MND to continue cutting troops

The MND is set to present its Quadrennial Defense Review 2009 to a joint meeting of the foreign and defense committees of the Legislative Yuan today.

According to the contents of the copies made available to the media, the ministry will reduce the nation's 275,000 troops to 215,000 over the next four years.

The main theme of the report is to "build a professional national troop to maintain peace over the Taiwan Strait," according to the first quadrennial defense report due to be issued after President Ma Ying-jeou took office.

But as far as weapons procurement is concerned, the MND seems to be following the policy of the previous administration of the Democratic Progressive Party with a plan of purchasing new and costly military hardware such as more sophisticated fighter jets, anti-aerial artillery, and airborne refueling tanks.

The preceding DPP administration under former President Chen Shui-bian was known for taking extreme actions to provoke Beijing for gains in major elections held on the island.

The MND plans as mentioned in the new report has invited criticism on the wisdom of escalating tensions with China by massively spending on defense procurements at a time when Taiwan's economy has come under mounting pressure from the global economic downturn.

Yet the non-government Institute for Taiwan Defense and Strategic Studies (ITDSS) suggested that the government develop "persistent and asymmetric" combat abilities by upgrading information gathering and missile defense, as well as conducting military reforms.

ITDSS Chairman Michael Tsai, a former defense minister, and ITDSS executive Lee Wen-chung, a former DPP legislator, made the call at a news conference hosted by the institute to release the report.

They contended that developing asymmetric combat abilities such as reconnaissance, information gathering and missile defense are extremely important given the imbalance in military forces across the Taiwan Strait.

Asymmetric combat abilities involve strategies and tactics of unconventional warfare that "weaker" combatants attempt to use to offset deficiencies in the quantity or quality of their forces.

The ITDSS report predicts that the quality and quantity of China's military will outweigh Taiwan's by 2010, an unprecedented imbalance between the two sides since 1949.

It also suggests that a general reconstruction is needed in the country's military in terms of organization, personnel, guidelines and culture to achieve an effective upgrade.

"Upgrading weaponry is simply not enough. It has to be combined with military reform in order to increase our combat abilities," they said.

They backed the MND plans of building more efficient troops and streamlining defense administration by consolidating the six-tier general military general command into three - army, navy, and air force.

Yet Lee and Tsai expressed reservations on the government's plan to implement an all-volunteer military system by 2014, saying that now is not the right time to promote such a program.

"The decision is not a prudent military decision but rather a political one," Lee said.

He questioned where an adequate number of quality professional soldiers could be recruited from and how the government would finance such a program.

The ITDSS report argues that conscription and volunteering systems should work hand in hand in order to achieve the best efficiency and that the MND should strike a balance between national defense and the nation's finances.

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