In his October 10 National Day address, President Lai Ching-te reaffirmed Taiwan’s commitment to asymmetric defense and the development of its own defense industries. He also emphasized keeping essential services functioning during a crisis. These are sensible priorities, but the difficult decisions come after the speech. Every new ship, missile, and drone competes for money and personnel that could be used elsewhere. At first glance, a larger arsenal is reassuring. Yet the more consequential question is how much of that arsenal Taiwan could continue using after the opening attacks. What should Taiwan buy if its defense depends on being able to fight again?
I would argue that Taiwan should fund the endurance of its existing and incoming forces before committing to further purchases of larger surface warships. That means giving ammunition, maintenance, trained personnel, and reliable communications priority in the next round of spending decisions. It is a less glamorous proposition than announcing another ship, and it asks politicians to defend investments that are harder to photograph. Nevertheless, a government responsible for the island’s survival should be willing to make that case. Taiwan’s procurement decisions should leave Beijing doubtful that an initial military advantage could be converted into a quick political victory.
The reasoning behind this approach is hardly new. In his explanation of the Overall Defense Concept, retired Admiral Lee Hsi-min defined success around preventing China from occupying Taiwan. His argument favored numerous, mobile, dispersed capabilities while recognizing the competing demands of everyday Chinese pressure. For a lay reader, this is the logic of asymmetric defense: Taiwan uses different methods to frustrate a stronger opponent rather than attempting to reproduce its military. I find that objective more convincing than any ambition to keep pace with China’s fleet. The challenge is making it govern purchases when each branch of the military has understandable reasons to want something else.
The choice is already visible in Taiwan’s naval plans. In February, USNI News reported plans for ten additional light frigates between 2028 and 2040, divided between air-defense and anti-submarine roles. Taiwan also needs to replace aging vessels, so dismissing the program as vanity would be unfair. Still, replacing an old ship does not settle whether another ship of comparable role is the best use of the next defense dollar. A procurement program extending into the next decade should have to explain how its benefits compare with capabilities that can become useful sooner.
My preference remains for a greater emphasis on missile corvettes, smaller warships that can carry anti-ship weapons without concentrating as much of the fleet’s investment in each hull. But that preference needs a limit. A corvette is still a vessel that needs fuel, maintenance, ammunition, and trained sailors. Its size does not guarantee that it will survive, and it cannot perform every mission assigned to a frigate. I would apply the same scrutiny to another corvette order as to a larger ship: does it add a capability Taiwan can sustain under pressure, and is that capability worth what Taiwan must give up to acquire it?
Research supports taking survivability seriously, although it should not be mistaken for a forecast. CSIS’s 2023 invasion study made a strong case for mobile coastal missiles and other dispersed defenses. Its simulated outcomes depended on major assumptions, including Taiwanese resistance, American intervention, and access to bases in Japan. The model also assumed heavy initial losses to Taiwan’s navy and air force; those losses were not an independently established prediction. What I take from the study is the need to question how much useful capability would remain after severe disruption. A favorable result in a war game offers little reassurance if the conditions supporting it are absent in an actual crisis.
This is where the second salvo becomes a useful test. By it, I mean the ability to continue defending after weapons have been used, equipment has broken, and familiar routines have been interrupted. A missile launcher’s purchase price tells us little about whether its crew can remain effective under those conditions. The same applies to a drone or an air-defense system. If an additional purchase leaves the force short of the people and supplies needed to keep existing equipment working, I would favor fixing that shortage first. Public information does not allow an outsider to judge the adequacy of every stockpile. It does allow us to ask whether a purchase includes the support needed to make it useful.
Taiwan’s defense planners already recognize the problem. The 2025 Quadrennial Defense Review calls for dispersed supplies, stronger maintenance capabilities, and closer coordination between regular and reserve forces. It would be misleading to present those ideas as something Taipei has overlooked. The question is whether their implementation receives the same urgency as equipment acquisition. A plan to improve maintenance is valuable, but its effect depends on technicians, parts, training time, and money arriving together. I would like to see more public scrutiny of whether those commitments are being met, with sensitive operational details reserved for appropriate legislative oversight.
Drones show why this distinction matters even within the category of asymmetric weapons. In a September 2 assessment of Taiwan’s drone industry, researcher Cathy Fang identified continuing questions about the integration of systems from different suppliers, including their communications, training, and sustainment. She also described dependencies on foreign components. These findings complicate the appealing idea that Taiwan can simply manufacture its way to security. Domestic assembly is useful, but it does not remove dependence on parts made elsewhere. A large order is therefore only the beginning of the defense benefit. The systems must work together, operators must know how to use them, and replacements must remain available when obtaining them becomes difficult.
There is a temptation in this debate to replace enthusiasm for large ships with equally uncritical enthusiasm for cheap drones. I am not convinced that this gets Taiwan very far. Buying thousands of devices can create thousands of maintenance, training, and replacement obligations. The relevant comparison is what each investment allows the armed forces to do reliably. A system that performs well during a demonstration may still be demanding to keep in service. The people expected to operate it should have a meaningful role in judging whether it is ready for wider procurement. Their experience deserves more weight than the appeal of a headline announcing another large order.
The hardest objection to this argument is that Taiwan has to prepare for more than an invasion. A force optimized to threaten landing ships might still struggle to keep commercial traffic moving during a blockade. CSIS’s 2025 blockade study, based on 26 war-game iterations, identified Taiwan’s energy supply as a serious vulnerability while also finding that a blockade would carry substantial risks for Beijing. Missiles alone cannot make shipping companies accept those risks. Nor can a stockpile of weapons substitute for electricity, medical care, or functioning transport. This is why Lai’s emphasis this month on the continuity of civilian services belongs in the defense discussion. Taiwan would need a functioning society behind the forces defending it.
That objection also gives the conventional fleet a serious claim on resources. Air defense, anti-submarine work, and a sustained presence at sea are real missions. Maintaining ships for them requires skills and industrial capacity that cannot be recreated immediately after a decision to let them disappear. I would therefore retain necessary fleet maintenance and replacements supported by a clear mission. What I would challenge is the assumption that acknowledging a mission establishes the right scale of investment. Taiwan can recognize the value of larger ships and still decide that a follow-on procurement should wait while more urgent readiness needs are funded. Such a decision would be a choice among military requirements, not a rejection of naval power.
The budget should make that choice explicit. Before approving additional major surface combatants, lawmakers should require a comparison of their full operating costs, personnel demands, and expected usefulness under disruption against credible alternatives. The same review should establish whether the weapons already ordered have funded training, maintenance, and replenishment plans. If those requirements are not adequately covered, the follow-on purchase should be deferred. This would not require publishing ammunition locations or sensitive readiness figures. It would require the government to demonstrate, through protected oversight where necessary, that a new acquisition strengthens a force it can actually operate. That is a more demanding standard than showing that the equipment itself is impressive.
There is a political cost to this approach. Deferring a visible program disappoints industries, military organizations, and communities that expect to benefit from it. Funding spare parts or retaining experienced maintainers offers fewer obvious moments for celebration. Yet overlooking those people has a cost of its own. A sailor does not become replaceable because the vessel is smaller, and a reserve unit does not become prepared because its name appears in a plan. Taiwan’s citizens are being asked to take defense seriously. They should be able to expect that the government’s purchases include a credible provision for the people who will carry the burden of using them.
Outside support remains essential to this calculation, but it cannot be treated as a timetable Taiwan controls. The invasion study’s warning about wartime resupply reflects a basic geographic problem: supplies must reach an island through contested air or sea routes. Taiwan and its partners should therefore give greater weight to what has been delivered and made usable before a crisis. Taiwan’s endurance could give other governments more time to make decisions and organize assistance. It could not guarantee their intervention. The case for investing in endurance is strongest precisely because it improves Taiwan’s position across several possible outside responses, including a response slower or narrower than Taipei would hope.
As October’s defense commitments turn into future spending decisions, I would judge progress by whether Taiwan is making its forces harder to exhaust. Additional ships may sometimes pass that test. So may mobile missiles, drones, better air defense, or the less conspicuous work of keeping equipment and personnel ready. My position is that these readiness requirements deserve to be funded before the next generation of larger surface ships proceeds. Before approving another hull, I would want officials to explain what the forces already in service still need, and why those needs can wait. If the answer is unconvincing, the ship should wait instead. Taiwan has too much at stake to confuse buying the next weapon with being ready to use the ones it has.