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National defense
crippled by MND
By Wang Jyh-perng 王志鵬
There has recently been a wave of criticism in the media about the Ministry of
National Defense’s (MND) conduct of this year’s Han Kuang military maneuvers
inasmuch as they involve live, as opposed to simulated, military personnel, but
no live fire. President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has also been criticized for not
attending and presiding over most of the maneuvers. The ministry responded to
these criticisms by issuing news releases two days in a row. However, a detailed
reading of these press statements shows that they are full of errors. Once
again, government bureaucrats have revealed their lack of professionalism as
they deviously attempt to gloss over the truth.
The most absurd thing in the ministry’s press statements must surely be its
claim that the reason why live-fire drills were not included in the maneuvers
was to adhere to government policies of saving energy and cutting carbon dioxide
emissions. This claim is ridiculous because even though 84 countries signed the
Kyoto Protocol in 1998, none of them apply the protocol’s energy-saving and
carbon-reducing standards to military maneuvers.
A second point the ministry made is that multiple preparatory drills are
required before any live-fire exercise. The ministry said that all the
administrative support tasks involved in preparatory drills interfered with the
armed forces’ normal operations and wasted resources. The ministry also said
that, following criticism about this disruption from various sources, it had
reviewed the use of live-fire drills and decided to cancel them. This claim is
even more laughable than the first. In effect, it is telling us that all the Han
Kuang maneuvers held over the decades have been wasteful and disrupted people’s
lives and work. It would be nice if the ministry could make a detailed analysis
and comparison of all the preparation, expenses, procedures and results of all
the Han Kuang maneuvers ever held and publish it with a full explanation of
each.
Each of the armed services conducts its own basic, on-base, and multi-force
combined training. These are followed by cross-service joint exercises and
culminate in the annual Han Kuang maneuvers. The maneuvers are inter-regional,
cross-service joint exercises involving all three armed services. The
expectation is that the ministry can use these maneuvers to make an overall
appraisal of all the military training that has been done throughout the year
and prepare for potential future crises.
The purpose of live-fire drills is to simulate real combat situations as closely
as possible and test the feasibility of overall tactics, as well as the
reliability of weapons and equipment in complex combat environments. This makes
them different to any other kind of training conducted by any of the armed
services. It is not unreasonable, therefore, for people to question the reasons
for canceling live-fire drills and to criticize this move as likely to weaken
Taiwan’s national defense.
The ministry also repeated the point that since Ma became president, Taiwan has
been able to purchase 10 kinds of important military equipment from the US,
including a new type of utility helicopter that can be used for emergency and
disaster rescue. Combined with upgrades to the nation’s F-16A/B jet fighters,
the total cost of these military procurements comes to US$18.3 billion.
The minsitry quotes these figures in Ma’s defense to show that he pays
considerable attention to national defense. In this regard, the US congressional
report Taiwan: Major US Arms Sales Since 1990 records that the US Congress was
notified of the sale of six military items amounting to US$6.463 billion on Oct.
3, 2008; five items amounting to US$6.392 billion on Jan. 29, 2010; and three
items totaling US$5.852 billion on Sept. 21 last year. While these three amounts
add up to US$18.707 billion, most items on the list were planned for during the
preceding eight-year administration of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
However, anyone who has worked as a military officer in the field of investment
planning for military development at the ministry, and any academic familiar
with this kind of operational procedure, knows that major military purchases
must be included in the 10-year military development plan and the five-year plan
for renovating military strength, and then be added to the list of new
developments for which the order of priority is set out through an annual review
by the armed forces. Unless an informal emergency-response armaments procedure
is invoked, the process must adhere to the normal regulations. The regular
procedure involves submitting documents covering operational requirements,
systems analysis and an investment outline, which takes at least 12 months to
complete. The next step is for Taiwan’s government to submit a formal letter of
request to the US. When the letter has been approved, the purchase plan still
has to be submitted to Taiwan’s legislature for the budget to be approved. These
steps take at least another six months.
So when considering Ma’s “achievement” in obtaining US$18.3 billion worth of
arms from the US during the four years of his first term in office, one must
make a detailed distinction to divide the items into three categories: items
that were planned by the previous administration and procured by the present
one, items that were planned and procured by the present administration, and
those that have been planned under the present administration but have yet to be
procured. If the items are not categorized in this way, it amounts to trying to
make the present administration look good by distorting and inflating the
figures.
Recent reports indicate that the submarine division of the South China Fleet of
China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy has started conducting live drills similar
to those carried out by the US Navy. These drills involve dividing the
submarines into opposing “blue” and “red” groups and carrying out attack and
defense flexible-response, live-fire exercises. The Chinese navy’s rapid
progress in this respect is quite astonishing. Comparing China’s military drills
with Taiwan’s Han Kuang maneuvers makes it quite obvious who has the upper hand.
One can only conclude that Taiwan’s national defense is indeed getting weaker as
time goes on.
Wang Jyh-perng is a reserve navy captain and an associate research fellow with
the Association for Managing Defense and Strategies.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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