Someone enlighten me on this subject:
Is Taiwan preparing for an eventual capitulation by reducing
active military to less than 120,000 within the next 10 years?
(about half of its current size)
The draft is ending. It wants to lower the numbers in the armed forces but have a higher quality force.
Makes sense to me.
Is an extra 120,000 soldiers going to make any difference if China attacks?
If you know a lot of young men who have been drafted, you’ll understand that cutting the military is a good idea. People are apathetic about military service and for the most part try to get to out of it; failing that, they do their time with as little effort as possible. A good number of young men find ways into “alternative service,” which can include working in private sector companies, teaching at schools, or doing janitorial work just to name a few. That doesn’t really make me confident in the professionalism of the armed forces.
Cutting the number of soldiers down means that you’re only keeping volunteers who want to be there and look at it as a job, not an annoying obligation to get out of the way. It’s also necessary because Taiwan’s birthrate is in freefall, so the small number of full-time volunteers today will become even smaller unless something is done to encourage people to be all that they can be.
Nope, it’s really about advanced weapons these days.
That, too. It really doesn’t make sense for Taiwan’s army in particular to be the size it is. If there is any ground fighting, that means the enemy has already landed on Taiwan and you might as well raise the white flag.
Absolutely right HH. Important to have the best Training also ,so you don’t crash very expensive Jets on a weekly basis . 
Absolutely right HH. Important to have the best Training also ,so you don’t crash very expensive Jets on a weekly basis . [/quote] BTW , I mean maintenance,more than Pilots. !!
Yeah that was rough a few weeks ago, losing two in a week. They must have been getting a bit too excited.
Their planes are getting old and they are complex pieces of equipment that fail catastrophically.
What they need are a drone and robot army, I have some people I could suggest already for the role.