PRESS

also require Taiwan to outsource the job of countering
coercive uses of force short of invasion, when no
other country (including the United States) has made
a binding commitment to assume that responsibility.
Taiwan’s own strategy, explicated in its QDR and
biennial national defense reports, is less narrowly focused.
Taiwan’s armed forces have identified a need
to counter China across the possible spectrum of coercive
scenarios and in all domains of warfare. The
MND argues that it can adopt innovative asymmetric
approaches to doing so, but it does not consider
hunkering down during a blockade or missile barrage
to be a realistic option, for reasons of deterrence or
domestic politics.
IS SECURITY WITHIN REACH?
Taiwan faces significant impediments to fielding a
force capable of carrying out its stated military strategy
and, thus, to ensuring its security. The challenges
are few but significant: declining budgets, questions
about the viability of an all-volunteer force, uneven
and uncertain relations with the United States, and,
of course, the existence of an increasingly imposing
military force across the Taiwan Strait.
But no less an issue is the political-rhetorical problem
in which Taiwan finds itself. To please Washington—Taiwan’s
only real security partner—and
to claim success in managing cross-Strait relations,
Taipei has had to argue that those relations are better
than they have ever been. Of course, in some respects
that is accurate. However, it has not lessened the actual
military threat posed by mainland China to Taiwan.
Simply put, Taiwan’s government must do a better
job of explaining that its policy of engaging with the
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