Russia’s intervention in Ukraine did not start with the full-scale invasion in 2022. Well before, Moscow had spread misinformation in the country, supplied arms to separatists in Donbas, and deployed “little green men” to Crimea. If China launches a bid to absorb Taiwan, it may follow a similar playbook. The operation would likely begin not with tanks and missiles but with covert attempts to undermine civilian morale and public confidence in the Taiwanese government.
Although Taiwanese and U.S. defense planners are right to prepare for a Chinese invasion or blockade of Taiwan, the more immediate risk is that China would try to use gray-zone tactics, including sabotage and subversion, to destroy Taiwan’s will and power to resist. China might systematically sabotage water facilities, flood the island with propaganda, use cyberattacks to take down the electric grid, orchestrate “accidental” disruptions of the Internet by cutting undersea fiberoptic cables, and provide aid to Taiwanese opposition figures and movements. Beijing’s short-term aim would be to wipe out, without firing a single shot, Taipei’s ability to mobilize the public against Chinese coercion and aggression.
Unfortunately, Taiwan is not presently prepared for Beijing’s gray-zone actions—and neither is its main supporter, the United States. Taiwanese leaders have taken some important steps over the past year to strengthen national resilience, including increasing national-level planning and conducting exercises that involve civilians, but they have a long way to go. Taiwan’s energy sector is fragile. Its telecommunications infrastructure is vulnerable to subversion. And unlike in Ukraine in early 2022, there is little evidence that Taiwan’s military-age citizens are willing to take up arms if the United States is not there to back them up. These vulnerabilities—compounded by the Trump administration’s “America first” policy, the shakeup of historical U.S. alliances, and friction with some regional allies, such as Australia—make it more likely that Beijing would consider Taiwan ripe for the picking.
U.S. military and training support for Taiwan is limited and focused on preparing for a conventional invasion, but much needs to be done outside that realm. The United States must help Taiwan secure additional sources of energy, such as nuclear power, that could sustain the island in case of a blockade or quarantine. To compensate for the loss of access to undersea fiberoptic cables to Chinese sabotage, the Trump administration should support Taiwan’s development of strong satellite communications in low-earth orbit. And to help coordinate international assistance, Washington needs to establish an expanded security assistance mission, much like it did in Ukraine.
A failure by the Trump administration to bolster Taiwanese resilience could mean letting Taiwan collapse beneath the weight of Chinese intimidation, coerced into accepting a deal with China on Beijing’s terms. If the demise of a prosperous, pro-American democracy were not worrying enough, China’s success in Taiwan might embolden Beijing to use the same tactics elsewhere. And the countries it might target, such as the Philippines, could grow more likely to bend under Chinese pressure.
BEARS DON’T PREY ON PORCUPINES
From a national security perspective, a country is resilient if it has the will and the ability to resist and recover from external pressure, such as disinformation campaigns or a full-scale military invasion. Resilient societies can protect their civilians, ensuring minimal services such as electricity and medical care continue; stand up to coercion and aggression; and build public will to fend off and survive an invasion.
Resilience is vital in a crisis. Ukraine demonstrated this in February 2022, when the country rallied in the face of Russian military incursions, cyberattacks, propaganda, assassination attempts against Ukrainian leaders, and other threats. Ukrainians kept electricity and power plants going, signed up to fight in droves, countered Russian cyber-operations, and conducted assassinations and sabotage in Russian-occupied territories, making it hard for Moscow to administer and stage assaults from those areas. All of this bought valuable time for Ukraine’s allies, especially the United States, to pour billions of dollars of military aid into the country, helping the country survive multiple years of a grinding war against a much larger aggressor.
But the greatest advantage that resilience confers is in helping countries forestall crises in the first place. Resilience is vital to deterrence. Countries that lack resilience are easier to invade. Those fortified by resilience are more difficult to occupy. The Finnish national defense strategy is based on old proverb: “Even the biggest bear will not eat a porcupine.” In practical terms, becoming a porcupine means building up such national resilience that would-be aggressors think twice before engaging in an invasion that promises to be too costly to sustain.
Resilience has many components, but several stand out: well-organized and well-run national command structures that set clearly defined responsibilities, capable legal authorities, effective and efficient communications, adequate civil defenses, fortified critical infrastructure, a strong public will to fight, preparedness to engage in nonviolent resistance, and ample support from partners and allies. To build resilience, governments must have a plan, a budget, a division of labor among key actors, and other essentials. In Finland—a leader in thinking on resilience because of the decades-long threat it has faced from neighboring Russia—the Ministry of Defense runs a whole-of-government committee that is focused on resilience, with different ministries participating along with representatives from businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and the political leadership. This committee ensures that Finnish government ministries regularly update plans, carry out risk assessments, and conduct drills and exercises.
Rule of law is critical to resilience. To maintain order in a crisis, governments might need to deploy the military domestically, whether by declaring martial law or through other means, and seize property that could be used by foreign governments to conduct spy and sabotage operations. Should an invaded country or part of it fall under foreign occupation, local populations would require official representation in exile. To that end, governments must prepare for their own potential displacement and transfer assets abroad accordingly. They must also ensure that the areas under occupation would not be abandoned. Stay-behind networks, or organized groups of citizens who resist the occupier, could continue to gather intelligence, administer medical support, counter propaganda, and engage in sabotage and fighting.
Information is vital in a crisis, and disinformation and cyberattacks on government and media sites compound the challenge. Populations must be prepared for information operations and understand their own roles and duties in advance of a crisis. In the wake of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, Lithuania—a NATO member that shares a border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and the Russian satrapy Belarus—distributed instruction manuals to its citizens titled, How to Act in Extreme Situations or Instances of War. (To increase readership, the state titled a follow-up edition Prepare to Survive Emergencies and War: A Cheerful Take on Serious Recommendations.) Such efforts can reduce the impact of disinformation and disruption.
Populations must also have emergency stores of food, water, batteries, and shelters. Countries such as Finland and Israel have extensive air-defense shelters. The former Finnish chief of defense, Jarmo Lindberg, has compared the Helsinki underground to “Swiss cheese,” complete with a far-reaching network of tunnels and deeply buried military headquarters. In a crisis, both government personnel and civilians might have to provide medical care, assist those with disabilities to move out of vulnerable areas, and otherwise protect their fellow citizens.
As its name suggests, critical infrastructure such as communications, energy, and transportation systems must be protected. Such systems—and the expertise to defend, maintain, and repair them—are increasingly in the hands of private actors. To mitigate vulnerability, the government must secure their cooperation in its crisis preparations before a disaster unfolds. In Finland, the National Emergency Supply Agency, a government department, works with around 1,500 companies to ensure stockpiles, redundancy, information sharing, and other essentials that may be necessary in a crisis.
The public’s will to fight is more nebulous, but one factor that increases it is a high level of social trust. For example, in Israel, despite the country’s many political divisions, there is a durable will to fight born of a strong collective identity and widely shared concerns about external threats. Israel reinforces the will to fight, in part, through military conscription and compulsory reserve duty, as well as state-subsidized higher education that helps reduce the efficacy of foreign disinformation campaigns. Atomized societies are less able to resist outside pressure.
Finally, resilient countries are integrated into broader networks of allies and partners. Foreign countries can provide supplies, military aid, and diplomatic support. A country such as Finland or Lithuania cannot hold out on its own against Russia indefinitely: support from NATO allies is essential. Creating plans for cooperation in the event of a crisis sends a signal that strengthens deterrence. If an invasion occurs, structures will already be in place to receive military, medical, and other supplies, and having a plan can help a small country maintain its resolve as it awaits the arrival of outside military forces.
CRACKS IN THE ARMOR
Taiwan has taken some steps to strengthen its resilience. Last year, President Lai Ching-te established a Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee to organize and prepare the Taiwan for natural disasters, gray-zone activities, and invasion. As part of this effort, Taiwan’s National Security Council, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Digital Affairs, and other agencies are now conducting civil defense exercises, developing better ways for the government to communicate with the population in a crisis, and more. But Taiwan still has a long way to go.
One glaring area of concern is Taiwan’s energy infrastructure, which is an easy target for Chinese gray-zone activities and conventional attacks. The island imports over 97 percent of its energy, most of which comes from oil and petroleum, coal, and natural gas. A blockade by the Chinese military would create severe energy problems, since Taiwan’s reserves of natural gas would last less than two weeks and its coal reserves just over a month.
Taiwan’s electric grid is overly centralized and heavily relies on a few large plants. A serious problem in any one plant could ripple across the entire grid and cause significant disruptions. Three major blackouts in the past eight years highlight this fragility. The most recent, in March 2022, affected nearly 5.5 million residents and cost semiconductor, petrochemical, and steel businesses more than $16 million.
Taiwan’s telecommunications infrastructure is also vulnerable. In February 2023, two Chinese merchant vessels cut undersea cables connecting Taiwan’s main island with the Matsu Islands, disrupting Internet communications. This January, a Chinese-linked cargo vessel damaged another undersea fiberoptic cable—one of only 14 such cables linking Taiwan to the rest of the world. Taiwan relies on Eutelsat OneWeb, a European satellite operator, for low-earth-orbit satellite service and backup microwave communications. But OneWeb lacks sufficient bandwidth to make up for the potential impairment of all or most of Taiwan’s fiberoptic cables.
A final area of concern is the Taiwanese public’s willingness to fight a foreign invader. A 2024 survey conducted by the Taipei-based Institute for National Defense and Security Research indicated that 68 percent of respondents would be willing to fight to defend Taiwan. Yet just over half of Taiwanese believe the U.S. military would come to their aid following a Chinese invasion, and only 39 percent believe the U.S. military would break a Chinese blockade of Taiwan. No opinion polls have asked Taiwanese respondents whether they would still fight if the United States abandoned the island following a Chinese invasion or blockade. And Taiwan’s young people, who would bear the brunt of the fighting, are less willing to fight than the older generation.
BUILDING RESILIENCE
The Taiwanese government is understandably worried about spooking its population by highlighting the extent of the threat from China, but it is necessary for Taipei to issue more urgent warnings about Beijing’s rapidly expanding capabilities and aggressive actions. In recent years, China’s People’s Liberation Army has engaged in a conspicuous military buildup and ramped up its cable cutting, cyberattacks, air and naval encroachments, and military exercises, including a simulated blockade of Taiwan.
In light of this growing threat, Taipei should establish a public communications platform that regularly alerts citizens about Chinese actions on or near the island. A data-driven system that reports updates objectively would not only help foster a public dialogue but also give citizens tools to discern between actual threats and misinformation. In parallel, Taiwan should develop a more unified strategic communications campaign across its government ministries to ensure that consistent messages about the threat level are communicated to the Taiwanese people.
Taiwan also needs to increase redundancy in its energy sector. Above all, the government should decentralize and upgrade the island’s power grid. Taiwan’s small number of centralized power generation facilities could be knocked offline by cyberwarfare or missile or other attacks; increasing the number of microgrids and local power generation units would enhance the system’s resilience to attacks and natural calamities, reducing the risk of blackouts. Taiwan should aim to decentralize at least a third of its power generation within the next decade, with a focus on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, which are more adaptable than fossil fuel to decentralized systems and do not require resupply from outside sources. Restarting one or more of Taiwan’s nuclear power plants would help, too. This process will take several years, but it is critical to ensure sufficient energy in a crisis. It is also popular in Taiwan, with roughly two-thirds of the population supporting nuclear energy.
China’s success in Taiwan might embolden Beijing to use gray-zone tactics elsewhere.
In the telecommunications sector, Taiwan’s leaders are understandably opposed to working with SpaceX’s Starlink, on account of the SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s business interests in China and his decision not to extend Ukraine’s access to Starlink service in some areas, such as the Black Sea, after Moscow objected. But the island does need a powerful satellite service to reduce its reliance on undersea cable networks. The most logical alternative to Starlink is Amazon’s Kuiper broadband Internet constellation. Taiwanese leaders are already in discussions with Kuiper, but they need to move toward a deal more quickly, and Kuiper needs to increase its satellite launches in low-earth orbit.
Taiwan should also work with U.S. cloud services such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services to store backups of its critical data outside the island. Although every government prefers to buy local, using Taiwanese firms for data storage leaves the data more vulnerable to Chinese cyberattacks, espionage, and physical destruction through missile or other attacks.
Finally, Taiwan needs to better integrate the private sector into its resilience efforts. Domestic and international companies should be involved in planning around energy, telecommunications, information technology, and cyberdefense.
A LITTLE HELP FROM ONE’S FRIENDS
The U.S. government has focused on providing military capabilities and training to Taiwan and helping it develop more secure technical systems, all in service of resisting a conventional Chinese invasion. But U.S. efforts have not sufficiently prepared Taipei to meet the growing spectrum of threats it faces, particularly gray-zone threats.
One useful step would be to develop a larger and more coherent security assistance program that includes preparation for both conventional and gray-zone attacks. Modeled in part on the U.S. assistance mission to Ukraine, an enhanced security assistance mission for Taiwan would bring in additional U.S. aid and advisers, who would also oversee the hardware, software, training, education, and other forms of security aid provided to Taiwan. U.S. Special Operations Command, the arm of the U.S. military most capable of training, advising, and assisting foreign partners subjected to gray-zone attacks, should play an elevated role. An expanded U.S. security assistance program could also help coordinate and increase assistance from experts from the Baltic states, Finland, Japan, Sweden, Ukraine, and other countries with decades of experience in improving national resilience.
The program could also help Taipei step up its civilian defense. There are several Taiwanese organizations that provide media literacy, first aid, and other training, but they are small, decentralized, and unprepared for wartime situations. The Taiwanese government has plans to train 400,000 civilians to support the military in a national emergency, but the scale of this effort is not large enough, given the amount of military power China can deploy. Civilians also need to participate in live-fire exercises, which simulate realistic scenarios. As part of civilian preparedness, the United States could help Taiwan increase the construction of bomb shelters, strengthen its command-and-control system for a national emergency, and develop and exercise emergency evacuation plans.
The Taiwanese government has markedly improved its national resilience efforts over the past year and is slowly shifting to a whole-of-society approach to crisis preparation. But these measures are still not sufficient to manage a threat as serious as the one China poses. Even as the United States helps Taiwan address its military weaknesses, it should also recognize that gray-zone threats can complement or even substitute for an outright invasion. A mix of subversion, disinformation, and limited attacks could create enough chaos and confusion that Taiwan would not be able to respond effectively, making it far easier for Beijing to subdue the island. If Taipei and Washington fail to act with greater urgency, Beijing may well take advantage of the opportunity to secure its control.
Loading…
