Taiwan’s decentralized command offers immediate reaction capabilities

SEOUL, South Korea — Taiwan revealed Tuesday that its military command structure has been decentralized, enabling units, under the initiative of local commanders, to respond immediately to a surprise attack.

The adoption of dispersed but empowered command structures also suggests that the island’s defenders could sustain combat under individual officers, regardless of an electronic warfare offensive that blacks out communications — or the decapitation of Taipei’s political leadership.

“If the enemy suddenly launches an attack, all units are to implement ’distributed control’ without waiting for orders and, under a ’decentralised’ mode of command, carry out their combat missions,” Taipei’s Defense Ministry stated in a new document, per reports from Taiwan.

The reference to a sudden attack references how Chinese forces have inched closer to Taiwan since then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited in 2022.

As recently as Tuesday, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry reported on X the presence of 13 Chinese aerial sorties close to the island, nine of which crossed the Median Line in the Taiwan Strait.

Beijing considers democratically governed Taiwan an intrinsic part of China that will one day return to — or be absorbed into — the Mainland under the control of China’s communist rulers.

“The Chinese communists have never renounced the use of force to annex Taiwan and continue to intensify joint training across services, shifting from purely military drills to routine, multi-service, real-combat-oriented exercises,” Taipei’s report stated. 

Capabilities are improving. 

In recent years, there have been concerns that China could requisition civilian roll-on, roll-off ferries to transport amphibious troops, as London did during the 1982 Falklands War — a subject of Chinese military study. Then, earlier this year, a specific amphibious asset being developed by Beijing was photographed in southern China: a series of landing barges that can be linked to provide a “bridge” that convey vehicles from offshore to landing beaches.

Specialist media Naval News calls them “novel” and says they may be influenced by the “Mulberry Harbors” the Allies used in Normandy in 1944.

Above all, the increasing proximity of Chinese naval and air forces to the island — the Taiwan Strait is just 110 miles wide —  raises the risk of a “green-to-red” surprise assault scenario.

Under that, forces conducting exercises close to a target utilize their prepositioning to speedily transition from drill or patrol mode to war mode, at a given time or on a given signal.

Russia utilized the strategy in 2022.

Moscow prepositioned military units in an arc around the frontiers of Ukraine, under cover of a “winter exercises,” prior to unleashing its multi-pronged invasion in February 2022.

Taipei’s newly released report also appears to take advantage of favorable political winds in the two democracies that cover its flanks.

The Philippines is infuriated by the continuing encroachment of Chinese fishing fleets, backed by Coast Guard cutters and People’s Liberation Army Navy warships, in waters immediately to its west. The clashes have led Manila to align more closely to ally Washington and to regional democratic partners Sydney and Tokyo.

Meanwhile, Japan is being buffeted by a gale-force blast of diplomatic, economic, information war and military coercion. That follows newly installed Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, answering questions in the Diet on Nov. 7, responding that a contingency on Japan’s southern flank would form an existential threat triggering the deployment of Tokyo’s forces.  

Beijing’s hybrid offensive against Manila and its fury against Tokyo are making its war-planners’ tasks more difficult.

One pre-attack scenario for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is seen as a “strangulation” of the island via naval units that gradually surround and blockade it on all sides, before switching to attack.

That eventuality would force Taipei to disperse its limited manpower all around the island.

However, ongoing developments on its flanks make this “python” strategy highly risky for Chinese naval forces.

U.S. and local militaries in both Japan and the Philippines have prepositioned units to cover maritime choke points to Taiwan’s northeast and southwest. This imperils any Chinese naval move through Japan’s Mikako Strait and/or the Philippines’ Bashi Channel.

The risk implicit in transiting these waterways amid hostilities could force China’s generals and admirals to drop all-round attack. The alternative: a frontal, cross-Strait assault using naval, amphibious and airborne forces.

Given limited frontages, that could be a bloodbath.

Freed from the need to defend all points of the compass, Taipei could mass its forces to defend the landing sites on its China-facing coast — “Red Beaches,” in local parlance.

Tuesday’s directive, granting defending units decentralized initiative, means faster local reaction speed. It also means combat sustainability in the event of central command being incapacitated, or of communications being taken out.

Taipei’s Defense Minister Wellington Koo will take questions on the report from lawmakers in the Legislative Yuan on Wednesday, according to Reuters.