Taiwan’s 2019 National Defense Strategy made some formal motions towards the strategy I discussed a few paragraphs ago, endorsing a conceptual shift from a decisive fight on the berm towards a posture which allows for a more multi-layered defense. The problem is that the ROC Army is not training for this. Or at least they weren’t in December 2019, when I last asked Taiwanese soldiers if they had ever trained in the tactics of a coordinated, fighting retreat or in using land based platforms to hit targets in the near littoral. The sad truth is that the ROC Army has trouble with training across the board. I have met artillery observers who never seen their own mortars fired, and shared drinks with an infantry officer who traveled to Thailand on his own dime to get basic TCCC training his own military did not offer. Those were professional soldiers; the situation with the conscripts is worse.

When people outside of Taiwan talk about the problem with the conscript system, they tend to focus on its dwindling size.[8] Yes, the inability of the ROC military, especially the Army, to fill its own ranks is a problem. But the trash they fill it with is an even larger one. I would ask ex-conscripts questions like, “Would you know how to find cover if you were ambushed?”, “Were you ever trained on how to move around if the other side controlled the skies?”, “Were you ever taught what to do if the guy next to you was shot in the arm?,” “Did they ever tell you anything about the weapons, organization, or tactics of the PLA?” or “Did they teach you how to get from point A to point B without cell service, you know, using a map?” Negatives across the board. What they could tell me were stories of officers communicating orders through Whatsapp, time spent learning Army songs and doing yard-work instead of on maneuver drills, and how the totality of their marksmanship training consisted of firing one magazine from a single (prone) position on some eight to ten occasions.

One reason for the lax training is a shortage of supplies. The ROC Army has a shortage of bullets. Again and again I was told stories of officers who would fake training exercises in order to save on spare parts. [9] Han Kuang is a joke put on for propaganda purposes, not serious training. The military is risk adverse; real training might lead to training accidents, and a series of high profile accidents that led to unnecessary deaths has led them to soften training for the entire force. While reservist weapons stores are scattered across Taiwan, the million reservists that are supposed to use them are not drilled. Official reservists reported to me that they have no idea what they are supposed to do if ever actually called up. These troops exist only on paper. The problem is broader: the Taiwanese population is not seriously trained or mentally prepared for conflict. Nor do they take care of their soldiers. A military career is a low status profession (“好 鐵 不 打 釘….”). Military pensions were just slashed; military basing often does not provide housing for family members. Unlike service in the U.S. military, service in the Taiwanese military rarely provides marketable skills that can be used in different career fields. Most of Taiwan’s best minds flee service altogether. Officers willing to challenge outmoded tactics, or who study abroad in an attempt to learn from foreign militaries, are seen as a threat by the upper brass and side-lined.

Not all of the ROC Armed Forces fare so bad. The ROC Air Force, in particular, is highly esteemed by those who work with it, and their pilots are trained in the United States. The real stinker is the Army. The trouble is that this worst branch of the ROC Armed Forces is precisely the branch the population of Taiwan has the most exposure to. The vast majority of conscripts serve in the Army. Many enter the Army excited, hoping they might serve their country, or barring that at least become tougher men. Their disappointment is captured by the comic I have placed at the beginning of this piece. The first panel reads, “What I assumed military service would be like.” The second reads, “the reality.” This reality is demoralizing. Of the two dozen ex-conscripts I interviewed last year, only one was more confident in Taiwan’s ability to resist China after going through the conscript system. Most left their service more cynical and defeatist than when they entered it. I will go out on a limb: the greatest danger to the security of Taiwan is not the PLA Navy or Rocket Force, but Taiwan’s own demoralizing system of national service.