Taiwan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter Gollevainen
- Start date
Now that is an eye opener
English Vegetable expected to announce the extension of military conscription on that island from 4 months to one year tomorrow afternoon.
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Wise move, the current four month conscription is no better than adult summer camp. But they will have to increase the quality of training during the year long conscription or all Taiwan will accomplish is turning it from a four month summer camp into a year long adult day care.
So they will triple the time that conscription removes a person from the civilian economy and in return still get nothing as 1 year conscription is still barely sufficient for training infantry.
Taiwan is currently spending $18 billion per year on the military, which is 2.4% of GDP.
In terms of costs of 1 year conscription, there's an extension from 4 months to 12 months along with an increase in monthly pay from $195 to $650. Presumably this would apply to 100k males conscripted every year
That works out as an extra $6 billion just in wage costs. This wage increase alone increases military spending to 3.2% of GDP, then you have the costs of feeding, housing and actually training with weapons.
So I wouldn't be surprised if Taiwan's military expenditure reaches 4% of GDP.
The next question is where is this extra funding going to come from?
And if there is a war, this development doesn't make much difference in Chinese planning
I think it's likely that it's not gonna be achieved.
Either lower pay, less people conscripted or less time is gonna happen, or none of the things are gonna happen lol.
My relatives living on Taiwan sent their kids to study and live overseas so they won't get caught up in any conscription or drafts. I'm guessing the smart and financially capable folks are doing the same, leaving only the poor and brainwashed to get picked as fodder.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the introduction of the original shortened conscription period was meant to reduce the number of draft dodgers, creating a brain drain as kids went overseas for school and didn’t return.
1 year period is more than enough time to train an infantryman. The problem is really ongoing periodic reservist training. As I understand (again, please correct me), after the conscription period, you maybe randomly drawn for a 2 week service period within a certain number of years. This doesn’t really make sense.
Since the end of one party KMT rule, conscription is just a political potato that both parties toss around. CSB reduced it, MYJ said all volunteer, now Veggie will extend it to look tough.
1 year period is more than enough time to train an infantryman. The problem is really ongoing periodic reservist training. As I understand (again, please correct me), after the conscription period, you maybe randomly drawn for a 2 week service period within a certain number of years. This doesn’t really make sense.
Since the end of one party KMT rule, conscription is just a political potato that both parties toss around. CSB reduced it, MYJ said all volunteer, now Veggie will extend it to look tough.