Defense Analysis amphibious assault Preventive strikes

Is the island of Taiwan going to have to turn into a fortress?

27th October, 2020

Harpoon Firing onboard HMAS PERTH. Mid Caption: An upgraded Harpoon Block II missile is launched successfully from HMAS Perth off the United States coast. The missiles were at the United States Point Mugu Missile Range facility on the 7 and 9 June 2012. Perth fired two missiles. The first Harpoon was launched against a land based target and the second against a moored target very close to the beach. Both missiles hit their targets highlighting their accuracy and precision. This firing significantly increases the versatility and potency of one of the Navy's key weapon systems. The Navy now has the ability to conduct long range attacks against coastal land targets or ships near the coastline. The demonstration of this capability and the successful upgrade of the ships systems to accommodate the advanced Harpoon missile make a great contribution to the ADF's ability to project power to protect shipping or support forces ashore.

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During the Second World War, the island of Malta, under British mandate, was transformed into a defensive fortress which allowed Great Britain to hinder the ambitions of the axis in North Africa, playing a leading role in the final collapse of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, running out of raw materials, especially fuel. The island was so strengthened that the Herkules invasion operation, scheduled for November 1942, and which was to mobilize more than 60.000 men, 1600 vehicles and nearly 600 combat aircraft, was canceled, in the face of some 26.000 defenders of the island, to ten tanks, and to 60 to 80 Spitfires and Hurricanes of the Royal Air Force which permanently defended Malta.

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It is perhaps an identical scenario which will take place concerning the island of Taiwan. While Beijing's declarations on "reunification by force" multiply, just as the exercises to prepare for it, the independent island since 1949 is rapidly increasing its defensive capacities, both to repel a naval air assault and a maritime blockade, as well as a campaign of air and cyber strikes. To do this, Taipei has multiplied, in recent years, the acquisitions of Defense equipment, both to modernize and to strengthen and extend the defensive capabilities of the island, with increasingly strong support from Washington, and despite an attitude still fearful of Europeans, who fear economic retaliatory measures by Beijing.