Taiwan loves buying things that look good on paper but are nearly useless in practice. The Harpoon missile is subsonic so it's relatively easy for warships and fighters to pick off. Next, these launchers are going to be target number one for the Rocket Force so they're basically dead as soon as they're detected. The problem her is that the ROCA is the most heavily infiltrated military in the world so the PLA will know where these launchers are at all times.
Taiwan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter Gollevainen
- Start date
This isn't even a new capability. Taiwan had their own HF-2 system on mobile launchers already. Harpoon is not a big difference in capability. Harpoon purchase was supposed to be faster (guess not though) and also a political favour.
Hey there, I am working o a paper on Taiwanese military. I have read on that they struggle with incompetent officer corps and insufficient training. Do you think that is the case? If so, could you guys share with me some articles that mention these problems? thx a lot, any help is much appreciated
To start, I wouldn't read War on the Rocks for anything military related. They don't cite their sources and are no better than tabloid IMO. They are likely right this time about Taiwan though.
War on the Rocks isn't quite tabloid level, but got nothing insightful to offer: pretty lackluster in general.
Some of their authors are well pedigreed, but largely only capable of regurgitating uncompelling cliches, at least that was the case in the 2010s.
They publish or published (haven't been paying attention to them) a lot of mediocre writeups from grad students and supposed analysts from the DC area: fluff from people looking to add another line to their resume or CV.
Not to say I'd really know, but might have ran into a couple of them in another life, including one that a friend thinks is a succubus.
The key issue for me is that they don't cite anything. Not that it was any less true twenty years ago, but in this day and age, you can't trust anything. Citations are the bare minimum standard because at least they are open to scrutiny that way. If they refuse to allow themselves to be scrutinized, then that tells you literally the only thing you need to know about the reliability of their information. That is to say, absolutely and completely unreliable. You'd be better off reading a fortune cookie.
Was curious if anyone I've ran into was still publishing articles through them, so I took a look at the War on the Rocks @abc李 posted, and skimmed a few of the pieces that they've recently published.
The articles I scanned were better sourced and written than what I had seen from them in the 2010s, but I also noticed that of the were literally written by what some folks might consider and who may stand to benefit financially from supporting Taiwanese independence.
Too lazy to break this down further, but it's pretty obvious similar conclusions can be reached about some of their authors writing on Ukraine. IYKYK.
With that said, it is probably better to categorize many, if not most of their articles as political advocacy rather than as any sort of meaningful political, economic or military analysis.
The "problem" with the officer corp of the military of the Republic of China isn't that they're incompetent, but rather that many of them are aware of the fact that they're on the losing side, and no one wants to be on a sinking ship.
This has inspired many of them to shall we say reevaluate and to (re)embrace their Chinese heritage and identity.
It is widely accepted that their officer corp tend to be significantly more pan-Blue than pan-Green as compared to the rest of the island's population, so in a way this is not an inorganic situation. A part of it is because a disproportionate percentage of them descend from waishengren military officers who had fled to Taiwan in 1949. Another part of it is because their officer corp belongs to an institution that still largely considers itself a part of the Republic of China (rather than some sort of aspirational or imagined Republic of Taiwan), and as such fundamentally Chinese.
For example, their :
Now that the military balance overwhelmingly favor Beijing over Taipei, a not insignificant number of their officers, who would rather be Chinese than embrace the notion of a Taiwanese national identity as advocated by pan-Green forces have chosen to and/or Beijing.
From the perspective of Taiwanese separatist forces like the DPP, it is more politically palatable to frame this situation as incompetence than as a lack of support for their separatist agenda.
From the perspective of the CPC and PLA: they are compatriots who've seen the light. Moreover, :
Obviously not all of them are spying for Beijing, but for each and every one that got caught, how many went unnoticed or otherwise got away?
Let that sink in for a minute, and that should give you an idea on approximately what percentage of their forces will actually lay their lives down should Beijing pursue a military solution with regard to the Taiwan issue.
As for the lack of training: conscripts generally speaking get an inadequate amount of training regardless of the military they serve in.
Moreover this isn't something that can be fixed with money or technology.
Conscription hasn't been popular on the island of Taiwan, and as a result, IIRC, it's currently limited to one year of service: that's just not enough time to produce a competent soldier, sailor or airman.
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Wow man thanks a lot! I really appreciate you taking time to reply in such a comprehensive manor. I find it interesting that despite these problems, the willingness to defend the ROC among the local population is still relatively high . Isn't that a little bizarre, having civilian willing to fight but not the servicemen?
The intent to fight is not the same as wanting to fight. Once the violence starts and erupt, with the sheer destruction unseen, unheard, and not experience by most in the island since the formation of the Republic of Taiwan then we'll see how "willing" those 41% truly are.