TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan and the US must bolster defenses against China’s gray-zone tactics, former US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner said Wednesday.
Speaking at the AI+Expo conference in Washington, DC, Ratner said China has been trying to convince leaders and the public in Taiwan and the US to accept that war is inevitable and China will eventually annex Taiwan, CNA reported.
Ratner said the US government has envisioned many possible scenarios in the Taiwan Strait, and gray zone operations are likely to be one of Beijing’s preferred approaches in the short to medium term, per CNA. Both the US and Taiwan must ensure they are prepared to face situations involving interceptions, unconventional incursions, withdrawals, and stalemates, all of which could potentially spark a crisis, he said.
The former defense official said the most important change over the past five years has been US efforts to strengthen its own military capabilities, operational concepts, alliances, and Taiwan’s resilience. People may assume China’s People’s Liberation Army has a military advantage, but that may no longer be the case, Ratner said.
Deterrence in the medium and long term can be sustained, he said, according to CNA.
From the Russia-Ukraine war to US and Israeli strikes against Iran, modern conflicts have combined new technologies with traditional concepts of warfare, offering lessons for the Taiwan Strait situation as well, Ratner said. He stressed that attention should now shift to cognitive warfare and high-level gray-zone activities.
Taiwan’s military has revamped its combat readiness framework to better counter China’s evolving gray-zone tactics.
Under the “Regular Combat Readiness Period,” the military has introduced three alert levels: “Combat Deployment,” “Level 2 Enhanced Readiness,” and “Level 1 Enhanced Readiness.”
For the “Defense Operations Period,” the military has identified three strategic priorities: “Joint Anti-Landing and Coastal Strikes,” “Beachhead Combat,” and “Defense-in-Depth and Sustained Operations.”
