The "Total Strategy" Method for Taiwan?

The idea of effectively joining civil defense and military defense is an appealing one for many military thinkers, especially those counseling small countries buffeted by great or regional powers. Graham at Automatic Ballpoint, a graduate student in London School of Economics' history department, wrote an intriguing series of posts about Switzerland's defense plan against the Reich during World War II. The idea is combining a dogged elastic conventional defense in complex terrain with guerrilla warfare and a "nation in arms" approach with citizen militias carrying out raids against isolated enemy columns and supply bases. Eventually, the theory goes, the prospect of conquering the nation makes it a "poison pill" to occupiers.

It's a very idealistic approach that ignores several issues. First, not every nation is geographically right for such a defense strategy. If you are cursed by the gods of geopolitics with a situation like Poland's in 1939, you might just be out of luck any way you slice it. Second, there are immense coordination problems with setting such a unified defense structure up, and civilian militias tend not to be the invincible citizen-guerrillas of popular imagination. They tend to break very easily, are not very skilled at using anything more than the simplest of weapons, and have problems sustaining themselves. Careful handling of militias is necessary, and it took American commanders in the Revolutionary War a little while to figure out how to put militias to their best use. Finally, if the enemy is sufficiently ruthless he will probably react to civilian resistance by destroying everything. This is how the Germans dealt with enemy partisans in 1870, 1914, and 1941.

So this brings us to Daniel Goure's proposal for Taiwan to adopt a "Hezbollah" strategy of defending itself against China. It's a nice "out-of-the-box" idea for a country with a very poor strategic position at the moment:

The Taiwan Straits are between 131 and 180 km wide. There are a number of relatively simple rockets and ballistic missiles that exceed this distance. Hezbollah’s arsenal includes the 250 km Fateh, the Iranian-designed Zelzal 2 with a range of between 200 and 400 km and, allegedly, the venerable Scud with ranges of between 300 and 600 km. Systems like these are easily available on the world’s arms market but also could readily be produced by Taiwan at home. ...A large number of conventionally-armed rockets and shorter-range ballistic missiles distributed around the country could pose to China the same kind of threat of massed missile attacks that Beijing now presents to nations along its periphery. A distributed arsenal of rockets and missiles would be extremely difficult for China to neutralize. Moreover, relatively simple precision-guidance technology could dramatically increase the effectiveness of these weapons. A barrage of missiles could play havoc with the PLA’s airfields, naval bases and communications infrastructure. Taiwan could add to its defensive potential by also deploying relatively low-cost armed unmanned aerial systems, the potential of which Hezbollah is also exploring.

This proposal correctly understands what China defense experts have been saying for a while: China's underdeveloped amphibious capabilities aren't the biggest threat Taiwan faces. Rather, China intends to dominate through standoff weaponry, "key point strikes," and possibly economic blockades. By raising the costs of doing so to China through cheap but effective measures like the kind Goure suggests, Taiwan might be able to shift the calculus.

The "Hezbollah" analogy, however, is misplaced. Hezbollah is a sub-state actor living parasitically off Lebanon. Israel's goal was not to occupy Lebanon but to destroy it or inflict enough significant damage on it to gain a degree of breathing room. The latter objective, despite the bungling of Lebanon 2006, was arguably successful because it was limited. China's objective is unlimited in that it seeks to absorb Taiwan into its polity with whatever means it can--however long it takes.

Taiwan is diplomatically isolated and does not even have representation in most significant international forums. It depends on the US for diplomatic and military protection. And it is becoming slowly economically and culturally absorbed into the mainland as well. Taiwan's long-term chances are not very good, and a new missile system would just be another small advantage in time and space that China would eventually counter.

Comments

[YNSN]

Would a ghetto missile system in the Hammas style be an advantage at all? If it polity that China uses with greatest effect, then it must be that Taiwan defends its sovereignty through connectivity. It needs to be using situations similar to today, with China laying claim to the whole of South China Sea.
It needs to maneuver itself to be the cornerstone of an alliance between it and other small maritime nations bordering China. A bajillion missiles in the face of cultural and political absorption mean little, and change nothing that matters.

[A.E.]

As a limited operational countermeasure, in time and space yes. But the balance of missiles over the Taiwan strait is really just a small factor in this, as you point out.

[Joseph Fouche]

If there's one road from the ideal of the "headless chicken" (as some have called it) to the siren call of the "magic bullet", it's the unwillingness of a citizenry to undertake the cost and inconvenience of militia service unless they're surrounded by hostile Indians or Arabs. A constant theme from Washington's presidency on to the War of 1812 was the constant request to Congress to fully fund the Militia Act of 1792. Congress never did, choosing instead to keep a small professional volunteer army often composed of poor foreign immigrants while calling up troops as needed for emergencies.

There are a few significant victories by forces mostly composed of American militia over conventional opponents: the first siege of Louisbourg, Lexington, Concord, the forced evacuation of Boston, Bennington, Kings Mountain, the Thames, New Orleans. Most of the time however, militia performed poorly against conventional forces.

It was in their capacity to control the local population as a police force that American militia shone.

[A.E.]

Militias tend to be a cherished myth, though. And I think that myth will never die.