 Welcome to Asian Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. Our show today, Can Taiwan Depend on a Volunteer Force? And joining us from Taipei, Taiwan is Lieutenant Colonel Scott Elinger, United States Army Retire. Before retiring, Scott served as a security assistance officer at the American Institute in Taiwan. He has over 20 years of experience in living in Asia. During his military career, he was a foreign area officer, which gave him a lot of very specialized training about all aspects of Asia. Welcome to Asian Review. It's great to have you back with us. Well, thank you, Bill. It's a great honor being on your show for a second time, which is a great honor for me. And I enjoy, you know, giving some of my inputs here, reference Taiwan and all volunteer forces. Super. Well, let's get right into it because we only have 30 minutes and that time really flies on by. You know, I remember the days when the Taiwan military had a personnel strength of between 550,000 and 600,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen. And now, personnel strength is less than half of that. Universal conscription is being replaced by the Volunteer Force. How did this change evolve? And what's your reflection on it? I do remember about 10 years ago, almost 12 years ago, when I was the Pentagon and I was the Taiwan Affairs Director at the Pentagon and the discussions with M&D and the joint staff at OSD back in the United States, as well as the other U.S. military services. We took a hard look at assisting them with this transition. So from my knowledge, I know it's been going on for about 12 years, maybe 11 years, where it became very serious was probably in 2009, 2010, and there was a lot of interaction between the U.S. joint staff, OSD, and the services with Taiwan and really assisting them with the experiences the United States had with our all volunteer force transition back in the 70s and 80s. And we went through a lot of things that dealt with the recruiting aspect, the retention aspect, as well as the veteran services and the retirement programs. That was important for a sustained long-term type of transition because it's not just recruiting new people for an all volunteer force, it also included the entire long-term investment in recruiting a soldier, a Marine, a sailor, an airman into the services. And it was a long-term type of investment, as we used to call it with them, as you're investing in a human being for four years, eight years, 20, 30, and you have to think it from a long-term haul. So we worked with them specifically on these phases that you need to focus on with that. And the other part we worked with that I thought was very unique was we work on the actual marketing strategy of each service, so that they're marketing Marine Corps and Navy and Air Force. But what we really stressed with them was the focus of the Marine Corps, the U.S. Marine Corps, and their marketing strategy. And I think as us as Americans, we definitely know the Marines, the few that crowd the Marines. And their marketing strategy in the United States is definitely one of the strongest ones. Therefore, we put a lot of time with the Marine Corps recruiting command for them to focus on their marketing strategy and how it's very effective overall in the United States. Okay. Well, that's a really good explanation of how it evolved. I learned a few things just then in listening to your answer. But, okay, from today's perspective, what's your reflection on this? Is it going well? Are there glitches? Some people would say it's been a disaster. I don't know. What's your take? Well, we'll go back to about 10 years ago, 11 years ago. And you can see with an M&D there was a very eager type of reaction to it. They wanted to learn everything about this transition and the experiences from the United States. So, we met with our service components. We met with joint staff. And we went over these experiences that we had on quite a few of the exchanges and visits that we had. After that part, from my personal perspective, you could see there was a lot of discussions in 2008, 2009, and going into 10 and 11 on how are we going to do this? Was the Taiwan kind of part of it? And observing them is like what we discussed about a year and a half ago. There's a lot of road bumps in it. But the other part that was really tricky, and that was about 2011 all the way to 2015-16, was we had to implement. And the implementation was getting closer. But they didn't know when they really wanted to implement it on an exact date. And so it keeps on getting kind of kicked down the road, getting pushed and pushed. And I think this year, or next year, it's exactly, it institutes for everybody. It's going to be the four-month kind of basic training, get some basic infantry skill sets. And then after that is done, then you'll be put into the mobilization system in the reserve system. And that's going to be, I think it starts next year from what I recall from reading the deduce. That's what's going to happen. So let me jump in here because I'm going to clarify something. So there still is a conscription system. In other words, men are still going to have to do this four months of training and then the annual, theoretically the annual reserve training. Well, it's not just annual. It's going to be within a, I think it's eight to 10-year period. They have to be mobilized twice. And within, and that's their mobilization, kind of like a very, for the U.S. reserves or national guard, that would be like where they do it every summer for two weeks. This is like, think about it, they do it twice in an eight-year period. They have to be mobilized twice to fulfill some requirements. But I do know that it's been grandfathered. And I think there's still some people that have to do up to 14 months of, you could say, conscription active duty service. I've heard that as well. But I think it's, I think the grandfather clause is just about over for a certain age group. And I think it's starting in 2019. I'm not sure, but it's going to be exactly four months. And then they'll be pulled off of active, you know, this four-month active time and then they'll be put into the reserve mobilization system. So we have a hybrid system in actuality. We have a volunteer system, plus we have a system that still depends on this short-term conscription system. Correct. Okay, good. But you remember, the old system was they were conscripted for three years, then it morphed to about two, and then it went to about a year and a half, 14 months, and now we're in the four months. So Korea's gone through a very similar process where it used to be three years, then it went to about two and a half, now it's two. But I'm not up to the news in Korea where they've changed from two years and made it shorter. But I do know it's very similar to how Korea went through their evolution from that part. But the time when it's always had, you can volunteer as a non-commissioner or as an enlisted going to the non-commission rank. So that volunteer part has always been there. It's just their system of training and how they become an NCO is a little bit different. I think we'll talk about where sometimes the, from Vietnam, if you remember, remember the shaken bay NCO, Taiwan kind of creates a lot of their NCOs in that kind of old system of shaken bay, where they'll send them to an NCO academy. And we'll talk about that in a moment, if you have any other questions. Let's talk about, so it seems to me Taiwan is still going to have trouble meeting needed personnel levels. They're not meeting the requirements I knew from the news. You could read, or I've read that in their military academies, they're not meeting the personnel requirements that they have for the incoming freshman classes and coming in. So I know that was last year had that discussion point within the news that M&D is struggling to make that. I do know from experiences and reading the news that for some reason the female volunteer force in Taiwan for the enlisted non-commission officer ranks is pretty much up at its limits. So for those physicians that they have, they're recruiting very well within the female dynamic. So that one's recruited very well. It's not the male part. They're not meeting the department of both officer and the enlisted. It seems to me also, as you pointed out to me the other day, there was an article just two days ago, I guess it wasn't a type A times talking about the budgetary concerns here. Well, first of all, the military wants a lot of money. It wants to build its new Air Force trainer. It has a submarine project that's going on. If you have a volunteer military, it costs you more money. And so the military budget is growing and yet again it's up against competition from what you might call social welfare programs. I wonder where all this is going to go. It's up against a lot of US pressure too to spend more on defense. Well, when you look at the Taiwan budget and you go back 15 years, it's been pretty static where it sits anywhere from about $10.5 billion, although it's about $10.9 billion US dollars. And so it's been very static with that. And you have the training programs, you have the training programs, and then you have the personnel programs. And the article is talking about that within the whole entire government budget for personnel, I think it was 53%, but you have to revisit the article with a specific number, that that's what made up the personnel budget. And the legislative UN and the people within the legislature were discussing this point. And they were shocked and like, oh my gosh, this is too much money. What are we going to do? And M&D, they kind of throw it back on M&D to make the fix. But the budget stays fixed. We discussed a year and a half ago, this is something for the executive branch. It's something for the legislative UN that deals with defense and foreign affairs. It's up to them to really figure out this requirement and budget it correctly. What I've seen here is, and it's unfortunate, is the executives and the legislative departments that are responsible for their national defense just push it and give it all to M&D. Oh, you guys fix it, but we're still giving you a static number of, this is your budget, but that will fix it. And then you have M&D sitting here, okay, we're still at the same amount of money. How do we have to rock Peter to pay Paul? Where are we going to rock Peter? And so they have these issues of, there's a lot of stress, and this is what's been going on for the last seven or eight years is M&D has been forced to make the change. So this is in the mind, Joe, administration. It's like, here's your budget. We're not giving you anything else. Now you run into this administration, the time one administration, and it's like, same thing. Here you go. You have a fixed number and not make the change. We're in the United States. When you look from the Carter transition and into the Reagan administration, Reagan increased the budget and specifically focused on the personnel budget and really gave the US military the budgetary requirements to make this dynamic change. And of course it took us 10 and 15 years just to get an implemented change, but there was a budget for it on top of the training, the procurement, the acquisition, and other things. So the budget was there to make the transition. So it was increased. The Taiwan really needs to take a hard look in the legislative and executive branches to actually consider the military separate from all the other civil border. We have about 45 seconds to a break here. So I just put that out to you so give you enough time to wrap up your answer. So you're okay there. Okay. Well, just a quick point, I'll just shove in here in the last 30 seconds we have before the break. It always seemed to me that Tsaiyia went really would like to restore the old system of conscription, but she knows she can't because her base is based on young people and they're not really the old-fashioned model of conscription. And this volunteer thing, they're really trying to make it work. So I don't think we're going to see the old conscription system restored in Taiwan, although a lot of people would like it. I mean Tsaiyia went herself is what I understand. Well, after the break, we'll peel back this onion on some thoughts here. And the thing is that from our perspective, and I'll talk a little bit from the U.S. perspective of why you have to take care of your national defense system because that's the cherished bread and butter of your national pride, your nation's defense, your nation's security. So if you're going to cut something and you're going to work with the budget, that's the one part that you don't touch in a negative way. You have to go. Okay, I think we're going to have to stop here and we'll pick this up when we come back from the break. We're watching Asia and Review. I'm your host, Bill Shark. My guest today is retired Lieutenant, Army Lieutenant Colonel Scott Ellinger. He's coming from us to us from Taipei, Taiwan. Before retiring, he was a security assistance officer at the American Institute in Taiwan and years and years of experience in living in Asia. We'll be right back in one minute, so don't go away. Welcome back to Asia and Review. I'm your host, Bill Shark. Our show today is, Can Taiwan Depend on a Volunteer Force? Joining us from Taipei, Taiwan via Zoom is retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Scott Ellinger. Scott, before retiring, was a security assistance officer at the American Institute in Taiwan and years and years of experience living in Asia. Moreover, before he retired, he was a foreign area officer, which is a great program the military has, the Army has to train Army officers to be conversant in all aspects of Asia societies. Okay, before the break, we were talking about, we want to finish up our conversation. We were engaged in before the break and we're talking about Saiyan Wen really has this kind of inkling that she would like to restore the traditional conscription system, but she knows she just can't do that. So let's finish up on that and not spend too much time and then we'll move on to the pension, pension reform. So I think we're, it's going to have to be an overall national security council type of discussion with MND and other ministries that have to do a complete overhaul and look at the defense requirements of Taiwan and what the future requirements are going to be in the next five, 10, 15 to 20 years and they're going to have to make a hard decision and unfortunately for whatever president has to make this decision, it may be an unpleasant decision if the all volunteer force does not transition the way that they want. But we discussed that real quick and it'll probably go on a pension, but it's the budget requirement and they have to have the budget correctly set to do the transition and we worked with Taiwan on this transition and the requirements on budget, budgetary, the budgetary requirement to make this transition. So it's been discussed in the, the MND, a law of correction, the executive branch in the legislative UN really have to focus on setting aside a budget that allows MND to make this transition. So it's kind of the balls in the legislative UN court on the national budget and setting it for MND to make it. That would be a very simple fix for them to actually transition to an all volunteer force versus bringing back inscription. Okay, that's, that's, that's a, there's a lot of things there to think about, but let's move on to the national pension plan, especially we should say the military pension plan, because Tsai Ing-wen has sought to reform all of Taiwan government pension plans. She's gotten a real lot of opposition, big street demonstrations from retired military folks. So let's pick it up from there and fill us in on how this military pension reform is working its way out. Well, it's, it's overall the, the entire pension system for certain parts of their civil service people. And with that, you have the military, I think teachers was in there and I can't remember the third civil service group that was included in this, but it was something where they wanted to change their pension structure, because I think the funds that they had and the fund, the trust fund or the type of fund that they had was if they kept on the old system, they would go bankrupt. And so they had to modify something to make it happen. And unfortunately, they lumped them all together. And I know from about a year and a half ago to now, it is, there was quite a few protests. And I think it was just earlier this year that it was approved and was not received very well. And I was, right before the break, I was going to say, when you look at your national security apparatus at large in your national budget, you have all these different programs and different departments. The, the one, the one thing that the United States, regardless of Democrat or Republican, you don't touch and you don't mess around like the taking a stick and hitting a beehive, which Taiwan did, the stick and start hitting the beehive and stuck it and all the bees are coming out. They made that mistake because they made a political parties are playing with it. You don't touch veterans, the veteran programs. You don't touch that. You don't touch and decrease your retirement system. You don't mess around with salaries. You don't mess around with the pension program long term, but they did it. And they, they should have just, they should have taken it separate and make it its own program and not lump it with all civil service because your bread and butter of national security and your national system that's going to defend you is your department of defense or your ministry of national defense and all the services because in Taiwan, this national treasure is the military, HADR. So who's the first one called to rescue somebody in the mountains after a typhoon or a flood or an earthquake? Who does all the digging? Military is called first, you have birth responders, but the military is the one that does everything. And so why do you want to take that stick and go into the beehive and, and, and stir it up? And unfortunately, it's caused a lot of friction in Taiwan over the last six months. Well, it seems to me this situation is quieting down now though. What's your sense? From a news perspective, yes, it's quieted down. But if you go back six months ago, you had a lot of unhappy veterans or soon to be veterans. We're not happy with this because I think it's, it's morphed over a three year period. He had the old KMT directed system of this pension that would take care of the old term, the old timer, KMTs, KMT officers and non-commissioned officers. So, and then it morphed into something else. And now they have a hybrid system that gives them their pension process, but it, it, it got cut. Right, right, right. People that are retired already had their pensions cut. Really? Yeah. That's hard to swallow. And so, the M&D really needs to take a look at what we discuss with them. Recruiting is one. Retention is another. And retirement is another in the veterans programs. It's, it's one big package. And unfortunately, they didn't take it as one. They kind of sliced it into three areas and worked at them at different angles where they didn't look at it as a comprehensive one to the end of that program. So, go ahead. Okay. Well, time is racing on here. So, let's get to the reserves. And you know, I think I mentioned this on another show that we had recently here. And the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington held its annual Global Taiwan Symposium. I think it was two weeks ago, perhaps three weeks ago. Jim Moriarty, the chairman of AIT, American Institute in Taiwan, gave the keynote speech. And in that, he touched on the need for Taiwan to ramp up its reserve system. Also, Shirley Kahn, who's also appeared on the show, as has Jim Moriarty, in her comments at the Global Taiwan Symposium, she also talked about the need for Taiwan to ramp up its reserve system. Taiwan seems to be, how should I say, confused about how to rationalize its reserve system. How to make it a more credible part of its overall defense posture. Yeah. Well, we talked about this a year and a half ago, the first time I was on your show. We actually talked about this, where I think a great example would be looking at the United States National Guarded U.S. Reserve System for the Air Force, the Army and the Marines in the Navy. So, if somebody does four years act of duty or six years or eight years, they can go into reserve system and be a part-time soldier or a part-time Marine or sailor or airman. I'm sorry, I have to use all of our things. Sure. We don't want to overlook anybody. And we don't mean to slight the Coast Guard, but that's a different component of the Taiwan government. Yeah, they fall under the Ministry of Interior in Taiwan. But actually, I have a lot of Navy going there later after they're done with their Navy service. But the main thing is, we've discussed it and I think would be a really good thing is if M&D really looks at the U.S. system, because then you'll have a professional part-time soldier. If you look into maybe the Israeli model or some other models of the Swiss model, I think it doesn't fit as well, but because Taiwan is a true democracy modeled after the United States and some other than the constitutional monarchy, the reserve system of how the U.S. is set up, I think, is a great model for Taiwan to follow. And of course, they'll have to make some changes to fit their requirements. But that's how you keep a professional core of people. And if they created that system, I think it would be very effective versus the mobilization system that they have, which how do you keep somebody actually proficient in their skill and the old mobilization system they have today? That's a good point. That's a very good point. The term, it doesn't cut the mustard. And I think we used that term a year and a half ago. So they really have to take a hard look at the U.S. system. And I think the budgetary requirement, I think they can make it happen. It's just that they it goes back into making the change. They have to make the change, you know, just have the courage to make this change. But it goes back to legislative U.S. has to give them the budget to do it. I heard that from people that are also familiar with the reserve system that the big hang up is money, money, money and equipment. Okay, if you have this built up reserve system, then it costs more money. And you also have to give them more equipment. And that all comes down to, again, money. That's what you're saying. Okay, well, we only got a couple minutes left here and we have one minute left. I'm just told. And very briefly, very briefly, within one minute, what sort of enlistment incentives does Taiwan use to get people to enroll or I should say sign up for the military and also, as we would say in the U.S., to re-op retention. I don't know about the retention system, but I do know within the recruiting system, the incentives are they've actually increased the salaries quite a bit. So it actually it is lucrative for young people to come in. But again, it's there's it rolls into, okay, when I go in, what do I do after I leave? Looking kind of like we have the GI Bill and some instance, you know, Ministry of Education has to get involved on, you know, scholarship programs or something that meets Taiwan's needs can't be exact clone of the United States, but it meets needs of what will incentivize a soldier to raise their hand and volunteer. And we talked about that a year and a half ago. But if they do have incentives there, but I think it still needs to be tweaked a little bit and it goes back into increasing the budget a little bit, not too much, but they have to increase this budget. Well, the evil clock has just bit us again, and we're out of time. Wow, this this subject could we could go on and on and on this is a really interesting subject. Thank you very much for joining us. We really appreciate your insight, your long years of experience in Asia, your military background is really, you know, really brings a lot to bear to this show. And thank you very much for watching. We'll see you again next week when my guest will be retired US Navy Captain Jim Kimo Fanel. Before he retired, he was the N2 at Pacific Fleet, and he's going to talk about how to build a 350 ship Navy. So it should be a really good show. We'll see you then. Great to hear Jim's analysis. Great, great. Tune in then.