ns-singapore.blogspot.com/2009/0 … itary.html
Draft may be dropped starting 2015
Cool.
Not really. Michael Cole has written about this many times. There is simply not the budget for this type of transition which means we will end up with a seriously underperforming military.
It also makes it easier to keep political affiliations of recruits under control.
These types of changes are good in a normal country. Taiwan is not a normal country.
Not to turn this into a political debate, but does Taiwan really need a sizable military? This isn’t a place that face any sort of imminent danger from external conflicts or terrorism that can only be resolved by an arms race or military action.
Plus “4 months of military training” is still military service.
If you look at the date on it, it’s old news - from March this year.
That said, any efforts to reduce military service must be applauded.
If you think about that year, 2015, that’s a very strategic year. This is the KMT announcing this very far in advance because they think it will be a popular policy to implement among younger voters. Ma’s term will be up in 2012. If he is replaced by a DPP president in that year rather than being reelected (since he is not too popular at the moment), he can count on the DPP to scrap this plan to eliminate the draft. When this happens around 2015, it will still be fresh in people’s minds that “the KMT wanted to get rid of the draft but the DPP reversed it” in the next election (2016), giving the KMT’s presidential candidate an initial advantage.
This is nothing more than very long-term vote planning.
I don’t know about that. I speculate that the citizenry of nations that engage in draft (as opposed to purely volunteer armies) are a lot more cautious about letting their governments engage in foolish and unnecessary militaristic adventures.
A regular functional military serves many roles (slightly differing for every nation) that goes beyond simply acting as a deterrent to foreign abuse.
[quote=“XinBiDe”]If you think about that year, 2015, that’s a very strategic year. This is the KMT announcing this very far in advance because they think it will be a popular policy to implement among younger voters. Ma’s term will be up in 2012. If he is replaced by a DPP president in that year rather than being reelected (since he is not too popular at the moment), he can count on the DPP to scrap this plan to eliminate the draft. When this happens around 2015, it will still be fresh in people’s minds that “the KMT wanted to get rid of the draft but the DPP reversed it” in the next election (2016), giving the KMT’s presidential candidate an initial advantage.
This is nothing more than very long-term vote planning.[/quote]
Are you sure the DPP wouldn’t do the same thing? They are, after all, the party under which the mandatory military service period was basically cut in half, for votes of course.
Maybe they would, but the damage to them is done because the KMT announced this plan first. Also, I’m betting the DPP will be quite paranoid about China once they inevitably allow Taiwan-Mainland relations to go stale again.
TW wants a “professional” military. The young draftees they are getting in are not worth keeping for the most part. They can barely learn how to pick up a weapon and aim it properly and walk a mile before they rush back to the dorms (err barracks) to pull out a manga and try to get online with a netbook perhaps.
So they decided that they will just provide 4 months of hand holding to these kids. Basically the draft comes down to 4 months. Just enough time to learn your dog tag.
They want career people who will be there for ten plus years. Just like the USA military. TW pays attention to what the US and Europe does. NOt immediately but they do pay attention.
What Taiwan needs to do is find a way to market the military as a viable career. It’s probably a good idea to capitalize on the difficulty of finding a good job these days.
It’s not just the draftees don’t want to be in the military - it’s the entire boot camp system. I saw this on the news a few months ago that due to budget issues and the government not wanting to spend “frivolous” amounts of money on training soldiers to do missile launches, some people in the camp were made to do dry anti-air missile launches with “imaginary” missiles, basically just pretending that they were holding it in their hands and passing it on to the next guy.
The whole thing looked like a joke but was apparently true. After all one missile probably cost more than how much a draftee gets paid over his entire mandatory service career.
Taiwan already has a sufficiently large number of voluntary troops because the compensations are fairly good. The plan to reduce the size of its military has been in motion several years ago, when they offered alternative service and began to cut service time.
This 2015 proposal as a matter of fact was actually a step back from what I heard, which was 2013 and no 4-month training.
Apparently the ROC constitution mandates compulsory military service for young men. It doesnt say what this service has to entail though, so they can be liberal in its application. Hence the 4 month stint. Which will likely be like a tough 4 month summer camp.
Boot camp in Taiwan is a joke. They got so much that needs to be learned in a 5 week period they don’t spend time to get each of them perfected before moving onto the next. For example they barely run or push up because there are just no time for that. When it comes time for the PT test they just pick the most athletic guys to do the test (they do not test everyone) to make the brass happy. The cruel thing is once these rookies goes into their respective unit they get picked on because they are unable to meet their requirement.
I just think if they want boot camp it should be tough so those who makes it through won’t have such a hard time at their regular unit.
I too wonder what sort of Military Taiwan needs. If there is an armed conflict, it would likely be with China. Pretty sure China can spare enough people to sink the island by just catapulting them across the straight.
There was a time where China might have had a lot to gain by politically absorbing Taiwan through means of force. At this point in time though, Taiwan needs China more than China needs Taiwan. As such, China can do more damage to Taiwan through economic means (and threats) than military means.
Yeah hence the questionable need for a military aside from a small, professional, high tech, peacekeeping SDF
Many friends i know was wishing for this to happen but they couldn’t run away any more BBA, MBA,…) If it ever happens, they will feel bad :roflmao:
The Taiwanese military is all for show, anyhow. Fun for the kids on Double Ten. Buzzing towns in their F-18s. Scooting around town in the fatigues, impressing the ladies. The occasional disaster relief (kudos to that, however).
Taiwan is absolutely nowhere near battle ready. So this plan is just legislation on an existing state of affairs.
[quote=“Taiwan Luthiers”]Boot camp in Taiwan is a joke. They got so much that needs to be learned in a 5 week period they don’t spend time to get each of them perfected before moving onto the next. For example they barely run or push up because there are just no time for that. When it comes time for the PT test they just pick the most athletic guys to do the test (they do not test everyone) to make the brass happy. The cruel thing is once these rookies goes into their respective unit they get picked on because they are unable to meet their requirement.
I just think if they want boot camp it should be tough so those who makes it through won’t have such a hard time at their regular unit.[/quote]
Wow, reading these posts it’s interesting how much things have changed. It used to be two months, with PT every day, and everyone had to do the tests and drills. However, rookies have always been picked on, just because they are rookies.