STRATEGIC VISION for
Taiwan Security
Balance of Threat in Indo-Pacific
US-Japan-Philippines
Trilateral Summit
Hon-min Yau
Western Analysts Ambivalent on Taiwan
Franz Jessen
India-Taiwan Security Cooperation
Vasabjit Banerjee & Benjamin Tkach
IR Theory and the Israel-Hamas
War
Tim Huang
Dealing with Criminality in Wartime
Dmytro Burtsev & Dean Karalekas
STRATEGIC VISION
Vasabjit Banerjee & Benjamin Tkach
Tim Huang
Dmytro Burtsev & Dean Karalekas
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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
Osama Kubbar, QAFSSC
Rashed Hamad Al-Nuaimi, QAFSSC
Chang-Ching Tu, NDU
STRATEGIC VISION For Taiwan Security (ISSN 2227-3646) Volume 13, Number 59, April, 2024, published under the auspices of the Center for Security Studies and National Defense University.
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From The Editor
Welcome to this issue of Strategic Vision, where we delve into the intricate and evolving security dynamics of the Taiwan Strait and the broader IndoPacific region. As tensions rise and strategic interests collide, understanding the geopolitical landscape has never been more critical. This edition brings together expert analyses and diverse perspectives on the challenges and opportunities shaping the future of regional stability. From military postures and diplomatic maneuvers to economic policies and technological advancements, our contributors provide invaluable insights to navigate the complexities of this pivotal area.
We begin with an article by Strategic Vision’s own Dr. Hon-min Yau on how countries in the Indo-Pacific region are considering geostrategic shifts at a time when US-China strategic competition is heating up. Next, former Danish Ambassador Franz Jessen, who is currently a visiting fellow at the Taiwan Center for Security Studies, examines two recent op-ed pieces that are emblematic of the contrasting schools of thought on the role and value of Taiwan on the global stage.
The University of Tennessee’s Dr. Vasabjit Banerjee and Mississippi State University’s Dr. Benjamin Tkach take a look at the opportunities for defense cooperation between India and Taiwan, particularly in certain defense areas such as submarines and missile technology and production, and particularly by actors in the private sector.
This is followed by an article by Tim Huang, an officer in the ROC military who studies at the Graduate Institute of International Security of the ROC National Defense University. Huang applies the normative approach from the discipline of international relations to the current Israel-Hamas conflict to determine the extent to which this theory would compel Israel to exercise restraint in its Gaza operations.
Finally, Dr. Dmytro Burtsev and Dr. Dean Karalekas look at the violent criminality and social instability that often accompany the scourge of war, and how important the continued tasking of police forces to their law-enforcement duties is.
As we present this issue of Strategic Vision, we hope the insights and analyses contained herein have deepened your understanding of the security challenges in the Taiwan Strait and Indo-Pacific region. Stay informed, stay engaged, and join us next time as we continue to explore the forces shaping global strategic landscapes.
Dr. Fu-Kuo Liu Editor
Strategic Vision vol. 13, no. 59 (April, 2024)
Gauging the Threat
Indo-Pacific countries weigh shifts amid US-China Strategic Competition
Hon-min Yau
On March 14, 2024, US President Joe Biden gave his State of the Union address. As he pointed out in his speech, the US “wants competition with China, not conflict. And we’re in a stronger position to win the conflict of the 21st century against China.” Nobody would be in doubt about the state of relations between the United States and China. Whether people frame it as a strategic competition or a “new cold war,” Sino-US relations have deteriorated since the trade war initiated by of Biden’s predecessor, President Donald Trump. This deterioration has continued during the Biden administration in the area of tech competition, and
now it includes multiple arenas, encompassing political, economic, and military aspects. In retrospect, in a May 26, 2022, speech at George Washington University, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out the US approach toward China by succinctly summarizing it in three words: “invest, align, compete.” So far, the various new US industry policy initiatives, such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and the CHIPS and Science Act in the United States, have allowed the United States to invest in its infrastructure, medical industry, semiconductor industry, and artificial intelligence.
Dr. Hon-min Yau is a professor of Strategic Studies at the ROC National Defense University. He can be reached at cf22517855@gmail.com
Military chiefs from the United States, Australia, Japan and the Philippines meet at US Indo-Pacific Command Headquarters.
photo: James Mullen
After years of effort, the United States has treaty allies such as Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia, along with mechanisms such as the QUAD (a security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States) and AUKUS (a trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States). However, the prevalent perspective of these various security frameworks often puts the US security partners in passive roles without talking about their interests, and they are very often considered US initiatives without considering these countries’ strategic autonomy.
On the menu
At the Munich Security Conference in February of 2024, Blinken stated, “if you’re not at the table in the international system, you’re going to be on the menu,” emphasizing that anyone who is not participating in the decision-making is very likely to be in a vulnerable position, dictated to by the decisions of others. This controversial statement was criticized by the official Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece,
The Global Times, for making the world “a private restaurant monopolized and controlled by individual superpowers.” Hence, to deviate from a traditional great power perspective, the question presented here is, what are the likely rationales of an alliance for smaller regional actors in the Indo-Pacific region?
“Amid
the Sino-US competition, regional actors may decide to pursue a policy of either bandwagoning or balancing.”
The power dynamics in the Indo-Pacific region have also been driven by issues beyond Sino-US competition. The Russo-Ukraine War, starting in 2022, had a transcontinental impact on the region as small and medium state actors worried that the no-use-of-force norm established after World War II would deteriorate to a great-power logic of “might makes right.” For these countries, their best interest is to reaffirm the rules-based international order, given that only great powers have excessive resources to win a competition decided by power logic. The Israeli-Hamas conflict,
A US F/A-18E launches from the flight deck of the USS Ronald Reagan.
photo: Eric Stanton
which started in 2023, also facilitates an increase in skepticism towards the United States as regional actors worry whether America will continue to provide security and support to humanitarian issues.
In 1952, security scholar Arnold Wolfers deconstructed the concept of security into “objective security” and “subjective security.” Objective security refers to the absence of material threats (objective threats), such as the material capabilities to harm, while subjective security refers to the absence of fear (namely, subjective threats), such as the expansionist behavior of great powers. This framework is useful for understanding the decisions of regional actors navigating between the United States and China. For example, Academia Sinica in Taiwan conducted a project called American Portrait in November 2023 to present the general perception of Taiwan’s public toward both the United States and China. This research indicated that many Taiwanese respondents worried about the increasing military power of China and the
decreasing US presence in the region, and only a third of Taiwanese respondents said they considered the United States a trustworthy country. However, the same survey also found that less than 10 percent said they believed China is trustworthy, while just over a quarter of respondents disagreed, and 57.6 percent strongly disagreed.
Competition for credibility
The competition for credibility matters in Taiwanese society, and US skepticism is alleviated by Taiwan’s stronger skepticism toward China, reflected in Taiwan with the continuation of the Democratic Progressive Party’s rule after its electoral victory in the latest presidential election.
Amid the Sino-US competition, regional actors may decide to pursue a policy of either bandwagoning (namely, living under China’s dominating power and influence) or balancing—cooperating with
photo: Ryre Arciaga
The US Cruiser, USS Shilo, transits the Philippine Sea.
the United States in order to balance China’s power. Nevertheless, Taiwan’s unique situation may differ from that of other regional actors, given that China has always had territorial ambitions of annexing the island. This factor may be the main reason that there is rarely an alternative option for Taiwan’s security policy. In fact, while most countries perceive the US as a potential security guarantor, they also see China as an economic opportunity. Hence, many countries have adopted a hedging strategy, by engaging China economically while maintaining security ties with the United States. This distinction may also be the reason that while NATO has been an important factor in European security, the security governance mechanism in the Indo-Pacific has traditionally been a hub-and-spokes system led by America.
The choice of balancing, bandwagoning, or even hedging often relies on the distribution of power and ignores the fact that states usually make a decision of alliance not based on power logic but rather on the nature of the perceived threat. From this perspec-
tive, the premise of a state’s hedging strategy is that the great powers involved express no expansionist intentions toward a small state and could tolerate its choices, and this small state could also be independent of great powers’ direct influence in their exter-
“CountrieslikeJapan,thePhilippines, and India have suffered from China’s increasingthreatbothobjectivelyand subjectively.”
nal interactions due to objective conditions such as geographical distance. As argued by security scholar Stephen Walt in The Origins of Alliances, the main factors contributing to the choice of alliance, when compared with Arnold Wolfers’s conception of security, could be attributed to four aspects: (1) aggregate power and (2) geographic proximity, which are approximately equal to objective threat, and (3) offensive power, and (4) aggressive intentions as the fear (the subjective threat).
US and Korean forces work together during exercise Red Flag at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska.
photo: Isaac Valasco
Although China’s aggregate power—including international political, economic, and defense capital— has increased substantially in this case, the majority of the ASEAN countries continue to take a hedging posture due to their advantages in geographical proximity, which is relatively distant from China’s military influence. However, countries like Japan, the Philippines, and India have suffered from China’s increasing threat both objectively and subjectively in the East China Sea, South China Sea, and the Sino-Indian border due to their closer geographic proximity and visible offensive power by People’s Liberation Army’s activities in the areas of conflict, as well as China’s frequent assertive rhetoric regarding disputed territories.
As such, Japan modified its National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, and Defense Buildup Plan to increase its military spending and enhance its division of labor with the United States in the Indo-Pacific region. In August 2023, India also joined the annual Exercise Malabar, first conducted in maritime areas around Australia with QUAD countries.
As for the Philippines, although Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. visited Beijing in January 2023 in order to strengthen ties with China, bilateral relations have quickly deteriorated since late 2023, when China’s Coast Guard clashed with vessels of the Philippines military around the Second Thomas Shoal. The Philippines finally pulled out from China’s Belt and Road Initiative in October 2023. From this we may conclude that a great power may have its own strategic calculus regarding any particular region, but smaller actors in the Indo-Pacific will also make their own autonomous decisions in order to balance growing threats. A similar case can be seen in Europe, as Finland and Sweden’s decision to join NATO is less about US strategic manipulation and more about these countries’ perception of threat as the result of the Russo-Ukraine War.
Pillars of cooperation
By April 8, 2024, given that much of the work of AUKUS has been centered around Pillar 1 of cooperation, namely the development of nuclear-powered
US and Philippine soldiers advance during a demolition breaching range on Fort Magsaysay, Philippines as part of Balikatan 23, on April 21, 2023.
photo: Brennick Stevens
submarines for Australia, AUKUS defense ministers finally issued a joint announcement to expand Pillar 2 cooperation, namely the joint advancement in cybersecurity, hypersonic missiles, and advanced radar capabilities, with Japan.
On April 11, 2024, the leaders of the Philippines, Japan, and the United States met at Camp David for their first-ever trilateral summit. These three countries announced their commitments to a free and open Indo-Pacific by committing to deeper defense cooperation, such as enhancing defense capabilities and interoperability via joint maritime exercises and Coast Guard patrols, as well as economic partnerships, such as the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) and the newly announced Luzon Economic Corridor to connect strategically important areas such as Subic Bay, Clark, Manila, and Batangas in the Philippines. It may be too early to say that there is a NATOization of the US-led security block in the Indo-Pacific taking place, but certainly, this alliance is transforming itself from a traditional hub-and-spoke system into a networked security
governance, namely a minilateral system.
On April 11, 2024, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, visited Indonesia’s current defense minister and president-elect Prabowo Subianto. Security observers interpreted this as an act designed to balance against the annual US-Philippines Balikatan Military Exercise that was taking place at the same time, while Wang Yi also blatantly criticized the United States for drawing small circles to contain China. It is expected that a competition for credibility between Washington and Beijing will take place.
To sum up, the tectonic shift of alliances in the IndoPacific is more due to changes in the regional security context, with increases in both the objective and subjective threat levels, while the traditional cause of international politics as an exercise in balance of power seems to be less convincing. The great powers may leverage a power logic to actively shape the regional distribution of security governance, but eventually, small state actors will choose friends based on the perceived level of threat and credibility of behavior presented by the great powers. n
Sailors aboard the USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) wave at the Indian navy fleet oiler INS Satpura (A57) during a passing exercise in Exercise Malabar.
photo: James Evans
Strategic Vision vol. 13, no. 59 (April, 2024)
Competing Perspectives
Contrasting schools of thought provide perspectives on Taiwan’s role and value Franz Jessen
Two fascinating articles on Taiwan came out in February 2024, offering two very different perspectives on the situation in the Taiwan Strait. One was titled The Taiwan Catastrophe, by Andrew Ericsson, Gabriel Collins, and Matt Pottinger. The article was published in Foreign Affairs on February 16. The other paper, titled Building International Support for Taiwan and written by Jude Blanchette, Ryan Hass, and Lily McElwee, was published the same month by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Both papers are fascinating not least because of their
differences in approach to Taiwan. The Foreign Affairs piece stresses what the world (or rather, Taiwan and the United States) would lose if China were to invade Taiwan: China would gain a springboard for further expansion, and a Chinese invasion would hinder democratic aspirations across the region. The authors quote extensively from a 1950 memo written by General Douglas MacArthur written, in which the general warned that Taiwan, under Chinese hands, would be akin to an “unsinkable aircraft carrier’’ which could checkmate US operations in Okinawa and in the Philippines. This scenario was of course
Franz Jessen is currently a visiting fellow at the Taiwan Center for Security Studies. He is also a former Danish ambassador.
President Tsai Ing-wen speaks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) during a 2016 visit.
photo: CSIS
the one that MacArthur had faced when he left the Philippines on March 11, 1942, where Japan used Taiwan as a springboard for its occupation of the Philippines.
Taiwan’s interests secondary
The implicit point of the article is that the interests of Taiwan are secondary to the primary issue, which is the perceived struggle between the United States and China for dominance of the Indo-Pacific region. In this larger struggle, the question of the interests of Taiwan, and of the people living in Taiwan, take a back seat. Likewise, it is remarkable how little the key argument for Taiwan’s geostrategic importance has changed since General MacArthur wrote his memo, some 75 years ago. China is today seen as an expansionist power (as the Soviet Union was in the post WWII period) that has to be constrained, and to that end, Taiwan serves a crucial function.
The Foreign Affairs piece highlights the importance
of the Taiwanese semiconductor industry but is quiet on the implications of the current push from the United States and its allies to relocate part of the semiconductor industry closer to their shores. If the drive to de-risk the semiconductor supply chains is successful, i.e., the current Western reliance on semiconductor production in Taiwan is diminished, how will this affect the island’s security situation? Would it lead to a diminished incentive for the United States and its allies to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack? Or would it have no implications for a US response? As for China, would a lessened Western dependency on Taiwanese semiconductor production have any impact on the Chinese strategy towards Taiwan? If indeed the de-risking strategy is successful in offshoring key components of Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain, the pure economic value of Taiwan would be reduced, which in turn could have an impact on the willingness to defend Taiwan against a PRC takeover.
The Foreign Affairs article argues furthermore that a Chinese takeover of Taiwan could even have conse-
An E-2C Hawkeye prepares to take off from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz.
photo: Kevin Tang
quences in distant places such as the Atlantic, where China could be tempted to make in-roads. In other words, even though issues such as democracy, economic consequences, semiconductors, gender equality, and self-determination are mentioned in the article, the true focus is on the military aspects and consequences of a Chinese invasion. The article goes back to the long-disused domino theory, quoting Eisenhower’s memoirs, that a fall of Taiwan would trigger catastrophic consequences for “the future security of Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and even Okinawa,” severely impacting vital US interests in the region. The authors estimate that these consequences—again for the United States—would be far more dire today.
The CSIS report by Blanchette, Haas, and McElwee takes a different perspective. Here the starting point is that to build international support for Taiwan, the focus should be on the specific interests of the foreign partners. The authors argue that an “overly militaristic framing of cross-strait issues and Taiwan’s future have the unanticipated consequence of constraining the space for actual and potential coalition partners
to engage on the issue.” The report argues further that pursuing specific interests will be more effective as a strategy to build up international support through concepts such as democratic solidarity.
Six takeaways
The report has six interesting takeaways, starting with the fact that much of the world does not see US involvement in Taiwan the same way Washington does. This is undoubtedly true, but one can also wonder to what extent the United States is interested in adjusting its views to the views of others, even like-minded countries. Do US interests dominate in Washington’s foreign policy? And if so, what precisely are those interests? Do they include defending a flourishing democracy, with low income inequality and high gender equality? Or is rather about hard US security interests?
The contrast between the Foreign Affairs piece and the CSIS report could not be stronger on this aspect. The former warns of crisis and catastrophe in almost every paragraph, whereas the latter acknowledges
US Marines wear skis during cold weather training at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska.
photo: Alejandro Pena
crisis fatigue, which occurs when repeated warnings of a crisis cause investors to become wary of investing in a country. Crisis fatigue is the second takeaway: Several task force members noted that warnings about imminent danger for Taiwan had already led investment communities in their countries to direct funds away from Taiwan to the detriment of the Taiwanese economy.
Interestingly, the report does not follow-up on the question of Taiwanese domestic investments, where undoubtedly the strong push from abroad (not least from the United States) for Taiwanese companies to relocate parts of their production to “safe” destinations” such as the United States, Europe, and Japan will have a similar negative effect on the Taiwanese economy, as well as on Taiwan’s interactions with the international community. The German Chamber of Commerce’s Business Confidence Survey 2023/2024 indicates that 40 percent of German companies in
Taiwan expect their business operations in the future to be negatively affected by cross-strait tensions. The current tensions clearly have an economic impact. The CSIS brief stresses that China largely controls the narrative, characterizing the United States as being solely responsible for stirring the pot, and the authors stress the importance of countering that narrative. While it is mentioned that greater clarity on the ultimate and proximate causes of the rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait is needed, the emphasis is clearly on China’s pressure campaign.
Building international support
In order to build international support for Taiwan it will be important to describe the actions taken by all sides in the Taiwan Strait. It may well be that China in the end is seen as the force driving the tensions, but nonetheless it is important, if greater in-
An F-16 taxis into a hangar at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska.
photo: Ricardo Sandoval
ternational support is wanted, that the actions taken by the United States and Taiwan also are described and form part of the analysis. Initiatives such as the suggested dashboard of activities taken by China—a dashboard operated ideally by a non-governmental entity outside the United States—are good and potentially very useful, provided that the dashboard is seen as including actions taken by all sides.
Lately, the EU has strengthened its values-based approach to the Indo-Pacific region. This can be seen in the new Neighborhood, development, and International Cooperation Instrument—Global Europe, which has the stated objective to uphold the EU’s values and fundamental interests worldwide. The values-based approach works well with like-minded partners such as Taiwan, but less so with other partners. The third takeaway from the CSIS report is that interests, not values, are the primary driver for international support for Taiwan.
The CSIS brief mentions Taiwan’s key foreign constituents, including in central and eastern Europe.
Whilst these countries are undoubtedly of importance for Taiwan politically, their economic importance in the region is often rather limited. Here a greater effort must be made to convince countries, who have real economic interests at stake—outside the group of core allies to the United States—in supporting Taiwan. This will require more than a simple China vs. US narrative.
Economic cooperation
The CSIS report does not dwell on the economic aspects of support for Taiwan. However, economic cooperation between Taiwan and the international community is an important way to strengthen the international recognition and standing of Taiwan. The report correctly notes that the current public emphasis on war and peace has a negative impact on foreign investments in Taiwan, and indeed it is hard to see how that can be changed. The decoupling vs. de-risking debate is expected to have an additional
Soldiers serving in the military of the Republic of China take part in a training exercise.
photo: ROC MND
negative impact on foreign investments in Taiwan, except possibly on investments from China.
In any discussion of decoupling or de-risking, Taiwan will continue to be lumped together with China, since the focus is on a military conflict across the Taiwan Strait. This implies that not only will foreign companies, as mentioned above, be reluctant to invest in Taiwan, but also that Taiwanese companies will be under pressure to relocate production abroad, to convince foreign firms that their supply chains are robust. This in turn risks leading to a weakening of Taiwan’s industry. US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo implicitly made this point on February 21 when she stressed the US ambition of regaining global leadership in chipmaking—a position currently held by Taiwan.
From the point of view of Taiwanese companies, increased investments abroad fueled by generous subsidies (and of course—political pressure) may well make perfect sense. But from an overall economic point of view, there is a clear downside for the Taiwanese economy.
The fourth takeaway stresses that Taiwan can contribute to regional stability in its own right. There
may well be areas where this is possible, such as in disaster management, but were Taiwan to take on a higher profile in regional stability, the Chinese response is likely to drown out any Taiwanese initiative. The fifth Takeaway pleads for greater understanding of the Taiwan issue.
Finally, the report’s sixth and final takeaway calls for a more stable US approach to Taiwan to enable greater global buy-in. This of courses hinges on what exactly a more stable approach would entail. One aspect that is largely unmentioned in both reports is that both the United States and the European Union could lend important political support to Taiwan by enhancing their formal bilateral trade relations with Taiwan. Such developments would require close attention to the reaction from China, and, yes, possibly Beijing will try to block new formal agreements between Taiwan and foreign trading powers. However, currently the blockage on a possible free trade agreement FTA with the United States seems to be driven by America’s domestic economic concerns—unfortunate at a time when Taiwan needs all the international support it can get. n
ROC soldiers train on a launch vehicle.
photo: ROC MND
Strategic Vision vol. 13, no. 59 (April, 2024)
Taiwan-India Ties
Opportunities abound for defense cooperation between India and Taiwan
Vasabjit Banerjee & Benjamin Tkach
Relations between Taiwan and India are becoming increasingly important. Taiwan’s need for close relations with India are apparent—India is a major world economy, the largest regional naval power in the Indian Ocean, and retains historic animosity against Taiwan’s potential adversary, China. Enhancing informal defense cooperation will strengthen Taiwan’s deterrence against Chinese aggression and bolster India’s claim as a regional power.
Potential defense cooperation between Taiwan and India may grow out of decades of unofficial diplomatic connections. While the axiom “the enemy of
my enemy is my friend” may help explain terrorist organizations’ relations, states often develop networks that encompass both friends and enemies. The axiom nonetheless encapsulates Taiwan-India relations. India established diplomatic relations with China in 1949, but India has been ambiguous about the degree to which it is adhering to the “One China Policy” of late. Taiwan and India established informal ties in 1995-1996 and reciprocal establishment of representative offices in 2003.
Defense cooperation between Taiwan and India will also be conducted against the backdrop of growing economic ties. Trading relations keep increas-
Dr. Vasabjit Banerjee is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Tennessee. He can be reached for comment at Vasabjit_Banerjee@utk.edu
Dr. Benjamin Tkach is an associate professor of political science at Mississippi State University. He can be reached for comment at b.tkach@msstate.edu
Republic of China President Lai Ching-te talks with fighter pilots during a visit to Hualien Air Force Base.
photo: ROC Presidential Office
ing: in 2022-23, the total value of India-Taiwan trade was worth approximately US$10 billion. Two bilateral agreements undergirding such growth include the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement and the Customs Mutual Assistance Agreement of 2011, which were followed by the Bilateral Investment Agreement of 2018 and a Memorandum of Understanding on Indian labor immigration to Taiwan in 2024. It is important to note these series of agreements happened under different administrations in India and Taiwan, thus indicating cross-partisan support for bettering the relationship. Given that Taiwan produces more than 60 percent of the world’s semiconductors, any impeding of imports from Taiwan, let alone the destruction of manufacturing facilities in a war, would have major ripple effects on many Indian industries. Moreover, China is India’s number two trading partner, with a total value of US$95 billion in 2023. Consequently, a conflict that makes the South China Sea (SCS) impassable and sanctions imposed by the United States and other supporters of Taiwan would affect India’s economy. India’s trade with ASEAN—
estimated at more than US$131 billion in 2022-23 by the Indian government—would be affected by any conflict that makes the SCS impassable. India’s trade with South Korea, worth more than US$16 billion in 2023 and approximately US$22 billion with Japan in 2022-23, would be similarly affected by any conflict or threat that makes the Taiwan Strait impassable.
Foundational areas
While broader topics of Indo-Taiwanese economic cooperation—centered on investments and technological collaboration—are often written about, security cooperation remains under-explored. Indian foreign policy expert Dhruva Jaishankar suggests opportunities for cooperative gains in foundational areas such as “strategic assessments, intelligence, language and technical training, and dual-use system development”. Some of this is already happening. Taiwan is setting up 40 Mandarin language studying centers across India, including one at a defense educational institute.
photo: US Navy
The Indian Navy frigate INS Trakand practices underway replenishment with the US Navy.
In August 2023, the former chiefs of the Indian Army, Navy, and Air Force—all of whom had recently retired—attended the Ketagalan Forum on Indo-Pacific Security in Taiwan. Senior officials, like former Prime Minister of Japan Taro Aso and former
“India-Taiwan defense ties may need to occur informally to placate China and via methods that can be easily switched off.”
Prime Minister of Estonia Andrus Ansip, and representatives and experts from Lithuania and Israel also attended. India’s Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan recently commissioned a study to understand the national security implications of a war over Taiwan and India’s possible responses. We provide two clear defense cooperation opportunities to assist Taiwan-India relations.
Increased defense cooperation benefits Taiwan and India. By cultivating defense cooperation with India,
Taiwan gains another partner that, while unlikely to defend Taiwan in an invasion, may nevertheless provide naval and other forms of support in a crisis. We concentrate on defense manufacturing to elucidate potential cooperative gains. Manufacturing integration benefits both states through component production and technological exchanges but has reduced the likelihood of Chinese response associated with direct weapons procurement. For any defense cooperation to occur between the two countries, India must decide what position it wants in the region given its historic Chinese rivalry. Bilateral and trilateral hurdles underlie India’s hesitation for Taiwanese defense cooperation.
One impediment is partisan divisions within Taiwan, specifically between supporters of the island’s two major political parties, about closer relations with India. Another reason is Taiwan’s continued territorial disputes with India, a legacy of the Chiang Kai Shek-regime. This issue is unilaterally resolvable by Taiwan—akin to Taiwan giving up claims
An HH-60M Black Hawk conducts a training mission near Joint Base Elmendor-Richardson in Alaska.
photo: Dana Rosso
on Mongolia in 1996—because it currently has no shared land or sea borders with India. Trilaterally, India has been historically reticent to initiate defense ties with Taiwan because of a perception by Indian officials that it would be a “red line” China would not tolerate. Thus, India-Taiwan defense ties may need to occur informally to placate China and via methods that can be easily switched off in case domestic sentiments oppose them.
Avoiding unnecessary entanglements
However, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan may occur as soon as 2027, according to senior US military officials. If not the actual timeframe, the possibility of an invasion has been attested to by Chinese President Xi Jinping to US President Joe Biden. India’s stakes in such a war are great. Thus, it is in India’s interests to deter China from initiating such a conflict but to avoid unnecessary entanglements that would draw India into a conflict it may not want.
We highlight three areas of potential defense cooperation—space technology, submarine construction, and missile technology and production. Across each context, informal and formal opportunities exist. Thus, India and Taiwan are afforded several strategies to deepen connections while balancing relations with China.
In defense manufacturing, scientific advancement is a precursor of innovation and production. The 2022 Memorandum of Understanding between SatCom Industry Association (SIAIndia) and the Taiwan Space Industry Development Association demonstrates potential avenues for collaborative engagement. Beyond the agreement’s framework for industry collaboration, we propose that further collaborative steps should include development of orbital sensing technologies, rocket booster development, and lunar exploration technologies. Taiwan’s first indigenously designed and built moon probe was accepted for a future mission with the Japanese tech firm ispace. India’s space program successfully ex-
A Japan Air Self Defense Force warning aircraft arrives in Alaska for Red Flag-Alaska 23-2.
photo: Julia Lebense
ecuted a soft landing on the moon in 2023, making it only the fourth country to accomplish such a feat at that time—Japan completed the feat the following year. Currently, space engagement between Taiwan and India only involves commercial interactions. The benefits to defense manufacturing will be indirect: defense innovations may emerge from the overall scientific advancement of national space programs.
Formalizing defense collaboration in the space domain may take several forms. The most formal is collaborating on space capabilities at the national level with recognition of both agencies’ primacy. China may infer this collaboration as some sort of formal diplomatic recognition, which is consistent with national agencies’ collaboration on prior capabilities, notably the International Space Station and Webb Telescope. Consequently, formal collaboration involving private Taiwanese companies and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) or private firms tied to ISRO, particularly those developing orbital and moon related capabilities, accomplishes the collaborative goal without ramifications for diplomatic recognition.
Taiwan and India can also adopt formal defense manufacturing ties. First, both nations need a substantial naval capacity, particularly submarines, to counter potential Chinese aggression. In terms of naval deterrents, Taiwan’s indigenous submarine program, which yielded its first submarine Hai Kun-class, benefitted from a multi-national effort. Many former engineers involved in India’s Kalvari-class submarines, the Indian derivative of the French Scorpèneclass, were reported to have been recruited by China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation of Taiwan to help in the construction process, while ex-Indian Navy personnel played a key role in training the Taiwanese crew. For Taiwan to effectively implement a porcupine defense strategy—a deterrence strategy that makes invasion too costly to consider—submarine capabilities are essential for disrupting invading forces and dislodging a blockade. Consequently, enhancements to manufacturing and performance capabilities are essential for Taiwan and India.
India’s submarine fleet consists of both dieselelectric attack boats and nuclear submarines. It has
A US Army Small Unit Support Vehicle conducts operations at Fort Wainwright.
photo: Eve Baker
two nuclear-powered ballistic missile Arihant-class boats that are derivatives of the Russian Akula-class. India has expanded international procurement of submarines to Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems GmbH to build six additional subs. It is also using technology transfers from France to domestically manufacture three Scorpène-class submarines. India remains reliant on its historic weapons supplier, Russia: it operated seven Russian Kilo-class submarines.
Modernization and expansion
India and Russia’s lease agreement signed in 2019 of a Russian built nuclear-powered Akula-class submarine to be delivered by 2025 punctuates limitations in India’s submarine manufacturing. Nevertheless, India’s modernization and expansion program for its diesel-electric and nuclear submarines is currently sufficient to disallow hostile Chinese actions in the Indian Ocean. The future of operations in the Indian Ocean, however, will require indigenous manufacturing capabilities aided by non-Russian partners, potentially including Taiwan.
Submarine collaboration is difficult. Even allies within AUKUS have found technology transfer, information sharing, and defense manufacturing collaborations difficult. For Taiwan and India, submarine collaboration will necessitate significant diplomatic acrobatics to simultaneously ensure that defense cooperation is beneficial without crossing China’s formal diplomatic recognition red lines. It is an area for potential collaboration, particularly because of the daunting technical, diplomatic, and economic challenges.
Finally, missile capacity is central to both Taiwan’s and India’s national defense strategies. India has also developed a successful guided missile program with a host of ballistic missiles and a cruise missile. Taiwan’s domestic manufacturing of missiles reached new
peaks in 2023, though additional capacity will be required in the event of a conflict. Even major weapons producers such as the United States have limitations in their rate of production, limiting available ammunition for partners and causing delays in deliveries to Taiwan. Consequently, Taiwan must evaluate scenarios where the United States cannot deliver the expected weapons, leaving domestic production as the best means of replenishing supplies in a crisis. Collaboration with India, short of importing weapons, offers opportunities for collaborative gains in missile capacity.
For India and Taiwan, leveraging private-sector joint ventures is a top priority. For India, domestic defense companies are infused with capital, advanced electronic components, and semiconductors to rapidly up-scale production. For Taiwan, their indigenization initiative would be bolstered by technical advancements in guided missiles and lower labor costs for production of dual-use components. Ultimately, advancements in new capabilities is secondary to ensuring sufficient manufacturing capacity necessary for Taiwan to effectively threaten anti-access, area denial around Formosa, and for India to effectively project power in the Indian Ocean.
Defense collaboration between India and Taiwan would have to follow means in which both countries can mutually benefit without raising China’s ire. Thus, as we outline, such cooperation has to occur via tie-ups between private firms. Also, cooperation must be in specific areas such as space technology, submarine construction, and missile development. It is important to note certain caveats before concluding. We are not urging Taiwanese procurement of Indian weapons systems and vice versa. Rather, we think technical cooperation is possible, which would enhance the defense manufacturing capabilities of both countries. Furthermore, these would address limitations in US defense manufacturing that may leave one or both countries vulnerable. n
Vision vol. 13, no. 59 (April, 2024)
The Wrongs and Rights of War
Israel-Hamas conflict as interpreted through lens of
Tim Huang
An application of the normative approach from the discipline of international relations to the current IsraelHamas conflict would highlight the duty of Israel to exercise restraint while conducting operations in Gaza. From this perspective, those prosecuting the war would be urged to accept certain risks to avoid causing harm to innocent civilians as they balance their duty to defend Israeli citizens with universal commitments to fellow human beings. This paradigm invites the observer to contemplate the influence of the moral dimension in real-world practices.
The October 7, 2023, attack on Israeli citizens by Hamas set off a violent conflict between Israel and Palestinian militant groups. The clashes are primarily taking place in Gaza, but also in the West Bank and on the Israel-Lebanon border. The conflict originated when militants from Gaza unexpectedly attacked southern Israel. The unprecedented brutality of the October 7 attack, and the capture of 252 hostages that were taken back to Gaza, led to what has become the most significant military escalation in the region since the Yom Kippur War in 1973. In response, the Israeli military has conducted a massive aerial bombardment campaign on targets in Gaza, followed by a
Merkava Mk IV in Gazan street during Operation Swords of Iron in January, 2024.
photo: Yairfridman2003
large-scale ground invasion seeking to destroy Hamas and rescue the Israeli hostages.
The war started when Palestinian militants launched a series of rocket attacks on Israel. Concurrently, approximately 3,000 Hamas fighters breached the Gaza–Israel border and attacked nearby Israeli communities, with a death toll of 1,139. Hamas justified its offensive as a response to what it considers an Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, its blockade of the Gaza Strip, and the expansion of Israeli settlements.
Devastating death toll
As of December 22, 2023, the conflict has resulted in a devastating toll on Palestinian lives. Over 30,000 Palestinians are dead, and more than 70,000 injured, while an unknown number of casualties remain buried under the rubble as Israeli forces work to clear the estimated 500 kilometers of tunnels built by Hamas under Gaza. The widespread civilian casualties have prompted accusations of war crimes against both Israel and Hamas. Media reports attest to Israel’s efforts to urge Gazans to evacuate targeted areas prior to operations, including a general warning to move from northern to southern Gaza, though they are
prevented from doing so by their Hamas leaders who need them to stay in place for use as human shields. The result: a severe humanitarian crisis is emerging in Gaza.
As part of its blockade, Israel has stopped supplying water, electricity, and fuel to the territory, explaining that such utilities would be diverted by Hamas for military purposes. The health system in Gaza is experiencing a partial collapse, with most hospitals out of service, leading to acute shortages of drinking water, food, fuel, and medical supplies.
In plentiful supply, however, are cameras to document the suffering in Gaza, which has led to unprecedented anti-Israel protests throughout the Western world; most notably on University campuses. While many of these protests have exhibited a strong antiSemitic tone, they all advocate for a ceasefire. The governments of many Western nations, the United States in particular, have aligned themselves with Israel (in much of the West, Hamas has long been designated a terrorist organization) and supported Jerusalem’s rejection of calls for a pause in the fighting, with Washington vetoing several UN Security Council resolutions calling a humanitarian ceasefire to facilitate aid delivery to Gaza. The rationale given was the belief that such a ceasefire would only serve
Israel-Hamas War b 23
Security footage shows one of the armed Hamas gunmen that stormed the gate of Kibbutz Alumim on October 7, 2023.
photo: Public Domain
to aid Hamas, giving them time to regroup and rearm, and thereby prolong an already deadly conflict.
It’s noteworthy, however, that a humanitarian pause was approved on November 15, with the United States abstaining from the vote. During the seven-day truce, Hamas released 105 of its captives (which included 23 Thais and one Filipino) taken on its raid on Israel in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners convicted or awaiting trial on terror- and other violence-related crimes. Despite this promising exchange, the conflict soon resumed, and the United States continues to furnish Israel with military and diplomatic support—a stance that has drawn condemnation from various human rights groups.
The aforementioned normative theory introduces concepts such as the Just War tradition and the moral norm of Non-Combatant Immunity. The former provides guidelines for the appropriate use of military force. It sets clear boundaries on where and when such force can be employed to prevent uncontrolled warfare. In essence, the use of force is only permitted under specific circumstances. This is distinguishable from pacifism, because pacifism sees all war as neces-
sarily morally wrong. From a jus ad bellum (“right to war”) perspective, although Palestine and Israel have had conflicts due to historical and religious issues for decades, this does not grant Palestinians the right to conduct unprovoked aggressive action toward Israel.
In contrast, Israel would be within its rights to launch retaliatory actions given the unprecedented—and unprecedentedly brutal—massacre of its civilians at the hands of Hamas. It is not permitted, from a jus in bello (“justice in war”) perspective, for Israeli troops to disregard the regulation of NonCombatant Immunity as they attempt to clear the Gaza Strip of Hamas militants. The resultant suffering of innocent Palestinian civilians due to the military operation, compounded by the lack of food, water, fuel, and medical supplies, has led to a shift in attitude among the global community; from an initial sympathy with the Israeli victims of the October 7 attack, to a condemnation of Israel’s failure to minimize Gazan civilian casualties.
Under normal conditions, while the assumptions for both jus ad bellum and jus in bello in real-world scenarios might seem relevant and implicit, they
Damage in Gaza Strip during October 2023.
photo: Wafa
should never be broken and overlooked. These moral principles, encoded in international norms like the Hague Conventions and the Geneva Conventions, have clearly been violated by Palestinian leaders, and depending on one’s perspective, by Israeli leaders as well. There will no doubt come a day, either during or after the end of the conflict, when judgment will be rendered on both sides for their prosecution of this war. At such a time, the justifications to explain or deny these apparent transgressions will be adjudged, and the perpetrators either exonerated or condemned. History will be the judge.
At the beginning of the conflict, the Israeli government’s decisions—such as formally declaring war on Hamas, warning Palestinian civilians in Gaza to leave, and requesting the release of hostages—may have seemed somewhat understandable. Subsequent actions, such as stopping the supply of electricity, fuel, and goods to their enemy, caused international support to decline. This was exacerbated by the Israeli ground invasion, started on October 27th, 2023, to free the hostages and destroy Hamas.
Indeed, while the Hamas attack specifically target-
Israel-Hamas War b 25
ed civilians, Israel, despite seeming inured to all the collateral damage, has specifically tried to prevent civilian deaths in Gaza by urging them to evacuate
“MediareportsattesttoIsrael’sefforts tourgeGazanstoevacuatetargeted areaspriortooperations.”
targeted areas before the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) begin conducting operations. One might infer that the principle of Non-Combatant Immunity was being adhered to. The problem with this interpretation arises when there appears insufficient lead time: especially in the case of Israel’s warning for over a million Palestinians to evacuate from the north to the south of the Gaza strip, yet giving them only 24 hours to do so. A charitable interpretation might conclude that this decision was a tradeoff; between giving able-bodied Gazans enough lead-time to evacuate while denying Hamas enough time to prepare. Most Western interpretations were not so charitable, however. Many accused Israel of issuing a death sentence to the disabled, as well as the vulnerable patients in
Dashcam photo of a Hamas terrorist capturing a man at the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Reim in the Negev desert on October 7, 2023.
photo: Public domain
36 different hospitals, left—or forcibly detained by Hamas—to remain within the combat zone. Israel was likewise chastised for conducting searches of said hospitals, and other areas, in their search for Hamas militants hiding themselves and hiding munitions among these public buildings, and in the series of tunnels that run underneath them.
Collateral damage
We can assume that Israel did not want to kill innocent people because they knew that, although such an act might contribute to their military objective, on the other hand, too many civilian casualties would erode the legitimacy of their war effort, and civilian deaths would be perceived as counterproductive. Moreover, while Israel is being presented—and perceived—as being especially heartless, in terms of percentages, the collateral damage is, by some accounting, no worse than many conflicts of the past (and indeed: in the present; such as the ongoing civil war in Syria). Jerusalem’s actions in Gaza might be acceptable due
to another inherent feature of the Non-Combatant Immunity norm, which shows that civilian deaths might be conditionally tolerated based on the controversial “doctrine of double effect,” which holds that if a morally good action has a morally bad sideeffect, then it is ethically permissible so long as the bad side-effect was not intended.
According to the cosmopolitan-communitarian dichotomy of normative international relations theory, the former advocates for a universal concept of defending the norm of Non-Combatant Immunity, which means that compatriots, foreigners, allies, and enemies all share equal moral standing. On the other hand, the latter places more value on particular political communities, which essentially means that a government is more beholden to protecting the interests, and lives, of its own citizens than of the citizens of other nations, who presumably have their own governments to look after their interests. Applied to the Israeli operations in Gaza, a cosmopolitan lens would portray innocent Palestinian civilians as human beings first, to whom the principle
Tents and signs in support of Palestine on the Stanford University campus.
photo: Dariusz Jemielniak
of discrimination necessarily applies. Hence, Israeli ground forces should take undertake greater risks to themselves as they endeavor to protect the immunity of these others, because they must be protected no less arduously than the civilians in Israel.
Conversely, from the communitarian perspective, moral norms of restraint can be abandoned notwithstanding the concern and obligation one might feel toward these innocent civilians. Compared with the cosmopolitan defense of the norm of Non-Combatant Immunity, there could be a further argument from a communitarian perspective, which is whether the moral standing of these innocent civilians was qualified, or not recognized at all, the Israeli compatriots were granted full moral standing while the Israeli ground force invaded Gaza. Israel might thereby argue for their civilians to be spared in time of war.
No such moral calculus is expected of the Hamas leadership, it is worth noting. While it has enjoyed the position de facto government of the Gaza Strip since 2007, Hamas remains at its core a terrorist organization whose 1988 charter commits it to a war of religious purification to effect the complete destruction of Israel.
It seems clear that Hamas fully expected Israel to proceed according to the cosmopolitan approach: to order the IDF to avoid killing Gazan civilians. Indeed: Hamas’s entire defensive strategy seems to be based on a faith in the impenetrability of their human shields due to the Israeli desire to not harm innocents. The fact that Jerusalem appears to have adopted a communitarian perspective in this conflict, and a willingness to live with the moral consequences, may prove to be the end of Hamas, provided Israel manages to resist pressure from Western nations, and its own national conscience, to let up before the mission of destroying Hamas is accomplished.
The current war provides Israel defense planners with a conundrum—one that is perhaps best delineated along normative theory lines: How does one party conduct operations following the Just War strictures against an enemy that refuses to follow such constraints, and indeed, has demonstrated contempt for the sanctity of life, even of its own civilian population? Is it even possible, or does this one-sidedness in rules of engagement inevitably consign Israel to losing the war?
Israel-Hamas War b
Revelers in Iran celebrate the October 7 attack. According to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, Iranian security officials helped plan the attack.
photo: Ahamadreza Madah
Strategic Vision vol. 13, no. 59 (April, 2024)
To Protect or Serve
Violent criminality, social instability often accompany the scourge of war Dmytro Burtsev & Dean Karalekas
On December 15, 2023, more than a year after Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine shattered the peace and normalcy of life in that country, a Ukrainian councilman named Serhiy Batryn, 54, calmly walked into a meeting of the Keretskovsky village council in Transcarpathia. The issue of adopting the budget for the 2024 fiscal year was being discussed and, while it was an emotional discussion, it was relatively routine. Late for the meeting, Batryn walked into the room, closed the door, and after a moment’s pause, calmly dropped
three live grenades on the floor of the meeting room. The resulting explosions killed one and injured 26 others, including Batryn himself. What made this incident notorious was the presence of video footage of the event, allowing people the world over to witness the calm brutality of the attack. According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the incident constituted a terrorist act, as well as the illegal handling of ammunition (under Part 2 of Article 258 and Part 1 of Article 263 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). What could compel a leading member of a com-
Dr. Dmytro Burtsev is a visiting scholar from Ukraine currently attached to National Chengchi University in Taipei. He can be reached for comment at dmytro_burtsev@yahoo.com
Dr. Dean Karalekas is editor-at-large at Strategic Vision and author of Civil-Military Relations in Taiwan: Identity and Transformation.
A police officer in Taiwan observes a military helicopter towing a large Republic of China flag on during ROC National Day celebrations.
photo: ROC MND
munity—a man who served as a deputy on the very council he attacked—to commit such a heinous crime? The incident is reminiscent of another situation from a decade before, when a political activist was shot dead under mysterious circumstances, ending a life of violence and combat.
Rise of nationalism
The years 2013-2014 were marked by radicalization of Ukrainian national policy, which came as a response to the Russian occupation of the Crimean Peninsula and Moscow’s military support of separatists in the eastern regions of Ukraine. At the same time, some high-profile individuals, motivated by a sense of Ukrainian nationalism, participated even in the fighting that was taking place in Chechnya. One of these personalities was Oleksandr Muzychko, whose nom de guerre was Sashko Bilyi. The far-right personality gained controversial fame in Ukraine after appearing at a session of the Rivne Oblast Council
equipped with an AK rifle and knife. It is believed he had brought the AK rifle back to Ukraine upon his return from Chechnya.
Muzychko was an active participant in the revolutionary events in Ukraine during 2013-2014 and was a member of the Ukrainian nationalistic group called Right Sector, members of which participated in the Revolution of Dignity and formed the first volunteer military units during the conflict in Donbas in 2014. On March 25, 2014, Muzychko was killed in circumstances that are not clear even today. However, his actions might be one of the reasons that happened.
Both of the situations mentioned above have several common features. The first one is the usage of weapons as a final argument. In both cases, the men first tried to attract attention to their positions on an urgent issue. However, there is also a great difference. In the case of Muzychko, we can see behavior that, in fact, violates the law but, at the same time, had motivation based on raising demands to local authorities. In the case of Batryn, his motivation is
A composite photo shows stills from the video footage released by the Ukraine Police recording Serhiy Batryn’s assault on the Keretskovsky village council.
photo: Ukraine Police
one of the important factors to understand. The media reports cited jealousy, because the deputy was one of the candidates who had stood for the post of head of the community, but did not succeed in several previous elections. However, another aspect can be gleaned by tracking comments on social media: This factor can be described by the word “fatigue.”
“The motivation for such crimes appearsmoredrivenbychaotic,oreven messianic, impulses—as though the old world had ended and a new era ofanarchyhademerged,freeingthe most psychotic impulses to find expression.”
People in the community described Batryn as being positive, and devoted to the community. Strangely, in the heightened emotional state and inverted moral climate of wartime, Batryn has come to be admired for his murderous act, albeit by anonymous commenters on social media platforms. They call him a hero, who had no other choice but to do what he did in his fight against local corruption. In the opinion of these netizens, war, social injustice, local corruption, and the inability to influence the situation in a legal way were the main driving forces behind such violent and lawless behavior.
The phenomenon is not restricted to Ukraine. In the months that followed the September 11, 2001, attacks, it seemed as though the crazies were coming out of the woodwork. Almost immediately after the largest attack on American soil, as society reeled and was shaken out of a complacency regarding collective security, criminals began lashing out in idiosyncratic ways: innocuous-looking letters were being sent through the postal service, only for the addressees (mostly media outlets and US senators) to find they were laced with powder—a deadly anthrax. Not long after, the so-called Beltway Sniper began targeting
random motorists as they filled their gas tanks in and around the Washington DC region. The net result was a population afraid to fly, to open their mail, or even to stop at a filling station, among other mundane activities. Was this to be the new normal? It seemed so, in that time of uncertainty and upheaval.
How do people react in such times of social disorder, when the rules and routines of polite society are uprooted, be it by war, or by natural disaster, or some other earthshattering calamity? In most cases, society comes together to find strength and solace in the community. Witness the reaction in Japan to the triple tragedy that led to the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. On March 11, 2011, an unprecedented magnitude-9 earthquake struck northeastern Japan, creating a huge and deadly tsunami that killed thousands and wiped entire villages off the map, as well as leading to the aforementioned nuclear disaster. To the residents of the area, it must have seemed that at least three of the five apocalyptic signs of Gōten had arrived; signs that presage the end of days as described by Japanese mythology and cosmology.
And yet, despite this life-changing cataclysm, residents of the area displayed a stoicism and calm-headedness that belied the severity of the disaster. It was this sense of community and continuity that allowed the people of Fukushima Prefecture to recover from the devastation. The stark contrast begs research: what are the psychological and sociological perspectives that might help to explain why criminality might increase during times of great social upheaval like war? There are several.
One such theoretical foundation to help explain the phenomenon we are discussing is Strain Theory. Developed by Robert Merton in the 1930s, Strain Theory is still used by criminologists to link the disruption of the normal patterns of life in times of war, with its increased food insecurity, resource scarcity, and economic instability, to increased levels of
criminality as citizens find that they are not able to achieve culturally approved goals through legitimate behavior. They are forced, in other words, to resort to criminality.
An outcrop of the Chicago School, Social Disorganization Theory sees the answer to such criminality in location: in other words, the location in which it occurs may be one in which traditional social structures have broken down, and the people have lost faith in their society’s institutions. This in turns weakens social control, dissolves social bonds, and leads to a state of disorder and chaos wherein criminal activity is tolerated as a means of social advancement.
Another intriguing framework is Crime Opportunity Theory, which takes a risk-reward analysis on criminality. It suggests that, in times such as wartime, individuals will make a rational choice on whether to attempt to advance their position or stature by breaking the law, as the likelihood of their being caught is less than in times of a normal functioning society. For example, law enforcement officers
and others with security training may all have been coopted into the war effort, leaving a gap in policing. Moreover, low-level crimes are perceived to be more likely to go unnoticed when larger crimes, such as war crimes, are being committed.
Adherents of Cultural Deviance Theory, meanwhile, believe that it is the norms of society, rather than the individual, that are to blame for criminality: people merely act based on the expectations placed on them by society—be that for good or for evil. Assuming that the community culture that emerges during wartime is one that rewards what would otherwise be called criminality; the citizen is merely playing his part, and cannot be blamed.
Desperate times
All of these theories seem to lean heavily on explanations that are driven by economic factors, positing, to one degree or another, that the instability and hardship that generally follow during times of war will result in poverty, unemployment, and other condi-
Beltway Snipers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo concealed themselves in their car and shot people through a hole in the trunk.
photo: FBI
tions of desperation, driving people into criminality just to survive. For this reason, they do not necessarily explain the extreme behaviors outlined above, either in the Ukrainian examples or the American ones. For one thing, neither Serhiy Batryn, Oleksandr Muzychko, nor the Beltway Snipers—nor presumably, the individual who conducted the anthrax letter attacks—benefited monetarily from their crimes. Admittedly, there was a perverse social standing associated with some of them, as per the aforementioned online comments about Batryn’s grenade attack. But in general, the motivation for such crimes appears more driven by chaotic, or even messianic, impulses—as though the old world had ended and a new era of anarchy had emerged, freeing the most psychotic impulses to find expression.
A similar social transformation took place after the collapse of the social rules and mores that had been held in place by the Soviet Union. The dissolution of that political structure was accompanied by various conflicts in the post-Soviet space, as well as economic
and social crises all over the region. Various regional conflicts were the key source of the spreading of arms all over the unstable post-Soviet countries and resulted in the weaponization of organized criminal gangs and societies. That issue was a problem in these countries because of the conflicts in the Caucasus region and the uncontrolled flow of weapons.
Practical implications
This research question might seem purely theoretical or informational, but it has urgent practical implications. In Taiwan, for example, the government and citizenry have, since at least the Russian invasion of Ukraine, been re-evaluating the country’s vulnerabilities and attempting to plan for addressing conditions that might potentially develop should the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) follow the example of the Russian military and launch an armed campaign to annex Taiwan—or indeed, even an extended “quarantine” of the island, which would have the same
Nationalist protesters surround Gorodetsky House, one of residences of the president of Ukraine, in Kyiv in July 2015.
photo: Dean Karalekas
long-term effect of causing poverty, unemployment, and other conditions of desperation.
Few scholars, and fewer policymakers, are asking questions about how the citizens of Taiwan will respond to the psychological stress and war-related trauma to which they will be exposed, potentially leading to increased impulsivity, aggressiveness, and even criminality. It is no mystery that the psychological toll of war can also impair an individual’s decisionmaking capabilities, leading to poor judgment and acts of desperation. How will the government and social institutions, already having their hands full during wartime, handle such incidents?
For one thing, it is important that the police services on the island continue to perform their regularly mandated duties of civilian law enforcement. There will be a great impulse to shift towards a war footing, especially under the concept of the “wholeof-society defense,” which envisages all institutions within society being directed toward the war effort. For example, trained police officers may be asked to supplement the armed forces, at least in some capac-
ity: according to the Ministry of National Defense (MND), the number of military servicemen has fallen to just 155,000, with combat personnel readiness rated at under 80 percent. The temptation will therefore be immense to activate Article Four of the National Defense Act, which authorizes the MND to deputize the nation’s other armed units and put them in the order of battle—provided the Executive Yuan signs off on it. While this may be advisable in the case of the Coast Guard, for example, the role of a police officer is not the same as that of a soldier: one is tasked with investigating crimes and maintaining order; the other is trained to kill.
Given the spike in criminal activity—and a type of criminal activity that is outside the normal experience of most of Taiwan’s police officers, if the examples above are any indication—there will be an even greater need for a constabulary to continue policing the streets of Taiwan, compared to the marginal difference they would make on the front line. At the very least, it is a decision that planners would be well advised to consider carefully. n
Policymakers and planners in the Republic of China must seriously consider how the nation’s police officers can be best deployed in time of war.
photo: ROC National Police Agency
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