In recent years, Taiwan’s military issues have received considerable discussion, from changes in Taiwan’s annual large-scale Han Kuang exercises to recommendations on equipment procurement. These are all quite important areas of change, but the most core issue seems to have received much less discussion: how exactly the Taiwan military may fight. The aforementioned changes in exercises and equipment procurement, in the end, are all meant to serve the kind of war Taiwan is prepared to fight. Taiwan has had some developments in this area that have received limited attention and discussion, but their importance is definitely no less than the developments in exercises and equipment.

The key is to comprehensively understand Taiwan’s efforts and preparations from the strategic level, using what the Taiwan military most often says about what kind of war to fight, what equipment to have, what kind of force structure is needed, and what training to conduct. Taiwan has moved from its past concepts of defeating the enemy on the opposite shore or seeking a decisive battle in the littoral area to actually carrying out an erosion strategy and sustained operations in recent years. To that end, Taiwan has continued to strengthen the army’s active-duty combat power in the northern region to build a layered defensive network and regional force superiority. Meanwhile, the cumulative duration of large-scale exercises in 2026 has already accumulated to nearly one month. There is also something that many people might have noticed but not realized: the significant expansion of Taiwan’s navy in recent years. 

At the same time, these developments also bring out the current difficulties Taiwan faces in joint operations across the services. This is one of the most critical areas to watch in Taiwan’s future defense development. In recent years, experts have paid considerable attention to the Taiwan military’s efforts toward decentralization, but in practice, joint command and control is the key to whether Taiwan’s combat capability can be improved.

Further Concentration of Forces in Northern Taiwan

The key to an erosion strategy and sustained operations is to delay and strike enemy forces through layered forces. Although Taiwan emphasizes decentralized command and control, this means emphasizing that a single operational unit can continue to carry out assigned actions based on higher-level operational objectives when command and control is disrupted. In terms of military operations, strategically concentrating forces to make it difficult for the enemy to break through and advance is quite important. And this is also what Taiwan is doing.

Northern Taiwan is where the political center is located, and it also concentrates important operational command organizations and transportation hubs. More than one-third of Taiwan’s population lives there. More than about half of the Taiwan active-duty brigade-level forces of the Republic of China (ROC) Army and Marine Corps are normally stationed in the northern region (north of Miaoli and Yilan), including the main combat forces, combined arms brigades, Army Aviation units, and Marine Corps forces.

In particular, in recent years Taiwan has continued during exercises to additionally move units from other regions into the northern region to conduct reinforcement missions. This makes the forces concentrated in the northern region possibly reach nearly two-thirds of Taiwan’s active-duty ground forces. During the 2025 Han Kuang Exercise, the main reinforcement was carried out by units from the Marine Corps 99th Brigade moving north from southern Taiwan to reinforce Taoyuan and the greater Taipei area. The 2026 Han Kuang Exercise further expanded the reinforcement forces, including forces under the Marine Corps 99th Brigade and Army 564th Combined Arms Brigade from southern Taiwan, and the Army 586th Combined Arms Brigade from central Taiwan, which moved and deployed to the northern region.

This kind of deployment and training concentrates forces in northern Taiwan and is, to a considerable degree, a focus of Taiwan’s current sustained defensive operations. In September 2026, during the ROC Army’s annual large-scale Lu Sheng exercise, Maj. Gen. Lin Shih-wei, deputy commander of the Army Education, Training, and Doctrine Development Command, clearly stated at a press conference that this exercise was centered on the concept of successive resistance and sustained operations under Chief of the General Staff Admiral Mei Chia-shu’s erosion strategy. Most importantly, the exercise area was changed to northern Taiwan in order to conform with the focus on defensive operations and allow troops to become familiar with key terrain in the area of operations and the deployment and employment of troops and firepower.

Nearly One Month of Large-Scale Military Exercises

Another development deserving more attention is that in recent years the Taiwan military has begun extending the training duration of various live-force exercises. In addition to extending existing exercises such as the nationwide Han Kuang exercise and the brigade-level Lu Sheng exercise, it has also added several large-scale exercises. 

The accumulated time of these military exercises has led the Taiwan military this year to spend almost an entire month participating in various live-force exercises, far more than in the past few years. This includes the five-day Immediate Combat Readiness Exercise in June, the five-day Joint Defense Exercise in July, the 10-day Han Kuang Exercise in August, and the 10-day Lu Sheng Exercise expected in October. 

Besides allowing units to have more time to complete continuous training events that could not be conducted in the past, this also allows participating units to become familiar with scenarios related to long-duration sustained operations during a future Taiwan conflict. The longer training and exercise duration allows units to validate operations under prolonged combat scenarios, as well as the maintenance of combat capability and coordination with civilian sectors in the use of civilian resources, including manpower and material mobilization.

Taiwanese Navy’s Expanded Mission

Another aspect worth attention in recent years is that the ROC Navy has been playing more and more roles in Taiwan’s current defensive operations. In the past, the Taiwan government mainly planned naval units in wartime as fleet task forces. In recent years, there have been three notable changes.

First, the Marine Corps under the Navy has undergone a major transformation in recent years, shifting from a force responsible for offensive amphibious operations and power projection in the past to a defensive force for urban areas. In recent years, Taiwan’s Marine Corps has gradually given up its tanks and self-propelled artillery in favor of drones and anti-tank equipment. As the strategic reserve directly under the General Staff Headquarters, the Marine Corps has been deployed to the Taipei area, with its mission shifting to become a defensive force for the capital garrison area.

Second, the ROC Navy this year established a new Coastal Operations Command within the service. Its commander holds the same vice admiral rank as the Fleet Command commander, and it integrates units related to shore-based anti-ship missiles, shore-based radar, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), and unmanned aerial systems, with the goal of establishing a coastal operations system across units and platforms.

Third, Taiwan’s Coast Guard this year added one new deputy director-general position, and in late September formally appointed a vice admiral from the Navy to the position. The purpose is to bring the Navy’s tactical thinking into the Coast Guard, inject key new momentum into the Coast Guard’s transition from peacetime to wartime, effectively connect communication channels between the military and Coast Guard, and deepen joint maritime-air defense and response mechanisms. 

In addition, Taiwan’s Coast Guard has also begun, during the military’s annual exercises, to expand training events related to the transition from peacetime to wartime, allowing its Coast Guard vessels to undertake part of the sea-denial strike missions during wartime. Specifically, this year’s Han Kuang exercise had the Coast Guard conduct exercises under the control of the Navy’s Coastal Operations Command.

These changes all show that the ROC Navy is playing an increasingly important role in Taiwan’s current defensive operations. This includes sea denial and coastal operations, and also includes the capital garrison mission during the defense-in-depth phase.

Policy Implications

Taiwan’s current defense preparations are not only changes in concepts and efforts in equipment procurement, but have also seen quite significant developments in military training and deployment validation. More importantly, as the relatively weaker side in the cross-strait military balance, Taiwan must necessarily concentrate its resources to a greater degree and use them more efficiently. Therefore, we can also notice that there is now more Navy involvement in maritime and coastal denial operations, and even in the land-based attrition strategy and the defense-in-depth phase. The Coast Guard is also practicing the transition from peacetime to wartime, 

But at the same time, these changes also point to a more critical area to observe in the future, which is whether Taiwan’s joint operations across the services, especially its command and control preparations, are in place. In the past, land operations were usually considered something for the Army to handle by itself. In a hypothetical scenario where the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would be able to conduct an amphibious assault on Taiwan and then offload follow-on forces, it was typically assumed to mean that Taiwan’s air and naval combat power had already been largely paralyzed, while China had air and sea superiority. Now, this situation has changed to a considerable degree. Navy shore-based units and Air Force air defense units will also play important roles during the defense-in-depth phase, and therefore preparations for joint operations become quite important.

The first question mark is the joint command and control capability under the concentration of large numbers of forces, including Army and Navy forces concentrated in the northern region, as well as Air Force air defense assets. Efficient command and control of different units in conducting joint operations is quite critical.

Second, and even more critical, is whether Taiwan can increase the capacity of its joint operations training. The Taiwanese military’s only Joint Operations Training Base has limited training capacity. Because of geographic space limitations and the need to avoid disturbing nearby residents, it can usually only provide battalion-level training. The ROC Navy, Army Aviation, and Air Force also have difficulty participating together as formed units in exercises because of the limited airspace. Although annual large-scale exercises can validate and train service members’ ability to conduct joint operations, in practice they cannot fully replace basic joint operations training.

Taiwan has far fewer resources compared with China, so joint operations capability is key to allowing Taiwan’s combat power to be used more efficiently. This is also a key area of Taiwan-U.S. military cooperation. In January 2026, media reports stated that U.S. personnel had been stationed at Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense Joint Firepower Coordination Center, which is responsible for cross-service fires deployment and coordination, and that joint staff work had reportedly already been conducted.

It is important to know that decentralization is a key capability when the command and control system is cut off, in order to maintain operational resilience. But for Taiwan, in the event of war, the best situation for resisting a Chinese invasion to the greatest extent should be to have a sound joint operations capability, so that resources can be converted into combat power to the greatest extent. Therefore, although experts in recent years have paid considerable attention to the Taiwan military’s efforts toward decentralization, joint operations capability is also critical.