On December 27th, 2022, Tsai Ing-Wen, former president of the ROC, extended mandatory military service to a year.

Taiwan’s volunteer force has been shrinking for the past few years. Moreover, facing pressure from increased possibility of a Chinese invasion, Taiwan has decided to extend compulsory military service.

Extending military service will increase the size of Taiwan’s military, but this extension won’t improve Taiwan’s armed forces.

Longer conscription periods may give Taiwanese reservists slightly better training, and will generate a larger pool of reservists in case of war. Indeed, lack of personnel is a major problem for Taiwan’s armed forces, but this lack of personnel is the result of more fundamental issues.

Low respect for the armed forces

First of all, Taiwan’s military is not respected by the public. Even former officers in the ROC Marine Corps feel that people do not respect the armed forces and are reluctant to serve. Extending conscription will not grow Taiwan’s pride and confidence in its armed forces. As a result, while the military will look larger on paper due to conscription, the morale of its soldiers will be low.

Mental health problems

Furthermore, since military service places great pressure on its personnel, mental health problems are prevalent among soldiers. According to an article published by The Reporter, a culture of looking tough has made it difficult for soldiers to seek help when feeling depressed, as they fear they will be deemed weaklings.

One example is an anonymous officer in the ROC armed forces who claimed that some of his superiors told him to “go to a hospital” when he transferred to another unit due to depression. This incident shows that some officers still discriminate against soldiers who need mental health help.

Taiwan should ensure better mental health support for the military, and more importantly, have a more open attitude for troops seeking help.

Lack of equipment

Mental health and morale problems are serious issues that increased conscription periods cannot solve. However, there is one more practical problem: soldiers lack equipment.

Officers complain about too few communication devices, armoured cars, and fire engines. Taiwan seems to be too obsessed with high-tech equipment, neglecting more basic needs in the armed forces.

The military should focus on buying more weapons and vehicles instead of dragging a bunch of people into service who will be under-equipped.

Doubts over the armed forces’ training capability

There are doubts over the armed forces’ ability to properly train the added conscripts, as the armed forces plans to train 53,600 conscripts by 2029.

One example of this problem is that the army lacks training grounds for combat simulation. There are only two training grounds for battalion-sized armored units to conduct combat training.

Also, the armed forces have guaranteed that all conscripts will shoot at least 800 rounds and receive authentic combat training, but government officials admitted that the army lacks instructors and equipment. Currently, volunteer forces receive realistic combat training only once a year due to limited space, so training thousands of conscripts is out of the question.

Better solutions to boost Taiwan’s defense capabilities

Instead of lengthening conscription, Taiwan’s military can change for the better by retraining all reservists regularly. This annual retraining session is the “education recall”.

There is a two-week education recall for Taiwanese reservists every year, when former conscripts return to their units for review training. However, not all reservists are called up for service every year – the military draws lots to decide who to train. The military will re-train 22,000 reservists per year, much smaller than the 2,300,000 reservists the ROC military claims to have. The lot-drawing system results in uneven reservist training distribution.

There are better ways to implement education recall. Take Israel’s reservist training as an example: reservists are trained for at most one month every three years. Israel’s system would make sure that all reservists are trained, and they will be able to adapt quicker than their Taiwanese counterparts in case of war.

—

Lengthening compulsory military service will enlarge Taiwan’s armed forces, but this is just plastering over other problems. Many problems of the armed forces have nothing to do with troop numbers, such as mental health issues and low regard for military service, which leads to low morale. Adding troops will only make up for lack of personnel. Yet, equipment will still be scarce in some units. Moreover, while expanding Taiwan’s military would seem to grow our reserve force, the quality of the training may be poor.

Improving the educational recall system is a better alternative to extending compulsory military service, and it would ensure that all reservists are always ready to protect our country.