Fortess Taiwan and Summer Camp Troops

As America frets that it can spare weapons to Taiwan after supplying Ukraine and Israel, America should admit that training the Taiwanese to use whatever they have is the important first step before shipping in the advanced weapons.

Congress wants to help Taiwan deter China: 

Those recommendations included fixing the $19 billion Taiwan arms sale backlog, establishing the Taiwan reserves stockpile, implementing multiyear munitions procurement, passing cybersecurity legislation for Taiwan and more.

The U.S. is "quietly arming Taiwan to the teeth," the BBC says. But providing weapons--even high tech wonder weapons--is the least of Taiwan's defense problems: 

In 2013 Taiwan reduced military service from one year to just four months, before reinstating it back to 12 months, a move that takes effect next year. But there are bigger challenges. It's jokingly referred to as a 'summer camp' by the young men who go through it.

I don't have confidence in Taiwan's army if the PLA invaders get past the anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles and get ashore. 

As I wrote about the U.S. Army a quarter century ago:

Although there appears to be a consensus among military strategists and policy-makers that the United States must maintain its technological edge, the troops must be trained and motivated to take advantage of that technology. The critical advantages provided by highly trained soldiers with good morale are not easily quantifiable in peacetime. The lack of quality becomes quantifiable, indirectly, when one counts the burned-out armored vehicles of an army whose troops did not know how to use their equipment and who lacked the will to fight on in adversity.

Further, from the initial article: 

"Under intense pressure from Washington, Taipei is switching to a "fortress Taiwan" strategy that would make the island extremely difficult for China to conquer.

The focus will switch to ground troops, infantry and artillery - repelling an invasion on the beaches and, if necessary, fighting the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in the towns and cities, and from bases deep in the island's jungle-covered mountains. But this puts the responsibility for defending Taiwan back on its outdated army."

But even if we manage to help Taiwan build its small ground forces so they are able and willing to fight from the beaches to the cities to the mountains, who drives the PLA off the island?

A top Taiwanese legislator said (back to the first article) that "Taiwan is preparing to send two battalions of ground troops to the US for training, the first time this has happened since the 1970s."

That's not enough. We should get the Philippines to allow us to train Taiwanese troops in the Philippines on a larger scale.

NOTE: The image was made from DALL-E.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

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