 Welcome to Asian Review. I'm your host Bill Sharp. Our show today is the Taiwan military, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And joining us via Skype from his home in Taiwan is US Army retired Lieutenant Colonel Scott J. Elinger, who spent 22 years in the Army as a China Foreign Area officer. He's well known for his expertise on Taiwan in general and Taiwan Military Affairs specifically. He has seven years of direct experience in dealing with Taiwan's military. So today we want to hear from him what are the Taiwan military's strengths and weaknesses. Welcome to Asian Review. Well hello, thank you very much Bill for having me on the show here. I really appreciate that the invitation and the ability here to speak with you and our guests. Great, great, great. Well during the last four or five years the Taiwan military has really been going through some fairly difficult changes. Trying to make a transition from a force based on conscription to one based on volunteer volunteerism. So can you tell us a little bit about those changes and challenges the Taiwan military is facing? Well I can, well we'll start out with a little bit of how this transition started. I remember about about say about eight years ago, nine years ago, the discussion points and they've been discussing this for a very long time. It's just when do they want to make this decision on going from compulsory service all the way over to an all volunteer force. And because of the the historical things that here happened in Taiwan, you know very similar to Korea, compulsory services you know mandatory. Originally it went from like three years to two years then it went to down to like a year and a half and then to 14 months and then now it's transitioning to its new pattern. And so the all volunteer force right now is something that has been politicized for both political parties here and it's there for Garner it's types of their voting targets here. But when it comes to the all volunteer force here in Taiwan I mean there's been a lot of work for it but there's been a lot of road bumps along the way in trying to make this happen. And the one thing I saw that was probably the most difficult part. What are some of those road bumps? What are some of the obstacles that this transition has been running into? Well first of all I think what the most difficult part was how do you actually create a recruiting type of command or recruiting type of system that really targets individuals here in Taiwan both male and female to actually raise their right hand and actually join the ranks. And something that we spent a lot of time dealing with them and how to how do you create you know honor duty level country to just raise your right hand say I'm going to join and actually volunteer. And then the other part was looking at the other percentage of people that look at the military for you know creating a better lifestyle and trying to you know building block to creating a your educational path also at looking at creating your you know career path even though you may not be an officer but within the non-commissioned officer enlisted type of system. So what I saw on that was probably the hardest point is how do they create this type of recruiting command or recruiting system that can really inspire the youth here to raise their hand and say hey I want to volunteer. That was the hardest thing that they've been wrestling with it's the incentive program it's it's answering the why question why do I want to volunteer to be in the military and just kind of I think it may lead in some other questions is is in Taiwan for many years joining the military was not one of the top 10 jobs to have or in the United States over the last 25 years being in the US military as an officer a non-commissioned officer was a an honorable job to have and it was it was ranked as one of the I think top 50 jobs to have within the US was in the United States. It doesn't even hit the list. Let me ask you this you know there's some theory I would say a theory there's some discussion a point of view that the democratization of Taiwan really killed the army. From my perspective I wouldn't say that it's destroyed the military it's that I think right now it's transitioning it's transitioning from this the conscription to all volunteer force and so with that I think it's just with the road bump it's the road bump is how do you transition from conscription to all volunteer force and that that's the road bump and I think it's going through the political dynamic of okay what party is going to garner the vote so that they have more people because to get rid of conscription means okay all these all these males don't have to do now it used to be 14 months and I think now it's changed over to mandatory four months and then they're placed on a on a mobilization reserve status that seems ridiculous to me four months I I mean that just seems to be meaningless to me and then what my understanding is although they're supposed to attend reserve sessions that the number of people that actually get called up for reserve duty is very minnable and I've often I've talked to people in Taiwan to flag level officers Taiwan flag level officers say even if they caught up all the reserves they have insufficient equipment to equip them with so it seems to me the reserve component in Taiwan military is pretty weak well that's something we've had discussions with before my prior time was you know wrestling with you know what is Taiwan reserve command and how to institute a professional reserve force it doesn't have to be exactly mirror image like the United States but something very similar that they have a National Guard or an Army reserve or an Air Force reserve neighbors or Marine Corps reserve that's very similar where you create kind of a ramp off so if you don't act the duty service for let's say four years five years or six years eight years and then you just you wish to pursue pursue a civilian career is maintaining that that individual in a reserve capacity or you have an institution that creates the reserve system very similar to the United States where you go through a professional training course you get all your training done and then you then you have the weekend drills that we have in the United States and then you do two weeks during the summer and I think that's something where if Taiwan the the legislature as well as the politicians if they really thought about it hard I think that'd be a great system where they could probably get volunteers with to the level that they want and they can have a professional enough type of reserve force that will be able to do their duties in accordance with the their missions that are attack that are signed to them but again it goes back to I think it's it's the it's the will of the the Ministry of National Defense along with the politicians to actually create this type of reserve system that where you look at the mobilization system that they have is you've done your conscription time which now it's four months of active time which is basically you're doing your basic training you're doing your skill skill set for whatever military operational occupational specialty you're going to go into your MOS and then once you're done with that then you come off of that status and you're mobilized you know what I want to ask you about this there's what I call mobilization is I think they get recalled twice within an eight-year period to mobilize they go to their assigned unit they do it for X amount of days which is short period of time then they're done and then they go back to whatever their their civilian career is there seems to be some plan that's come out of the ME MMD recently the Ministry of National Defense where they recall retired NCOs to active duty it's a volunteer thing if you want to come out of retirement for say like a year or two years then you'll go back to active duty but you'll be considered part of the reserves I don't quite sure if I have that right but it's something like that if you heard of that plan I think they've probably you know I've been off been off active duty for three years I might have been changed in the last three years but that's something I think that's probably that's the beginning of looking at how the United States does what we call the AGR system such the the active guard slash reserve type of system where we that's been there's been those discussions where it's something very similar to that where they look at people that are ETS that you know that's term not retired but they they left after X amount of years then bring them back on to an active status and then let them come back in that might be something new but I think that's step one that's stuck one to the overall you know maintaining the skill sets needed to lead lead soldiers airmen sailors and Marines in in a crisis situation you know I I read someplace an article that the timeline military is considered the 15th most capable military in the world have if you ever heard anything of that sort yes I mean yes I have and I think with my observations is they're a very professional military and what do you mean by professional military you better define that because not everybody might know exactly where you're coming from on that all professional okay so the job at hand they're able to do the task they're able to plan the mission they're able to execute the training and they'll execute it to a standard that they've set for themselves and then they do it in in a in a system where within the military culture the military professional way of doing things doing their mission requirements they do it right by the book and they have their regulations they have the doctrine that set late in front of them and then they follow it by the tee and so they follow what what the doctrine is and and with that that's what creates I think from my observations are very professional how they do it so know exactly what they're supposed to do and they'll go do it and so that's what I've observed I've seen that in that aspect the other part is I think with you know being ranked in the top 15 is they based a lot of the doctrine off of the United States they updated it in accordance with how we change in I don't say as fast as we change but they they they updated the doctor and I think with that they're able to adjust it so it fits what their requirements are in some aspects they may not as fast we do but they do eventually change it because I've heard some people say that in terms of doctrine they're behind the times because they did not allow the the the interaction with the US military that they really wish they had there is an erection I mean there's quite a few training exchanges that do occur but this kind of goes into your title of you know the good the bad and the ugly some of these things so I can kind of box it in for you here and the good part is very professional military so they do what the standards are they train in accordance with how the doctrine is laid out for them to do whatever their mission requirements are in accordance with their service or 30 seconds of when we go into the bad part is I would say the bad part is the ability to change and change rapidly and make adjustments in accordance with how modernization is has changed how the United States and how other Western nations have fought their battles we get those action at after action reviews actor after action reports call me ars once those come back the United States is always morphing its system to fight better tomorrow you know we're always changing very fluid system we're always looking at how to change as fast as we can to meet the changes the battlefield stop I'm gonna stop you there because I'm being told we have to go to break but we'll pick this up when we come back in about 30 seconds about a minute okay see you see in a couple minutes hi this is a Jane Sugimura I'm the co-host for condo insider and we're on think tech Hawaii every Thursday at 3 o'clock and we're here to talk about condominium living and issues that affect condominium residents and owners and I hope you'll join us every week on Thursday aloha aloha this is business in Hawaii with Reg Baker I'm the host of business in Hawaii and we're a show about positive stories of business in Hawaii both the companies and the individuals we broadcast live every Thursday at 2 o'clock on think tech Hawaii calm and we can also be found on Olalo during normal scheduling please join us so we can share with you some of the experience and insight to having a successful business or career here in Hawaii aloha welcome back to Asian review I'm your host Bill Sharp my guest today is retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Scott J. Elinger he's joining us from his home in Taiwan joining us via Skype he has served 22 years in U.S. Army it was a China Foreign Service officer China Foreign Area Study Officer very good Chinese he's living in Asia a total of 18 years in Taiwan mainland China Southeast Asia Japan Korea so he knows then he knows the neighborhood before the break we were talking about the good the bad and the ugly which is the title of today's show of the Taiwan military and we're talking about Taiwan's how should we say challenge and changing its military culture adapting to changes in military thinking in a fairly rapid fashion so why don't we pick it up from there okay so I remember we were discussing kind of we're transitioning to some of the issues and challenges that Taiwan faces and that's changing the doctrine in accordance with how how things change within today and so what I observed was I would say that they're probably about you know X amount of years I don't want to say how many years but they're they're behind and what it is it's the ability to rapidly change as our doctrine changes then Taiwan lags behind in making those changes and the gap kind of widens a little bit and I think with with some of the exchanges that we've had with Taiwan I mean that there's we have good exchanges and so where we go into kind of the ugly part is that during these interactions that we have is we give them advice in how you want to make these changes in accordance with whatever skill set it's applying to or type of doctrine it's applying to and what Taiwan will go it'll go back to what it used to what it used to be doing 10 years ago and they don't want to break out of this this is how we used to do it and changing is a difficult thing to do and it's hard and it's painful and so it's breaking through that and that's the ugly part is the the ability to make the change and the willpower of the senior leadership and the mid-level leadership to take the risk on let's change and that's the ugly part and that's the one part that I I observed so many times that just make the change and if there's a mistake it doesn't matter you just train again and you make your you make your adjustments in accordance with how you did something as we do in the US military is you do something do your mission you do your training you do an action action after action report you you look at it it's okay where we make the mistakes and then you go out next week and you train again or you may just train again the next day but the problem isn't something very similar what happened the United States military in the 90s is the zero defect mentality is you don't want to let your mistake mistakes be shown because your evaluation or your promotion is not going to go go to the next level Taiwan's kind of stuck in that zero defect mentality so that's another ugly part that I observed and I think very simple change to to it is where I've advised you know brigade commanders battalion commanders I said you as a brigade commander you hand the above and then you protect your below and battalion commander you deal with your particular gate commander get the resource name protect your company commanders let them train if they make mistakes it doesn't matter it's trying to reverse that culture of instead of top always observing the bottom is let that the bottom kind of protect itself from the top and fence off senior leadership from always trying to look at this zero defect mentality and trying to like have brigade commanders command squads and platoons okay it's changing that that type of mentality okay good you know so much so much to talk about in so little time but let's talk about amphibious assault or amphibious invasion of Taiwan which you know everybody talks about you know from time to time so what what is Taiwan's ability to repel an amphibious invasion obviously from China well that's a thesis and so we start writing our thesis right now here it's about 300 pages a question in the short time we have but give us some idea I from the the ability from Taiwan what I've observed their ability to defend it's there they can defend it it goes back into the its ability of how you know what's your reaction time and this goes into any any type of defensive type of battlefield or strategy that set up very similar to other like for Korea for instance we can take Korea it's your warning time and if you have enough warning time are you able to defend and get to your battle positions to defend against an offensive attack same thing applies to Taiwan so it's all it's all depicted on time requirements if there's enough time to mobilize your reserves then the defense will happen and I think would be for Taiwan's requirements of defending as long as they can for coalition forces to assist in any type of crisis it's all dependent on what time they have to mobilize so what I've observed their ability to defend yes they can do it to cover all the main amphibious assault landing areas yes they can do it but it's all based on time in your reaction coalition forces means the US getting there from Japan and other places in the Pacific correct I'm not gonna get the political things but we will use the term coalition forces that okay okay this is Taiwan in a crisis situation yes okay well that that's good to hear I'm glad that you pointed that out now you know it seems to me that saying when it's got a much different approach towards the military than the mind Joe it seems to me I hope we're not being unfair here but it seemed that mind Joe was not really very interested in the military and the military kind of was hurt by by his lack of attention whereas Tsai Ing-wen really seems to want to beef up the morale of the military and inject a higher sense of professionalism she seems to have visited a lot of military bases in the fairly short time that she's been in office has a lot of ideas about building up Taiwan's own defense industries what kind of what I've described it and I just it's only descriptions only an opinion but the way I look at mind Joe was I call him the Jimmy Carter of Taiwan I mean he he really I would say you know the military of course is something that you know it's part national defense part of the nation but I from what I felt in in what I could just from a from an abstract feeling is he just military wasn't important and it I would agree with a second third seat to everything else and it was more used for humanitarian disaster relief missions and that was the primary focus of what he wanted to use the military for instead of like cake military is great for humanitarian disaster relief yes it's very important mission set United States is important yes but when it came to actually looking at the morale of the military and giving them the funding and resources to go through the transition to an all volunteer force it wasn't there and it really created within the military some negative feelings a lot of the I would say feel great officers and below we're not happy some of the senior leadership I saw these left they retired so I'm out and then of course then you have the political appointees that they made the rank because of their political connections very similar to the United States but those those individuals they had to tell the bottom line of whatever the president said so I saw that within the military morale wasn't the highest I saw the zero defect mentality get worse from that and so that that's just observations of what I saw over during the time that mind you it was the president unfortunately I just I saw that and you had people kind of battle through that that that presidency and his policies for the military which I thought it hampered quite a bit with the new president I think she's along with some of her advisors have really looked at these issues of looking around and hopefully within the next two to three years she'll be able to change this morale she can change the military and look at programs to create I would say the professionalism needed within the military and a professional military culture that allows the junior non-commissioned officers junior officers middle mid-grade officers mid-grade non-commissioned officers to aspire into what they have and then creating a national image that the military is an honorable and a valuable part of society where people look up to the military and you know they salute you know they salute you on the road saying hey thank you for your service which in the US military when I was an uniform or if they know I'm a veteran they thank me for my service it's creating that society to respect the military and hopefully signing one and her advisors on defense can make that transition society loves the military and honors them okay Scott we're coming down here to our last few minutes I got a couple more questions I want to ask you but I'm gonna ask you to give me some fairly short answers spying seems that when my Joe was in office that there was a there's an explosion of spy cases occurring in the Taiwan military of course this means mainland intelligence agents recruiting Taiwan military officers often at very high level often a flag level what's your take on that and I'm sorry that we don't have too much time to discuss this but what's your what's your take on that my quick take on that is it it's probably has to do something with the retirement system and also with the salaries yeah Taiwan over the last couple years is raised salaries but probably not raised them enough where as the mainland China wants to you know they they do dangles of incentives and money it becomes lucrative and so I think you have some of the bad apples you know the 2% the 1% or the point fine whatever the percentage is you know that the bad apples that decide to take these incentives it's unfortunate and I think it's something where Taiwan really needs to instill it goes it goes back to an honorable feeling of being in the military great last 30 seconds in the last 30 seconds is there anything that you want to add in I think that the last top I think that I think another topic for the future if we want to talk about it is looking at a professional military culture and how it intersects with society's culture and so in this aspect is professional military culture and how does that relate to Taiwan's society's culture what are some of the issues and what causes problems when there's too much of society's culture within the military culture I think a great topic for us to talk about in a future segment that's a really good point that's a really good point well I think that about brings us to our close here I want to continue but the clock tells us it's about time to go and I want to thank our guests for joining us today and I want to thank you for viewing next week my guest will be Mr. Michael Turton he's a well-known and also very provocative blogger who will be joining us again via Skype from Taiwan see you then okay thank you Bill and I know Michael's we're a good friend of mine