“Man as weapon” qualifies as our fifth, and not necessarily the least important, means of deterring China. Special forces would be the last line of defense during a major armed conflict in the Taiwan Strait, and the only part of a layered defense strategy whose activities would take place solely on Taiwanese soil. Everything else having failed and as the PLA approaches Taiwan’s beaches—including Taiwan proper as well as Penghu—special forces and elite reserves would kick in by attacking landing units. Working closely with the Army, which would ideally be equipped with an array of weapons including the Lockheed-Martin MGM-140 ATACMS short-range ballistic missile (to target staging areas along the Fujian coast) and various anti-armor/counter-landing weaponry, special forces and elite reserves would have the means to ensure high mobility, quick dispersal and survivability. Although Taiwan already has special forces units, many more bodies are needed to constitute a credible deterrent against PLA landing and occupation forces. To make up for that quantitative handicap, a small percentage of Taiwan’s estimated 2 million-plus reserves who qualify for enhanced training should be readied (and compensated) for high-intensity combat operations, urban warfare, sabotage, and non-conventional operations. The object is to ensure that PLA soldiers that seek to establish a foothold on Taiwan would come under sustained attack by forces that can disappear as quickly as they materialize and which could not be easily targeted by PLAAF air cover (by this phase in a conflict, we could assume that the Chinese air force has won control of the airspace in the Taiwan Strait). Investments in night-vision equipment, sniper rifles, anti-armor weapons, rapid-mobile transportation and devices enhancing situational awareness and communication would take up a marginal share of future defense budgets while greatly ameliorating the ability of Taiwanese ground forces to inflict unacceptable damage on PLA soldiers venturing on Taiwanese soil.

The point of all this would be to force Beijing to think not only about the cost of reaching Taiwan, but of what would happen to its soldiers once they got there. As recent experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan have made perfectly clear, winning the conventional phase of a war is the easiest part. It’s what comes next—the pacification of foreign land—that can cause the most serious headaches. If low-tech forces like Iraqi guerrillas or Taliban militants can take on the U.S. military and the world’s premier military alliance, surely well-trained, tech-savvy and properly equipped Taiwanese guerrillas could accomplish similar feats, if not do better.

Image Credit: GFDL License.