Taiwan Lessons Learned from the Russia-Ukraine War

Executive Summary

“Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow” is now a commonly used phrase in Taiwan. For decades, Taiwan treated a potential invasion by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a remote possibility. However, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has made a PRC invasion of Taiwan appear more credible and generated a sense of urgency among some leaders in Taiwan. This report examines the lessons learned that Taiwan’s government and defense officials are extracting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Taiwan government and military have enacted multifaceted reform with the goal of turning the Taiwan military into a credible deterrent and warfighting force. Although some reform debates predate the Russia-Ukraine war, Taiwan government officials have taken lessons from Ukraine to guide the restructuring of Taiwan’s military forces. Changes include lengthening the terms of service for conscripts and revising the military training cycle. The Russia-Ukraine war has also highlighted the role of uncrewed autonomous systems, emphasized the need for satellite communications connectivity, and reinforced the importance of defending against cognitive warfare operations. In this paper, we describe five key lessons learned that the Taiwan government is using to guide its efforts to turn the Taiwan military into a credible deterrent and warfighting force: force structure matters, personnel are critical for all-out defense strategy, importance of uncrewed systems, necessity of connectivity, and cognitive warfare concerns.