years, in some cases twelvefold. Purchases of beef, pork, dairy, and fruit from supplier nations likewise soared up to fivefold.
In addition to stocking up on food, the Chinese government, through the state-run companies it controls,
has also been on a spending spree buying up US and other countries’ farmland, as well as international food conglomerates. In a piece titled “China Is Buying the Farm,” The Wall Street Journal reported that the PRC’s ownership of agricultural land in the United States grew from US$81 million in 2010 to US$1.8 billion in 2020. However, of the 1.3 billion acres of private agricultural land in the United States, foreign entities fully or partially own 40 million acres valued at US$74 billion in 2021, or three percent. Of the three percent of the foreign owned US agricultural land, China owns only one percent.
The purchase 10 years ago of Virginia’s Smithfield Foods by Hong Kong-based WH Group (with a US$4 billion loan from the state-owned Bank of China) put that company in control of the lion’s share of the US pork market. This, according to China expert Gordon Chang, put the CCP in a position to be able to blight America’s food production. However, even if China stores extra food, it will still run out at some point if the military operation against Taiwan drags on and the world community boycotts food exports to China.
Next to food, the most valuable commodity during wartime is soldiers. As Luttwak noted in his speech, the Russians “can lose 25,000 soldiers in sev-
eral months and it makes no difference. … Nobody is blocking the streets in Moscow in protest. It can continue like this for a long time.” Compared to the USSR’s 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, Putin erred in only sending 135,000 troops into Ukraine: a country that is four times more populous than Czechoslovakia was, and almost five times its area. In the Czechoslovak invasion, 400,000 Soviet troops deployed in the first 24 hours; and within 48 hours, 800,000. Using similar population ratios, the PLA would need to deploy a minimum of 1.6 million soldiers within 48 hours of an invasion, since Taiwan’s population is about half of Ukraine’s. Fortunately for Taiwan, the entire PLA Army only has a million ground forces. The CCP would struggle with an inadequate number of ground forces in the same way that Russia struggles in Ukraine.
War, by its very nature, demands a supply of expendable soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Luttwak referenced his theory, published in the mid-1990s, called “post-heroic warfare,” which had a simple proposition: the wars of history were fought by spare male children. As the average size of the nuclear family declined in the West, to a degree that was roughly the inverse of the increased economic investment in each
child, tolerance for casualties has gone down. Two American campaigns illustrate this phenomenon. On June 6, 1944, on Omaha beach, 2,200 Americans died in one morning, “but the war continued,” Luttwak pointed out. In contrast, it took more than 10 years for the casualty rate in Vietnam to reach 50,000, yet that was considered very traumatic.
Today, the circumstances are even more pronounced, with much smaller American families, rarely having more than two boys. The following statistics for Afghanistan and Iraq support Luttwak’s argument. Almost 2,500 US soldiers died in Afghanistan during the 20-year war (2001–2020) and 4,400 US soldiers died in Iraq during the seven-year war (2003–2010). Additionally, 3,800 US private military contractors were killed in Afghanistan and 3,600 in Iraq during the same respective time periods. Even these relatively low numbers were a cause of great distress among the populace.
If we apply this theory to China, the situation is even more dire. Between 1980 and 2015, the CCP operated its famous one-child policy. The vast majority of Chinese families today have only one child and, due to a cultural bias towards male children, China has an excess of 30 million more males than females, according to Pew Research. The current CCP policy encouraging families to have multiple children is irrelevant, as those children will not reach military age for almost two decades. In other words, there are no spare male children. While the Russians can tolerate the loss of tens of thousands of sons, and the Americans several thousand, without any real blowback, every loss of a male Chinese child represents the potential crushing of an entire family lineage. This may not register deeply with people raised in a Western culture, but in the Chinese worldview, it signals failure in life, and portends a very distressing afterlife for the parents.
For evidence of this phenomenon in action, one may look to the cultural fallout from the 2020 skirmish in the Galwan River Valley of Ladakh. In that
Visitors reflected in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. Each casualty was felt deeply in America’s first televised war.fight, approximately 20 Indian soldiers were killed, and shortly after the fighting, the dead were given military funerals, including a brigadier general. The CCP, meanwhile, delayed the announcement about the PLA servicemen (one officer and three enlisted men) that were killed in action for seven months after the fighting. After that seven-month period, the officer’s wife, a local music teacher, received a promotion to a position as a music professor at the Xi’an Musical Conservatory, and had a new house built for her. The enlisted soldiers were turned into heroes and their stories—embellished by CCP spin doctors—were used for propaganda value.
If it takes the CCP seven months to work out an acceptable way to spin the details of just four casualties, Luttwak argued, how well will it deal with the deaths of several tens of thousands? He estimated that 25,000–40,000 PLA soldiers would die in the first week of a war in Taiwan. Many would be killed on airplanes or ships advancing towards Taiwan, downed by Taiwan’s anti-air and anti-ship systems, and hopefully, by US and allied air, surface, and subsurface vessels.
Luttwak concluded his talk by thanking the CCP for provoking the Japanese and the Indians, because “American diplomacy could never have got the Indians
allies,” or brought the Japanese on board. He added that the CCP would be unable to win a war in the near- to mid-term timeframe because it lacks sufficient domestic food supplies and enough extra sons.
Luttwak’s understanding of China is deep, his observations insightful, and they deserve greater attention not just by the international media, but by planners in Taipei, Washington, Tokyo, Delhi, and other potential allies. His recognition that exploiting the food and one-child soldier PRC weaknesses, this cuts to the heart of the Chinese identity, especially that of Xi Jinping, who behaves less like the president of a country and more like an emperor, in the dynastic Chinese mold. According to this belief system, any emperor whose policies lead to famine—or worse, to the snuffing out of entire bloodlines of ancient Chinese clans—has lost the Mandate of Heaven, and hence the right to rule. Xi knows this, and more importantly, it is also known by the Chinese people, whose implicit deal with the state thus far has been to tolerate living in a one-party dictatorship, if they continue to get rich. A PLA quagmire in Taiwan would change that calculus entirely. Xi Jinping is therefore especially vulnerable to Luttwak’s suggested pressure points. n
Strategic Vision vol. 12, no. 55 (April, 2023)
Ashton Cho
War breaking out in the Taiwan Strait would not pose a direct national security threat to South Korea. The secondorder consequences, however, would be significant. From the perspective of the Republic of Korea (ROK), a potential Taiwan conflict demands two levels of national security assessments, leading to the conclusion that, as a treaty ally of the United States, it would be incumbent upon the government in Seoul, as well as the ROK Armed Forces, to proactively define a Taiwan strategy.
While South Korea would not be in the line of fire should Beijing order the People’s Liberation Army
(PLA) to march on Taiwan, and hence would not be mobilizing its defenses to exchange direct fire with Chinese troops, leaders in Beijing must surely be apprehensive about such a move provoking more states than is absolutely necessary. Beijing is doubtless waiting for the opportune moment when conditions are right—such conditions being when the PLA reaches sufficient war fighting capabilities; when domestic political conditions align; and when the resolve of the United States and its allies is at an ebb, even if only momentarily. At that point, a PLA blockade, assault, or full-scale invasion of Taiwan will most likely be executed in a manner designed to avoid provoking
Dr. Ashton Cho is the director of international security cooperation at the Korea Association of Military Studies and is currently a Taiwan Fellow at the ROC National Defense University. He can be reached for comment at ashtonscho@gmail.com
other states—especially not South Korea.
South Korea and its formidable military are located across the Yellow Sea from China. The ROK Navy’s Second Fleet has significant real-world combat experience due to periodic North Korean aggression on the Northern Limit Line that divides the maritime boundary between the north and south. Examples include the first and second Battles of Yeonpyeong in 1999 and 2002. This puts the PLA’s Northern Theater Command directly across the Yellow Sea from two American military posts near the west coast of South Korea: the Kunsan K-8 Air Base and Osan Air Base. While South Korean governments have historically opposed the use of US Forces Korea (USFK) in deployments outside of the peninsula, it is no secret that the United States has been increasingly calling for the USFK to have more strategic flexibility in recent years.
One of the worst-case scenarios for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would be the USFK’s rapid deployment to Taiwan. This would drastically heighten the chances of the ROK-US mutual defense treaty being activated, which would force the PLA to deal with the combined forces of the ROK and US militaries.
From South Korea’s perspective, a Taiwan conflict and a confrontation with China is best avoided for two main reasons. First, South Korea’s primary and existential threat is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). On the Korean peninsula, over a million DPRK troops and hundreds of thousands of ROK troops stand face-to-face in a Korean War that has not ended, but has merely been set on pause with the Korean Armistice Agreement of 1953. With North Korea’s large inventory of long-range artillery that puts the security of Seoul and the lives of tens of millions of people at immediate risk, a complete array of ballistic missile capabilities, and the DPRK’s willingness to use them, plus an estimated 40 to 50 nuclear warheads, the scale of destruction in a potential resumption of the Korean War is unparalleled.
Kim Jong Un, the Supreme Leader of North Korea’s hereditary authoritarian dictatorship, has also proved to be much more aggressive than either his father or his grandfather. Just a few decades ago, an average of one ballistic missile was tested per year. In 2022
alone, however, North Korea conducted over 90 ballistic and cruise missile tests. Within 12 years under his rule, the Marshall, as Kim is known, has already conducted four nuclear weapons tests, one of which is claimed to have been a thermonuclear hydrogen bomb. Clearly, it is North Korea’s capabilities—and the political leadership behind those capabilities, with all the attendant actions and rhetoric—that make the DPRK the top national security priority for South Korea, putting China a distant second.
flict, might undermine the readiness of the combined ROK-US defense posture against North Korea, and could make the Korean peninsula an attractive military target for the PLA. Moreover, as per the ROKUS mutual defense treaty, if US troops are attacked in the Indo-Pacific, Seoul is obliged to come to their defense. This would spread ROK military forces thin, in addition to putting them in direct confrontation with the PLA.
The other reason that Seoul wishes to avoid a crossstrait conflict is that US military involvement in a Taiwan war would undermine the security of South Korea. USFK’s direct deployment in a Taiwan war, or the use of US bases in Korea to conduct direct operations or provide logistical support in a Taiwan con-
These reasons might help explain the reluctance by Korean administrations to take an official position on the Taiwan question. As a reminder, current ROK President Yoon Suk-yeol was the only leader not to meet with US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi during her August 2022 trip to Asia, which included the contentious visit to Taiwan. Also, in stark contrast to Washington’s Indo-Pacific allies such as Tokyo and Canberra, which have increasingly voiced strong support for the security of Taiwan, Seoul has remained almost completely silent.
If China wishes to avoid provoking South Korea,
“The Biden administration is actively looking to move away from the traditionalhub-and-spokesalliancesystem.”photo: Korea.net, Kim Yong Wii
and South Korea wishes to avoid having to intervene in a Taiwan conflict, it is worth re-examining whether South Korea’s political silence, as well as its regional military isolationism, best serve its national interests.
A country-to-country dyadic threat assessment like the one above is important, but it is incomplete on its own. The Indo-Pacific region is populated by some of the world’s top military states and most robust economies. South Korea, despite having the eighth-largest military and 13th-largest economy in the world, is a middle power. Given South Korea’s middling position in the Indo-Pacific strategic-military landscape, the most important variable affecting national security is not North Korea, but the intensity and scope of the competition and confrontation between the United States and China.
As such, when it comes to South Korea’s most immediate threat (North Korea), the ROK’s ability to deter the DPRK is importantly a function of US commitment to the combined defense posture, as well as the credibility of its promise of extended deterrence. This is a function of how the United States calculates the distribution of capabilities and commitments in the Indo-Pacific theater—specifically the USINDOPACOM force posture. More immediately,
the effectiveness of economic sanctions against North Korea, and the range of available diplomatic options to engage with Pyongyang, are a function of the state of US-China relations. Seoul’s North Korea policy varies greatly according to which political party is in power, the level of the North Korean threat, and the given state of the US Indo-Pacific strategy and posture—one that is primarily built around deterring a rising China.
If politicians in Seoul assess that the risk of US and Chinese forces coming to blows in a Taiwan war is too high, they must gauge the second-order national security consequences of how such a confrontation would affect South Korea’s national interests. Political silence may be diplomatically palatable and expedient now, but proper threat assessments, contingency planning, and related exercising and training must begin to take place eventually.
Second-order national security threat assessments are necessary and unavoidable, for any country. South Korea’s mutual defense treaty with the United States makes this doubly important. While every middle
or small nation in the Indo-Pacific region would be wise to make national security assessments and enact contingency plans to deal with the increasing risk of a US-China confrontation, this is of paramount importance for South Korea because our fates are interlinked as America’s most integrated bilateral military ally.
In short, because South Korea is a treaty ally with the United States, and US-China relations are deteriorating in a manner that makes confrontation more likely to occur over Taiwan, South Korea’s national security is indirectly—but no less importantly—affected. While a more comprehensive assessment is needed, a first-cut, second-order consequence analysis would suggest there are two categories of how a Taiwan Strait confrontation would affect South Korean national security.
The first category is the ROK military’s role in America’s Indo-Pacific strategy, undergirded by the mutual defense treaty. The Biden administration is actively looking to move away from the traditional hub-and-spokes alliance system and link the “spoke” countries together, thereby multilateralizing the re-
gion’s hitherto bilateral security architecture. For northeast Asia, this means strengthening security cooperation between the ROK, Japan, and also Taiwan in preparation for contingencies in three specific hotspots: the Taiwan Strait, North Korea, and the Senkaku Islands.
As for the USFK, the increasingly stronger calls for strategic flexibility have been met with hints that President Yoon, while resistant, might be willing to consider US proposals. Beyond the bottom-line scenario that the ROK is obliged to come to the aid of US forces if they are attacked, wider alliance readjustments will have to be made regarding Taiwan. This implies a delicate balancing act between, on the one hand, the rise in the strategic value of ROK bases for the United States that also increases ROK vulnerability to the PLA, and, one the other hand, the ROK’s need for a stronger US commitment against a more provocative North Korea, which by many measures is a de facto nuclear weapons state.
The second category is anticipating China’s strategy and actions in response to the US Indo-Pacific strategy, which includes South Korea. While China
might wish to avoid provoking South Korea and facing the ROK-US alliance, if it expects to confront a network of US allies and partners over Taiwan, China would be prudent to devise plans against the ROK military. South Korean policy makers should, together with their US and regional counterparts, jointly prepare for a potential PLA confrontation with the ROK military. A few possible scenarios require immediate attention.
First, in a Chinese attack on Taiwan, there is the potential that Beijing will coordinate with Pyongyang to open a second front on the Korean peninsula. Even without a high level of aggression, such a North Korean provocation on the peninsula would tie down USFK troops and divert important US assets, including some of those based in Japan, away from the Taiwan front. The ROK military must plan and prepare for this contingency. Second, what role will the PLA’s Northern Theater Command play in a Taiwan war? It might be tasked to augment the forces of the Eastern Theater Command. Alternatively, it could be deployed to deter the ROK Navy Second Fleet and US Air Force from entering the Taiwan Theater. The
alliance must study these contingencies and develop an ROK-US joint response plan.
It is not in South Korea’s national interests to intervene in a Taiwan war and confront the PLA. It is also not in South Korea’s national interests for the United States to intervene in a Taiwan war. This is because South Korea’s primary national security threat is, and must remain, the DPRK, and US intervention in Taiwan may undermine the ROK-US combined deterrence against North Korea. Naturally, this position must be balanced against the costs of a Chinese attack on Taiwan that goes unanswered. How would South Korea fare in an Asia-Pacific in which the CCP projects power out to the second island chain?
A key variable in South Korea’s geostrategic landscape is the nature and intensity of US-China relations. With the United States and China taking a more confrontational approach to each other—especially over Taiwan—this situation gives rise to a series of non-trivial second-order security threats and risks that South Korea must jointly assess, jointly plan, and jointly exercise and train for with the United States, but also key regional partners like Japan, and Taiwan. n
Strategic Vision vol. 12, no. 55 (April, 2023)
Beijing seen likely to rely heavily on UAVs in South China Sea, Taiwan Strait Moh’d Ali Khawaldeh
Of all the countries in the South China Sea (SCS) with whom China has territorial disputes, Taiwan is especially targeted, because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) considers it to be part of Chinese territory. In addition, Taiwan represents the cornerstone of the global competition between the United States and China. In light of the availability of advanced levels of combat and military technology capabilities on both sides, it is worth seeking the most appropriate mechanism for preserving the rights of all parties to the SCS disputes. Currently, each party seems to have resorted to protecting its perceived rights by using combat and reconnaissance drones, a strategy of which the effectiveness has yet to be determined.
China is embroiled in SCS sovereignty disputes with Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, and the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan. While international law has mechanisms for determining the answers to such questions, such as the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), China predicates its claims on a historical argument, and at present the disputes over the ownership of these islands has not been resolved. Therefore, countries with a foothold in the South China Sea must practice constant vigilance and pay close attention, regularly updating information about the activities of the other side and closely monitoring them. This matter can be cumbersome for countries using traditional tools, and many are seeking more
effective and modern technological means to accomplish this goal. The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) offers a promising avenue.
The role of drones in this conflict, as well as in the conflict across the Taiwan Strait, will become increasingly important. Military observers of the state of combat readiness across the Taiwan Strait anticipate several possible scenarios that Beijing may pursue in its cross-strait ambitions. This is especially true since the CCP is not satisfied with the current administration in Taipei, and has frozen official communications across the strait since President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party—a party that does not support political unification with the authoritarian state—won the presidency in 2016. After her electoral victory, Beijing took escalatory measures against Taiwan, impairing the political, economic, and military aspects of the cross-strait relationship.
The measures on the economic and political fronts ranged from limiting the number of Chinese tourists that the CCP allowed to visit Taiwan, to poaching some of the ROC’s few remaining diplomatic allies.
On the military side, the People’s Liberation Army
(PLA) began ramping up the number and intensity of its military operations, such as the repeated and ongoing deployment of PLA air force fighters conducting incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). These and other attempts at intimidation are designed to underscore the CCP’s oft-repeated assertion that it reserves the right to use force to effect the island’s annexation.
It is expected that China will take multiple preliminary steps, starting with a blockade of Taiwan’s ports, before reaching the stage of a clear and explicit invasion. Beijing’s leaders know that by launching such an endeavor, it may precipitate a third world war and a direct confrontation with the military might of the United States, which will not stand idly by, especially as this would conflict with US interests and threaten America directly.
Each of the parties seeks to hide its actual military capabilities from the other as much as possible, and at the same time tries to obtain intelligence about the
other party. The Chinese side knows that the level of continuous and long-term readiness is stressful for its forces, especially if we take into account the multiplicity of China’s conflicts with various countries in the South China Sea such as the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei, in addition to conflicts with other countries such as Japan and South Korea.
The Chinese side possesses distinction in the manufacture of UAVs, such as the new Caihong 6 (CH 6), characterized by a classic dynamic design. Its weight ranges from 300 kg to 2000 kg, it has a fuel reserve, and it can stay in the air for about 20 hours, with a speed that approaches 800 km per hour. Americans showed a special interest in the CH 6 due to its interesting and distinctive design. China has increasingly resorted to using drones to harass Taiwan’s air defenses, and to perform intimidation, intelligence, and psychological operations widely referred to as grey zone tactics.
In this conflict, each party is trying to reduce the threat to its actual forces by adopting inexpensive methods such as using UAVs for reconnaissance, and potentially for combat operations. One of the most important advantages of this practice is the low cost and long period of operation. Moreover, there is the ability to use it on a large scale, and in large numbers. Any party can, using UAVs, confuse the calculations of hostile countries in the SCS disputes. The combat operations and military display of the PLA’s power demonstrated the potential intensity of drone attacks against Taiwan. This makes it an attractive option for China.
On the Taiwan side, it is no secret to anyone how much technological progress Taiwan enjoys at the global level. Through excellence in the technological field, it can add drones to operate effectively, especially after China increased the use of this type of aircraft in its ongoing harassment campaigns. In a brave and daring example of pushback against these tactics, Taiwanese soldiers managed to shoot down a Chinese drone when it entered restricted airspace off the Taiwan-controlled islet of Shihyu.
In addition, it was recently announced that the US Air Force had ordered four MQ-9B SkyGuardian drones from General Atomics Aeronautical Systems
“Many countries have adopted several strategies to combat the rising dronethreat,butmostoftheserely on electronic countermeasures.”A prototype of the CH-6 multirole unmanned aircraft for display at the Zhuhai Airshow in Zhuhai, in Guangdong province. photo: PRC Govt
Inc. for the ROC armed forces, boosting the ROC’s strategic military and security cooperation with the US side. These aircraft can fly over the horizon via satellite for more than 40 hours, even in adverse weather conditions, and will be used to support electronic warfare, airborne early warning, and anti-submarine warfare missions against the PLA.
Many countries have adopted several strategies to combat the rising drone threat, but most of these rely on electronic countermeasures without considering much in the way of human capabilities. There is a large and growing market for anti-drone systems such as the Sky Wall 100, DroneDefender, the Anti-AUV Defense System, SkyFence, and other countermeasures. It is possible to mitigate the threat posed by drones using other methods as well, however. These methods consist in studying the nature of the drones, as they largely depend on advance information that is available about the area they intend to attack in order to reach their targets. Accordingly, the most appropriate strategy is to make the best use of the
nature of the terrain.
This strategy is based on the adoption of two important options to conceal the locations of likely military targets: First, adopting procedures based on the nature of the land and studying these in depth to hide military sites. The war in Afghanistan demonstrated the resilience of Taliban fighters in defending against air attacks, which allowed them to hold out for a long period of time. They exploited the high altitudes of the country’s mountainous topography—a feature that is shared by Taiwan. Second, the exploitation of well-designed cities in which civilian infrastructure and structures are separated from military facilities.
As evidenced by the frequent use of drone strikes not only by the Russians in Ukraine, but by the Americans in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, it seems likely that the Chinese will adopt the strategy for the invasion they keep threatening to launch against Taiwan. It therefore behooves Taipei defense planners to prepare for this contingency by purchasing electronic countermeasures, taking advantage of Taiwan’s mountainous terrain, and hardening as well as camouflaging military sites. n
Dmytro Burtsev
Taiwan has been a silent hotspot in relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for several decades. At times, tensions flare up, and the fire burns very brightly; at others, only light smoke remains. As long as the embers continue to glow, however, the potential for an inferno is kept alive and smoldering, just under the surface, threatening to engulf the region and the world in the flames of war. This is the lesson of Ukraine.
In Ukraine—one of the less predictable conflictgenerating countries in the heart of Europe—a sudden conflagration erupted in 2014, beginning with an uprising that consumed almost the entire nation,
directed against the regime’s efforts to halt the country’s trajectory towards European integration. It flared into a revolution that spurred the Russian invasion of Crimea, Russian support of separatist movements in the Donbas region, and eight years of sustained conflict—sometimes engulfing; sometimes simmering—in the East of Ukraine, sullying this once pastoral farmland with the unpleasant smell of smoke and Russian national propaganda.
Taiwan has its own story and history, and while it is one of the regions with the most significant potential for catalyzing another scorching war, peace—albeit a tenuous peace—yet remains. However, the crucial question is: for how long?
Strategic ambiguity—a concept so far practiced successfully by the Americans—cannot last forever, but nobody has yet suggested a way to manifest strategic clarity in way that will satisfy all stakeholders.
Thus, a hot cross-strait war threatens to break out if all parties do not make a comprehensive political decision in time. The potential for conflict becomes increasingly tangible, day by day. And each party tries to learn from Ukrainian or Russian failures and successes, looking at the hot war in Ukraine for lessons.
As Sun Tzu taught us in The Art of War, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
If Russian intelligence was as expert as the West perceived it to have been, the war could have been over within a month. This is not the case. Russian troops expected a warm welcome from a civilian population seeing them as liberators. Instead, hot shells from Ukrainian artillery rounds greeted them in Hostomel. The Russian war machinery was broken, lost, or sometimes just sunk in Ukrainian mud, later
to be reclaimed as trophies to equip the Ukrainian army with all manner of armored vehicles. This would not happen if the Russian intelligence services had really done their job. It is obvious now that Russian intelligence failed earlier, before the war even began, in estimating the Ukrainian military potential and willingness to resist.
Western analysts likewise have a high estimation of the PRC’s intelligence capacity, particularly in Taiwan. According to an official in the Republic of China (ROC) national security establishment, an estimated 5,000 individuals in Taiwan are collecting state secrets for the PRC, 80 percent of which is targeted at the ROC military, it was reported in the Taipei Times. The PRC has several institutions dedicated to such intelligence gathering, including the Ministry of State Security, the Second Department of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) General Staff Department, the United Front Work Department, and the Liaison Office of the PLA General Political Department.
Even financed by deep pockets, Russian agents of influence provided Russian intelligence with the information that the leadership wanted to hear, though this was far from the actual situation on the ground in Ukraine. Moreover, the Ukrainian intelligence service was just better, of course, not without the help of its Western allies. It appears the Ukrainian military and government clearly understood what to expect, and what to prepare for, at least in the initial stages of the war. At present, this does not appear to be the case in Taiwan, where the citizenry, as well as officialdom, appear to be oblivious to the bloody realities of a real war, hoping to forestall conflict by swearing fealty to the status quo, just for one more generation.
The Russian army—which literally surrounded Ukraine from all possible directions—created panic within several social groups, but at the same time, the society was ready to resist. Perhaps, Russia thought, the Ukrainian population would remove their weak “comic president” and by themselves when faced with the prospect of invasion, and that the Ukrainian military
would not resist significantly because of low morale.
The Crimean Peninsula was occupied by Russian forces, ostensibly due to political instability in Ukraine after the Maidan Revolution in 2014, which the Russian Federation used as justification for the occupation of Crimea. From this perspective, political and economic disruptions—which are almost the norm in a democracy as energetic as Taiwan’s—might be used as a pretext for the PLA to arrive on the shores of Taiwan, ostensibly as peacemakers. Though highly polarized, Ukrainian society remained particularly active in its mobilization before the Russian invasion, thanks to previous revolutions. That is the lesson that Ukrainians gave to Taiwan: how to be united while staying an anarchic nation.
The handling of information is another important component of how the war in Ukraine is playing out. One of the most substantial feelings during the first weeks of the war was panic. This was felt all over the country, but the Ukrainian media managed to calm that wave of panic.
Zelensky was aware of the importance of communication and the need to control messaging about the war, not just domestically but internationally as well. Thus the Office of the President took a strong hand in dealing with media representations of the war in Ukrainian and foreign media, as well as new media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter. This differed markedly from wartime informational campaigns of the past, but such deviation was necessary, as the media landscape of the 2020s is radically different from that of any other time in history.
It was necessary to show Ukrainians and the rest of the world that Ukraine was fighting back and keeping high morale, and this show quite possibly saved the country, bringing in sympathetic governments, NGOs, and ordinary people from around the world to support the Ukrainian cause. It also served to counter the narrative provided by the Russian propaganda machine. Of course, the help of Elon Musk and his Starlink satellite system cannot be underestimated. This was key to the informational survival of Ukraine,
keeping open the channels of communication despite Russia’s attempt at an informational blockade.
It is difficult to say or predict how Taiwan’s media will react to an attack and whether they have any protocols and advance-prepared procedures in case of war. They certainly should: this war has been on the horizon for generations. Ukraine’s information stream mostly targeted civil societies that pushed their governments to action. Taipei must endeavor to do the same in the event of a cross-strait conflict, lest Taiwan become a “blank spot” on the informational map in terms of obtaining any information about the situation on the ground in the Taiwan Strait. This would be contrary to how it was in Ukraine, and largely due to the strength of China’s influence over Western communications and news and entertainment corporations.
Preparedness is a key factor for survival during natural or social disasters. Media play an important role while keeping society informed and concentrated on a particular role, and disruption of information supply for the population during the war can create total chaos. Thus, that should not happen during any kind of disaster, typhoon, or war. The other
question is how the media themselves are able to provide that kind of supply for the population and how they can maintain a state of preparedness, and how government can keep that process centralized and coordinated to make that process more efficient even while being informationally isolated from the rest of the world.
Ukraine suffered the attack from almost all possible directions, but the Ukrainian western flank became a gateway for refugees heading out, and a robust supply chain from the West heading in. Moreover, Ukrainian communication in the Western direction also saved Ukraine from the informational blockade.
To be an island is a strategic advantage and a curse at the same time. In the case of a blockade of Taiwan, the island might literally be cut off from anything getting in or out, including information. Internet cables might be cut, and COMJAM systems may disable the means of satellite connection, which would render most current channels of communication useless and demonstrate the might of electromagnetic warfare as
a new and crucial field of war.
Moreover, while Western sources of aid are able to move materiel and personnel into the war zone across the long land border with Poland, supplying a besieged Taiwan will take intimately more logistical finesse. This month, the US Army Special Operations Command conducted training drills that simulated the insertion of military personnel into Taiwan. More effort is required, however, for the ROC and its security allies to work together to conduct guerilla warfare if the PLA manages to take control of the island. This does not mean, hewever, that China is not learning from Russian mistakes in Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine defined new horizons and trends of modern warfare. Taiwan and Ukraine have different backgrounds in terms of history, political narrative, mentality, lifestyles, and many other aspects. At the same time, it does not change the fact that the war in Ukraine has been adopted as a textbook for upcoming wars, replete with lessons on how to fight in the current technological climate. The most important of these may be those lessons that teach us how the difference between military and non-military has become almost nonexistent. n
The US Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer the USS Milius sailed through the Taiwan Strait April 16 in a Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP) that the US Navy has begun referring to as “routine” transits. That the US Navy itself has begun to publicize these specific individual operations is an indication of its willingness to demonstrate its commitment to maintaining stability in the region, and that the best way to do so is not to give in to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) increasingly bellicose claims in the region’s bodies of water. This follows the sentiment, enunciated in the US-Japan Joint Leaders’ Statement issued after last year’s summit, underscoring “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
It is therefore worth revisiting what FONOPs are, and why they are so important. First initiated in 1979, these deployments are designed to exercise the right of any vessel to navigate freely in contested or dangerous bodies of water. They have since become a valuable tool that the United States uses to challenge various excessive maritime claims and to serve the US interest in upholding international law.
In conducting these operations, Washington is demonstrating its resolve to “fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows, regardless of the location of excessive maritime claims and regardless of current events,” according to statement by the US Navy following a South China Sea (SCS) transit by the USS Milius. Critics of the US FONOPs point
FONOPs remain a valuable tool for US in safeguarding Taiwan
Tom YangThe USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) and USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) conduct integrated air wing operations. photo: Ruben Reed
out that they are limited in their ability to challenge territorial claims. In fact, they are not designed to make such challenges; their purpose is only to contest excessive maritime claims that are inconsistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
When The Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy was unveiled by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in August 2016, it rested upon three pillars, the first of which is predicated on the establishment and promotion of the rule of law, freedom of navigation, and free trade, with cooperation being paramount among nations that share fundamental principles and a vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific. The second pillar defended the pursuit of economic prosperity, which is dependent upon improving physical connectivity including energy, information, and communication technologies, and infrastructure development such as ports, railways, and roads. It also involves people-to-people connectivity, such as through human-resources development, and institutional connectivity. The third pillar is a commitment to peace
and stability. This latter involves strengthening capacities of maritime law enforcement, maritime domain awareness, and other human-resources development, as well as cooperation in such fields as anti-piracy, counter-terrorism, non-proliferation, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, or HA/DR.
Abe’s new paradigm presented an attractive alternative to the conceptualization of the Asia Pacific region then being promoted by the PRC, which previsioned a Beijing-centric international order operating according to the value system of the Chinese Communist Party, and realized through the costly and ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. Thus, in late 2017, the administration of US President Donald Trump—recognizing the threat posed by a resurgent and revanchist China—adopted the FOIP concept and presented it as its own. It only made sense that the epicenter of conflict between these two competing perspectives should be in the Taiwan Strait.
As the body of water separating the free and democratic Taiwan from the authoritarian, one-party China, there are inevitably huge problems in this area, encompassing the economic, political, and military spheres. The Taiwan Strait plays a decisive role in the Indo-Pacific region because it is a major international
waterway connecting the SCS to the East China Sea, and thus part of one of the busiest shipping routes in the world. According to Bloomberg, almost half of the world’s container ships passed through the Taiwan Strait in the first two quarters of 2022. Ships departing from China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan carry commodities from Asian production centers to markets in Europe, America, the Middle East, and beyond, stably supplying apparel, home appliances, mobile phones, semiconductors (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company alone supplies over half the global market) and other products. A regional conflict, therefore, would force ships to ply longer routes, increasing transit times, disrupting shipping schedules, raising costs and severely impacting shipping capacity. If the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were to blockade the Taiwan Strait, countries throughout the world would face a round of serious supply chain disruptions and further inflationary pressures similar to the ones that followed the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Because of Taiwan’s geostrategic location on the first island chain, both the United States and China have
interests there. The current international status of Taiwan is a result of World War II, the second phase of the Chinese Civil War (1945–1949), and the Cold War. Under Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regards “complete unification” as a “historic mission and an unshakable commitment.” The status quo is accepted in large part because it does not define the legal or future status of Taiwan, leaving each side to interpret the situation in a way that is politically acceptable to its members.
Even the terminology used to discuss the situation is fraught with pitfalls. The PRC refer to Taiwan’s controversial status as the “Taiwan question,” the “Taiwan issue,” or the “Taiwan problem.” The Republic of China (ROC) government in Taipei, however, does not use such terms, and sees the PRC as the aggressor standing in the way of Taiwan being treated as a normal country. Others use the term “Taiwan Strait issue” because it implies nothing about sovereignty, and because
“cross-strait relations” is a term used by both the ROC and the PRC to describe their interactions. However, this term is also objectionable to some because it still implies that there is, in fact, an issue, which they feel has been fabricated solely by the PRC.
At its narrowest point, the Taiwan Strait is about 160 kilometers across, or 86 nautical miles, making it too wide for one state to claim all of it as a territorial sea under UNCLOS, even if that state held unquestioned sovereignty over both sides. While foreign military vessels are not required to use “innocent passage” rules to pass through the international seas in the middle of the Strait, political sensitivities demand that they take care when doing so. Also, in 2021, the activities of PLA military aircraft and naval ships around Taiwan significantly increased over levels seen in 2020. The number of military aircraft entering the southwest airspace of Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) alone reached 961 sorties, which is more than two and a half times as many as in 2020. Clearly, the CCP is trying to create a new normal with these aggressive military actions against Taiwan.
Beijing’s attempt to create a new normal in the
Taiwan Strait poses a danger to Taiwan’s continued sovereignty. It was a similar strategy that allowed the CCP to slowly take control over the South China Sea. The PLA declared a four-day drill in the Taiwan Strait on the day US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, initiating the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis. While the drill officially ended on 8 August, 2022, incursions have continued unabated, and have become a daily norm. PLA assets continue to cross the median line in the waters and by air. The 180-kilometer gulf that separates Taiwan from China has become a stage for Beijing’s power theatrics. The median line, which Beijing is currently refusing to recognize, was for decades a tacit frontier respected by both sides until Pelosi’s arrival in Taiwan. The Chinese have continually attempted to set a new normal for military activity in the strait.
It is difficult to say whether the Taiwan Strait today remains safe for civilian ships. No body of water is completely safe or completely dangerous: rather, seamanship is always an exercise in risk management. Doubtlessly, civilian ships could avoid the increased risk by choosing other routes, but the increase in
transit times would disrupt shipping schedules and incur greater fuel costs.
Moreover, these PLA incursions into Taiwan’s ADIZ are categorically different from US FONOPs, it should be emphasized. The whole point of a FONOP is that it is conducted in waters that, according to UNCLOS, are open to global usage by any party. Despite this clear distinction, the CCP routinely feigns offense with each new US FONOP and accuses Washington of provocation, and of endangering the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait.
At the time of Pelosi’s visit, PRC Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said in a press conference that China “again urges the US side to stop falsifying, hollowing out and distorting the one China principle.” In response, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby responded by reiterating that nothing had changed with the US legal obligation under the Taiwan Relations Act to help Taiwan defend itself “as well as to defend our own national security interests in the region.” the United States will “continue to abide by international law. We certainly urge the Chinese to do the same,” Kirby added.
Despite these assurances, a new normal is indeed metastasizing. While China’s incursions increase, US FONOPs are reducing in frequency. The armed
forces of the United States conducted fewer FONOPs through the Taiwan Strait in 2022 than in any of the preceding four years, it was reported by Bloomberg, with just nine vessels of the US 7th Fleet transiting the strategic body of water 2022. This represents a decline from the US Navy’s 11 transits through the strait in 2021—a year that saw five FONOPs conducted through the SCS, according to the Japanese Defense Ministry’s policy research institution, the National Institute for Defense Studies.
It would therefore be advisable for America to increase its patrols in the region, and to make FONOPs through not just the Taiwan Strait but the SCS as well into a new normal. Moreover, other like-minded countries that share the American and Taiwanese values of democracy, freedom, and respect for international law should deploy their own naval assets to do the same. Indeed, this has begun to a small extent, with recent years seeing Taiwan Strait transits by warships from France, Canada, and the UK. This trend should be encouraged in order to establish the Taiwan Strait as a free and open waterway for all the world’s ships, regardless of registry. n
