Taiwan needs to spend more money on defense to have a hope of defeating or deterring a Chinese invasion rather than worshiping at the altar of the Church of Asymmetry.
I think this condemnation of Taiwan buying Paladin artillery is completely wrong.
Make no mistake: Paladins are a bad idea. They are outdated, based on a design that dates back to the Vietnam War. They are also expensive. Taiwan will spend $750 million on 40 howitzers. That is before training, maintenance, and ammunition costs are factored in. Worst of all, Paladins will be sitting ducks in a shooting war. At 10 feet tall, 10 feet wide, and 30 tons in weight, these vehicles are ill-suited for the island’s endless winding roads, narrow bridges, and waterlogged fields.
The fact is that Paladins are exactly the sort of weapon that defense experts have long tried to get Taipei to stop buying. Most serious analysts think that Taiwan already spends too much on small numbers of expensive platforms. Since Taiwan's military cannot possibly afford enough jets, ships, and tanks to offset the ever-growing cross-Strait military imbalance, over-investing in these weapons makes the island dangerously vulnerable to first strike and preemption.
American analysts and think tanks have instead tried to get Taiwan to adopt an asymmetric force posture. Asymmetry means reorganizing the island’s defense around large numbers of cheap things—weapons like drones, coastal defense missiles, naval mines, portable air defenses, and mobile ground forces. It also means training combat units to wage a prolonged defense in depth instead of trying to engage an invasion force in a decisive battle for the beaches.
It is the result of worshiping at the altar of the Church of Asymmetry. Which is a concept a lot of people don't really get.
Paladin systems are advanced and mobile, and only superficially resemble the artillery piece that dates back to the Vietnam War. They can be used against Chinese ships trying to land troops and against Chinese troops that have landed.
And the advice in that initial article is internally inconsistent. For all the emphasis on coastal defense, if the Chinese get ashore, Paladins within a mobile ground force are a crucial part of a defense in depth.
One of the problems these authors hint at with their claim that Taiwan must focus on invasion, but which other authors are more explicit about, is that asymmetry can sink China's invasion force. Drones, land-based anti-ship missiles, and naval mines--add in small missile boats, too--truly are important for that. But building a crust defense that begins and ends with trying to stop the
Chinese from landing on Taiwan dooms Taiwan. Ruling out a battle for the "beaches" (also consider airheads and direct port assaults, as I wrote about long ago when imagining a Chinese invasion) guarantees the Chinese stay shore if they get past that crust.
Which is insane. It guarantees Taiwan's defeat by ensuring that if the Chinese manage to get a foothold, the Chinese will eventually destroy Taiwan, as I discussed in Military Review last year.
I readily concede that the weapons listed in that article that Taiwan needs are good weapons to have. But Taiwan can afford to buy relatively cheap stuff like that and also have a potent conventional ground force capable of driving Chinese ground forces into the sea.
Taiwan needs to spend a lot more on defense. Which they can afford if they value their island democracy. That would be better than relying on dubious advice from credentialed foreign analysts and think tanks.
Misguided acolytes of the Church of Asymmetry are trying to kill Taiwan.
