War of Eagles

THIRTY-ONE

The commander in chief of the Taiwan Armed Forces, based at General Staff Headquarters, Ministry of Defense, in Taipei, sat in a conference room. With him were the commanders of each of the services. Except for short rest periods, the six men would be in this room for at least the next twenty-four hours.

Exactly one day before any rocket launch on mainland China, the 427th Taiwan Flight Wing, based at Ching Chuan Kang Air Base, went on alert. The nationalist Chinese did not expect an attack, and the planes did not leave the field. But the pilots all went to the ready room, and the radar was put on double data status. This meant that the sophisticated new American-built strong-net radar systems at Ching Chuan Kang were interlocked with the systems at Pingtung Air Base North, home of the 439th TFW. That gave the military overlapping pictures of the mainland coast. Instead of receiving a blip with each sweep of one system, incoming images were constant. The double data system left holes in Taiwan’s northern coast, but high command was not overly concerned. If an attack came from North Korea, Seoul would let them know.

Not that the Taiwanese high command expected an attack. Rocket and missile tests by the People’s Republic of China were more an opportunity for a drill than an anticipation of hostilities. It was a chance for the Taiwanese Armed Forces to show their across-the-strait military adversaries that they were watching.

And ready. Twelve hours after the radar scan had begun, Taiwanese Fleet Command would dispatch one cruiser each from the four major naval facilities at Kenting, Suao, Makung, and Keelung. Two recently commissioned dieselpowered submarines would be launched from the new mountain stronghold in Hengchung on the southern coast. Six hours after that, in Tsoying, the Taiwanese Marine Corps would prepare for deployment by sea and air. On the books, their mission would be to recover anything that might land in Taiwan’s territorial waters. But each man knew that in the event of a real crisis, their target could be anything from the vanguard of the PRC fleet to a coastal base or industrial complex.

In all, just six vessels and under three thousand men would be activated in this initial phase of national defense. If the TAF subsequently identified an actual threat from the PRC, the military would move from EWI — the early warning and information phase — to an aggressive electronic warfare phase. This would constitute a massive blocking of mainland communications and reconnaissance systems. Concurrently, Taiwan would launch its forces in a strategic counterblockade capacity to ensure that the waterways and air lanes would be kept free for the TAF and its allies. Antiballistic armament would be launched to intercept any missiles fired from the mainland coast. One hundred fifty F-16 fighters were the cornerstone to this capability. The American-made jets were faster and more powerful than the sixty French Mirage 2000-5 jets that formed the backbone of the PLAAF.

This information and counterattack superiority would form the basis of the initial Taiwanese thrust. It would be followed by a fully synchronized, multiservice and extremely quick response to any sea or land assault, or even the hint of one. There was no doubt in Taiwan that an initial thrust from the PRC could be met and stopped. Their entire strategy depended upon decisively repelling a first strike and holding a second wave. If a struggle went beyond that, and the United States did not intervene, the PRC would simply overwhelm them.

No one expected it to come to that. War benefited neither nation. Taiwan and the PRC did a great deal of business with one another. Not just black market activities but legitimate investments and industrial development. And those numbers were increasing exponentially. The only ones who objected to that were the vintage Communists and the military hard-liners. Both groups were losing ground to the young entrepreneurs. Ironically, these young men and women were a product of a successful Communist policy: the decades-old one-child-per-family rule. Family planning prevented an estimated three hundred million births, which would have taxed the infrastructure and kept Chinese mothers out of the workforce. But it also created a generation of pampered, entitled Chinese. These young adults wanted what their Taiwanese counterparts had: brand-name clothes, electronic toys, and high-end automobiles. Neither Communism nor militarism was going to give them that.

Nonetheless, the commander in chief and his staff still put the Taiwanese military through its carefully planned defensive motions. There was always the chance that someone in Beijing would think the future looked better draped in red instead of silver and gold. Reason and greed were powerful motivators. Unfortunately, so were habit and vanity. That combination could be catastrophic, especially if a political or martial cause to which someone had dedicated their life was in danger of being extinguished.