KEY TAKEAWAYS:
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
The direct threat that China poses to Taiwan continues to rise and is far more severe and serious today than ever before. In addition to the increasing daily tempo of gray-zone coercion and armed provocations all around Taiwan, the specter of an outright attack or naval blockade by China looms larger than at any other time in the post-Cold War era.
Taiwan has long been criticized for not doing enough to provide for its own defense. Most recently, President Donald Trump’s nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy, Elbridge Colby, chided Taiwan for spending less than three percent of its GDP on defense and opined that Washington should “properly incentivize” Taipei to allocate “more like 10 percent” of its GDP. Debates about “how much is enough” in defense spending by any government are extremely difficult to resolve. Nevertheless, while the administration of President Lai Ching-te has been vigorously engaged in ramping up Taiwan’s military preparedness and defense resilience, there is widespread agreement that much more remains to be done.
Building on the previous administration of Tsai Ing-wen, which established the All-Out Defense Mobilization Agency in early 2022 and announced the extension of the conscription period from four months to one year in late 2022, the current Lai administration has raised defense resilience to a national priority by forming the Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience (WOSDR) Committee one month after taking office in May 2024. The committee, placed directly under the Presidential Office, comprises leaders from the government, private sector and civil society organizations and meets every three months to formulate strategies to enhance societal resilience.
The Lai administration has identified five key pillars of WOSDR, including civilian force training and utilization; strategic material preparation and critical supply distribution; energy and critical infrastructure operations and maintenance; social welfare, medical care and evacuation facility readiness; and information, transportation and financial network protection.
On March 4, Lai emphasized his administration’s commitment to coordinating among central and local governments to strengthen governmental and societal resilience through an array of exercises and initiatives.
Military capabilities and preparedness are crucial in their own right — but Taiwan needs to do much more given the scale of the threat China poses. Disappointingly, Taiwan’s opposition-led legislature approved last month an unprecedented $6.32 billion (NT$207.5 billion) reduction in this year’s central government budget. This included significant cuts to the defense budget and the freezing of some key line items including Taiwan’s submarine program, which Defense Minister Wellington Koo warned would significantly affect the scale of overseas military training and the operations of the military. But President Lai pledged to raise the defense budget to more than 3% of GDP this year by prioritizing advancing a special budget.
Yet, even if the defense budget rises, this will not be enough. Strengthening Taiwan’s resilience to counter Chinese aggression also means concerted efforts beyond the defense establishment to build defense resilience across the entire government, the business community and within Taiwan’s vibrant civil society.
Strengthening defense resilience means boosting society's confidence and ability to counter China’s gray-zone tactics, such as ongoing disinformation campaigns aimed at eroding public trust in Taiwan’s government. A recent example of gray-zone attacks is a series of undersea cable cuts intentionally carried out by malign Chinese actors. A resilient society is better equipped to recognize and counter these sometimes subtle and non-conventional military forms of aggression that may not lead to immediate capitulation but could erode Taiwan's societal cohesion, strain its resources and weaken its resolve over time, which makes it more vulnerable to eventual coercion.
The goal of WOSDR is to build a resilience system to ensure society's self-sufficiency and self-confidence during a major cross-strait political-military crisis or in time of war. This will allow the military to focus fully on frontline operations without diverting attention or resources to Taiwan’s home front. What is also necessary to address is the critical challenge of significantly improving coordination between the military establishment and counterpart civilian systems.
When assessing Taiwan’s capability and determination to defend itself against China’s armed aggression, a concept frequently referenced is the ‘‘will to fight.” While this term is rarely defined, it may best be understood as referring to the military’s readiness and disposition to fight and persevere. In other words, it is about morale: the determination of Taiwan’s armed forces to fight on day one and sustain the fight over subsequent days, weeks and even months to defend their island home against an external aggressor.
The "will to resist” is another related but analytically distinct term. This encompasses the unity of purpose and societal solidarity that emerges when a country is attacked without provocation. Societies tend to rally when brutally attacked or occupied by an external power.
Yet, the will to fight and the will to resist do not magically appear out of the ether. Rather, determination tends to emerge when the defense establishment, the civilian authorities and society possess a sense of common purpose and have prepared for a major political-military crisis or war. In short, the will to fight and will the resist develop out of a will to prepare. Successful individuals, teams and organizations tend to be those who train hard and carefully prepare for their roles and missions. Versions of the following quote haves been attributed to numerous legendary sports coaches: “The will to win is not nearly as important as the will to prepare to win.” That this quote is embraced by so many successful team leaders is not surprising; after all, dedicated preparation fuels an indomitable spirit and mindset of resilience.
Today, Taiwan military and civilian leaders are, along with individuals and organizations in civil society, rising to the challenge to prepare for an extreme eventuality. Yet the pace of all these efforts is incremental and the task has only just begun.
Deterrence is difficult even in the best of circumstances. It is hard to signal and tough to assess its effectiveness. Deterrence is in the eye of the beholder: just because one side aims to send a deterrence message, this does not mean the other side interprets the message as a deterrence signal. Moreover, just because the other side does not attack does not constitute confirmation of successful deterrence. In short, deterrence is a tricky business.
In the case of China and Taiwan, it may not be possible to deter Beijing from launching an attack against Taipei under all circumstances. Be that as it may, all military operations involve an element of risk. Political and military leaders can never be 100 percent sure that a military operation will succeed. This is especially true when the situation is as complex as a full-scale attack on Taiwan across 90 miles of ocean, and the Chinese military that would undertake this complicated maritime operation has not conducted major combat operations in 50 years nor executed a comparable amphibious operation in 75 years. Indeed, senior leaders of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) assess that their forces as not ready to conduct such an operation. According to the PLA’s own modernization goals, the military will not be adequately prepared for another 10 years. Moreover, commander-in-chief Xi Jinping’s recent actions, such as a series of purges of PLA generals ostensibly for corruption, suggest he does not have high confidence in his military leadership.
If Taiwan is able to signal enhanced defense resilience across the Taiwan Strait … this can contribute to deterrence.
All this suggests that for the foreseeable future, China should be deterrable. If Taiwan is able to signal enhanced defense resilience across the Taiwan Strait — making Chinese leaders think that taking Taiwan by force will take too long, be too hard and much too costly — this can contribute to deterrence. But finding the right approach and messaging to communicate this defense resilience without being escalatory may be tricky. Beijing may be prone to perceive that Taiwan is pushing ever further in the direction of de facto or de jure independence and could react with increased hostility.
Washington has recently called out Taipei for being reluctant to shoulder the burden of resourcing its own defense and looking to the U.S. to make up any shortfall. It appears that Taiwan is starting to get the message. A polity’s military capabilities and defense resilience are broader and larger than the sum of the firepower of weaponry and the size of its armed forces. The will of soldiers, sailors and airmen to fight is dependent on good training, leadership, and a firm belief that they are fighting to defend something precious. Also crucial is to instill within Taiwan’s robust civil society a will to resist and a will to prepare for major political-military crisis or invasion. Although still in its early stages with much more still to be done, the island is taking meaningful steps toward strengthening defense resilience and, in the process, is making Taiwan stronger.