Taiwan is conducting its largest-ever annual military preparedness drills alongside extensive civil defense exercises aimed at mobilizing a whole-of-society response in the event of conflict with China.
Stretching from Aug. 5-14, the drills include several firsts: In addition to simulating the dispersal of defense production, Taiwan is throttling the island’s mobile network to show civilians what happens when internet services are disabled.
Inspired by war conditions in Ukraine, Taipei is also accelerating efforts to create a “hellscape” of drones and unmanned boats in the Taiwan Strait, as the island mulls a 16% defense spending increase. But focusing too much on military deterrence “overlooks the vector of conflict most likely to define a cross-strait crisis,” an expert argued in The Diplomat: “Civil defense.”