Taiwan’s military has finished almost two weeks of computerized war games ahead of live-fire exercises in July. Based on the results, the defense ministry says more needs to be done to make sure the military can work with civilians in the event of war. TaiwanPlus speaks to Thomas Shattuck of Perry World House to find out more.
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00:00We're seeing now from the Defense Ministry that there was a bit of an obstacle in cooperating with civilian and military units together in the event of a war. Why is that significant?
00:09As the PRC's military has gotten stronger and more assertive, civilians have taken the initiative on themselves to create initiatives like the Kuma Academy or Forward Alliance.
00:20While they have different missions, they would both play some sort of role.
00:24Like Kuma Academy is doing different levels of training and Forward Alliance is more in like the relief sector.
00:30So having these at least two organizations and others cooperating with the government is a big hurdle.
00:36There's obviously big government bureaucracy and cooperating with non-governmental groups, but also just making sure that the two actually have similar standards as well.
00:46And these groups are training civilians and then the civilians go off and do their own day job.
00:51So there's not necessarily strong mechanisms in place to bring them in.
00:56There's not really a civilian reserve system for people who have taken these certification classes.
01:02So in the event that there's a missile strike, a blockade or an all-out conflict, there needs to be a more formal mechanism created to really bring these people together because the institutions know who they trained and the skills they have.
01:15So then what can civilians do in the event of a conflict, what role will be most suitable for them?
01:22I mean, I think it really depends on what the individuals are trained in.
01:26Like I think probably the best examples are for first aid, triage, evacuation, disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, the things that are after the fact.
01:36That if some say a missile hits a building, these are the people that can go in and relieve the military doctors or healthcare and fill that gap so that the military can focus on fighting the conflict.
01:48Now people who have more advanced skills with weaponry and things, like they may be able to form a more active role in the conflict, but that's unlikely.
01:58The way I see is they would be the ones working with the civilians and the affected to clear like rubble and make sure that the plumbing works, that sort of thing.
02:07When we talk about systems that Taiwan needs, weapons or capabilities, how significant is communication infrastructure?
02:15Yeah, like you obviously need to be able to communicate with your troops that are fighting.
02:20The orders need to be given appropriately and a unit's isolated somewhere.
02:24They need to be able to get, be told what is happening behind them or around them, ways to get out or where the enemy is.
02:32So cutting off communication, obviously for any military is one of the key goals is make sure you cut off that communication ability.
02:39So that way you can't talk to each other.
02:40And that makes kind of picking off and eliminating whoever you're fighting much more easy.
02:46And if their satellites go out and that's your only backup plan, what are you going to do next?
02:50So having redundancy after redundancy after redundancy in the Taiwan situation is much more important for Ukraine because, again, like the situation with arming Taiwan in any shape or form, you're not going to be able to get that stuff there.