Prophecies about war make for a fear-mongering, lucrative trade. In ancient times, they drove up the price of paper, while today they can boost click rates in the way they made “T-Day: The Warning of Taiwan Strait War”, a book published 25 years ago that predicted a war in the Taiwan Strait, a bestseller. Recently, China has repeatedly signaled the use of military force against Taiwan, with the foreign media claiming previously that China would seize Pratas Island in August 2020 and the Communist forces would attack Taiwan when a new US president took office in January 2021. Fortunately, such predictions have not come true despite the mention of concrete time and places.

It is true that amnesia about war is dangerous, and the CCP has not given up its use of force against Taiwan. However, the study of war and war history reminds us that predictions about war are not the mainstream discipline. Their key is to prevent war. That was why Sun Tzu once warned that “we must not rely on the enemy’s inaction; we should rely on our preparations.” Athens, a small country, faced the threat of a huge Persian empire. Rather than offer its “lands and waters” and surrender to become the “Special Administration Region of Athens” under a “Persian empire”, Athens responded by fortifying its democracy with arms. If Taiwan wants to avoid war, its only option is to strengthen its self-defense capabilities.

Armed conflicts occur in the way of the “quantum entanglement” phenomenon. Whether or not a war will break out is principally determined by the gap between the strengths of the two sides. An example of incorrect predictions is the book “The Great Illusion” published by Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Angell in 1910. His argument was that, as European economies depended on each other, the benefits of cooperation outweighed the benefits of war, “making war increasingly impossible”. But the First World War did break out. “T-Day: The Warning of Taiwan Strait War”, which is in the collective memory of the Taiwanese people, wildly claimed that China would use force against Taiwan. The book, together with the 1996 Taiwan Strait Missile Crisis, caused some people to sell their properties and move overseas. But most people chose to sit out the crisis with others on the same island.

Even national intelligence agencies have made their fair share of embarrassingly inaccurate predictions. Britain and France wrongly believed in Adolf Hitler’s “good faith” and reduced their military expenditures, leading to the Second World War. The US treated the Japanese Empire’s emerging naval force with contempt and suffered a sudden attack on Pearl Harbor. The Golda Meir administration of Israel’s misjudgment on strategic intelligence resulted in an attack on the country, which nearly caused its collapse. These are all examples of invasions caused by an underestimation of enemies.

Perhaps it can be said that the mere reliance on the goodwill of the enemy or the overconfident dismissal of an adversary will both put a country on the defensive and at a disadvantage, and this will invite rash military aggressions. Let me borrow the sociological theory of “self-fulfilling prophecies”. When two potential adversaries have different sentiments towards an issue, they also have two different perceptions, i.e., “avoiding war” or “preparing for war”. When the balance is lost between the strengths of the two sides, the nightmare of “war”, on which their perceptions converge, becomes reality.

For this reason, after experiencing the disasters of the two World Wars, Western countries, though facing the specter of nuclear warfare, developed a more mature “deterrence” model to ensure sufficient “second attack” counterattack capabilities as a cornerstone of defense. This removes the incentive to launch a preemptive or sudden attack. It has been borne out by facts that “mutual assurance of destruction” has succeeded in preventing the outbreak of a nuclear war.

This concept of “stopping war by preparing for it” is also applicable to “traditional deterrence” by non-nuclear weapons. It is just that the targets of strikes are not urban facilities concerning people’s daily lives. The aim is to suppress the military targets of an enemy to deprive it of the ability to achieve political aims through the use of arms. In other words, the goal is to avoid the imbalance of power leading to war. This is also the main reason for the increase in the defense budget in the Indo-Pacific and why even Indonesia’s military spending is overtaking Taiwan’s.

After the US established diplomatic relations with the CCP in 1979, the Mutual Defense Treaty with the Republic of China became ineffective. The Carter administration began to focus on the faraway lands of Europe, hoping that China, a strategic ally, would ease the military pressure of the former Soviet Union on Europe. After the US military packed up and left Taiwan, the US administration refused to sell us F-4 long-range fighters in an attempt to suppress the Republic of China’s development of naval and air forces. In its “strategic division of labor”, it only gave Taiwan the role of a defender of the island. That had consequences for Taiwan’s defense.

Now Washington’s dream of a “peaceful China” rising through “peaceful transition” harbored when it assisted Beijing with its economic development in the 1990s has been shattered. With its two aircraft carriers, China has now the second greatest naval military strength in the world. Its ambitions about Taiwan were just a slogan of its propaganda in the 1950s. Now they have become a military hotspot issue in the eyes of security experts from all over the world.

As an analysis by the US Department of Defense suggests, Beijing does not have sufficient capabilities to conquer Taiwan. After all, it can be said that amphibious landing on Taiwan is the most complicated military exercise, and the risk is very high. Beijing is also in a strategic quandary. Its goal is to win the battle quickly. However, no matter whether it is an attack on outlying islands, the use of long-range firepower, a total blockade, or a limited blockade of Taiwan’s seas and airspace in the name of a humanitarian effort, its military moves will be likely to drag on and be subject to external interference. Therefore, the risk of war on Taiwan in the short term at this stage is very low.

However, the CCP’s military strength is rapidly increasing with the passage of time. If it gains the ability to launch a “strategic blitzkrieg” on Taiwan’s main island, military means will become Beijing’s option to fast track the resolution of the Taiwan issue. By seizing Taiwan in one go, it can avoid the political risk posed by the loss of momentum after repeated waits.

The key to avoiding such a critical point lies with Taiwan’s defense preparations instead of second-guessing when Beijing will act. As analyzed by the US Department of Defense, with its innate defensive advantages of the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan does have a high chance of defeating the People’s Liberation Army with a small army. The key lies in Taiwan’s asymmetrical combat power.

I believe that a minimum and reasonable military budget of NT$450 billion might only be a modest ideal. Taiwan’s political culture of “emphasizing culture over military pursuits” might make it difficult for its government spending to become the top spending item as in Israel and Singapore. I believe that “only if we have national defense, we can have a diplomatic say and prevent an invasion”.

At least, reform and innovation are the only way for a small country to strengthen national defense and ensure survival. The labor-intensive battlefield in the era of cold weapons might be an inspiration for us. As I mentioned, democratic Athens faced the threat of annexation by “a Persian Empire”. Athens responded with armed self-defense and the adoption of an “innovative and asymmetric” reform of its national defense. It abandoned its heavy infantry, which was the mainstay at the time, and developed sea control capabilities and strategies with its limited resources. Eventually, in the Battle of Salamis, Athens demolished Persia’s navy and successfully defended its democracy. It even became the leader of the Greek system.

To put it bluntly, modern technology allows Taiwan to have more efficient options though its national defense resources are limited. An example is NATO countries’ combination of “asymmetric forces”, such as their “land to air, land to sea” capabilities and unmanned vehicles, with its “basic forces”, something I will not repeat here. Perhaps the business concept of finding “second curve” competitiveness for a corporation’s survival can help us fulfill the goal of building asymmetric combat power. I pointed out on the forum pages of Apple Daily in late 2018 that TSMC will become a pillar of Taiwan’s strategic defense. Although Taiwan is small, it enjoys many advantages and can play a key role as a crucial minority in the international arena. Strengthening its military force is the key; it can prevent fear of war and enhance our diplomatic say. The choice is in our own hands. Taiwan can lead a safe and respectable existence after all.

(Su Tzu-yun, Institute of National Defense and Security Research director and senior analyst)

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