“Han Kuang drills to switch focus. ADAPTING: The annual live-fire exercises would include night-time drills and test how units would perform after losing contact with central command,” Taipei Times. Geostrategery and Taiwan Republic 台灣国 classrooms. With any complicated, difficult reforms, one has to start somewhere. Given the many decades of failed reforms with the Chinese Taipei national security establishment, one can understand the immediate reactions of pessimism – however, there is a difference between cautious pessimism and cynicism-nihilism. President Lai’s civilian Minister of National Defense, hopefully with powerful assistance from the Taiwanese national security reformers and American and Japanese advisers, is taking important steps. His will not be an easy task. The Chinese Taipei national security establishment cannot win a war, but they are experts at sabotaging democratic reforms.
The historical context to remember. Just as Taiwanese democracy has had to temporarily adapt to unwieldy, poorly designed, anti-democratic China KMT institutions, Taiwan’s Chinese Taipei national security establishment is an even lesser evolved legacy from the Chiang Kai-shek crime family and dictatorship. A military designed by a paranoid, incompetent dictator who saw no difference between his “family,” his “political party,” and his “dictatorship” – the holy trinity of China KMT. The top line’s key point is – that it was not a military designed to fight independently and to protect the nation or its democratic sovereignty – this was a national security apparatus created with only one task – to protect the dictator and his dictatorship.
One might argue well fine but both Chiang dictators are long dead, Taiwan has been a democracy since 1996 – this is why I have long noted that for a variety of historical and political reasons, the Taiwan national security establishment has been the least impacted by Taiwan’s modernization and democratization. The danger inherent in this gap can be seen with high-level Chinese Taipei generals and intelligence officers not so much with national identity confusions, but are expressly loyal to the Chinese communists. The additional danger is an important lesson from Ukraine – a military that is insulated from how its democratic nation works will not be able to fight effectively – Taiwan’s obsolete, authoritarian military establishment and its foreign, colonialist mentality prevent it from fully understanding Taiwanese dynamism – where its IT experts are, whether its globally significant online gaming community may contribute to its modern warfare capacity.
Even something as simple as propaganda – go randomly select a Chinese Taipei Ministry of National Defense propaganda film, note the soundtrack, and ask yourself – is this the kind of music popular in Taiwan, particularly for its recruitment age young citizens? Does it have the kind of online, wry humor Taiwanese citizens enjoy?
While the Chinese Taipei national security establishment is designed to protect the dictator and not so much to fight wars, they are experts at sabotaging reforms. I expect the usual suspects with their collaborators in the Chinese Taipei-dominated military press to find ways to defeat these necessary improvements to the Taiwanese military. The question for the ruling DPP, civil society, and Taiwan’s democratic allies will be, how serious are we this time, and if we are serious, then are we prepared for the information warfare against military reforms that have already started?
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