By Kris Osborn, President, Warrior
Laying mines to slow advancing attack forces, reinforcing defensive coastal firepower, practicing rapid mass force mobilization and creating multiple command and control nodes to create ensure networking in the event of attack …. Are a few of the key activities taken up by Taiwan during its inaugural annual wargame designed to prepare the country to counter a potential Chinese invasion.
Many of these war preparation drills seem routine, meaning they align with the kinds of anticipated activities a defensive Taiwanese force would need to take up in the event of a rapid or unexpected Chinese invasion of Taiwan. There are other elements of the Taiwanese wargame which might inspire further attention as they pertain to key questions of timing and advanced technology.
“We are trying our best to slow them down as much as possible,” Taiwanese military officer Chang Chih-pin told reporters about the wargames, according to an essay in Reuters.
Slowing down a Chinese amphibious attack would prove critical for several key reasons, as the longer it takes the PLA to gain a foothold on Taiwanese territory, the more time Taiwanese allies such as the US and Japan have to respond. Once an attacking Chinese force were to fully occupy Taiwan, extricating them with an allied liberating invasion force would likely prove quite difficult and extremely costly in lives. Should a landing PLA force make it ashore, however, slowing down its advance with the use of landmines and defensive guns could enable sufficient time for US air power and Naval weapons to intervene in support of Taiwan. This is without question a key reason why Taiwan has acquired Abrams tanks from the US Army, because even if a defending Taiwan force proves unable to stop a Chinese amphibious invasion, the presence of mines, tanks, mobilized forces and coastal guns could massively slow down any Chinese effort to rapidly annex the island.
However, avsuccessful Taiwanese or US-led counterattack would require Taiwanese forces to sustain crucial networking systems and command and control. Should communications channels and intelligence sharing be preserved or sustained amid a Chinese attack, then US surface, undersea and air forces would be well positioned to intervene, possibly even destroying a Chinese amphibious assault with 5th-generation air power or well-placed submarine attacks on PLA Navy surface vessels.
Any effort of this kind would require US and Taiwanese forces to maintain command and control despite being under Chinese attack, something the Taiwanese seem to fully understand based upon their focus in the wargame. Specifically, the Reuters report cited that the wargame included efforts to stand up additional Command and Control nodes along the Taiwanese coast, a potential effort to build-in redundancy and ensure continued network functionality in the event that one node is destroyed or disabled by attacking Chinese forces. Therefore, this Taiwanese wargame maneuver to establish and maintain several dispersed or spread-apart, yet networked command and control hubs along the Taiwanese coastline represents a critical tactical step forward regarding efforts to prepare for stopping a PLA attack.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization and Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
