Editor’s Note: This is the second part of a two-part article series: “Making Time Work for Taiwan, Part 1” appeared in the March 25, 2026 issue of the Global Taiwan Brief, which was a special theme issue titled “Current Major Issues in Taiwan’s Defense Production and Military Force Structure.”
Taiwan lives under the shadow of an authoritarian state determined to undermine, undercut, and extinguish Taiwanese sovereignty. One poisoned fruit of that effort is an induced defense incoherency and paralysis, which Taiwan has only recently and partly overcome. In part 1, I discussed how Taiwan needs an all-around defense centered on its new “strategy of erosion” (削弱戰略). This is a strategy intended to utilize Taiwan’s terrain to maximize defender advantages, and to systematically erode the PLA’s combat power as it presses in on the island—as well as to guard against a return of paralysis in defense planning.
This type of all-around defense is inherently complex for Taiwan’s military to execute—even more so than opposing a landing campaign. In a blockade or quarantine scenario, the enemy will not obligingly run into the teeth of Taiwan’s anti-landing defenses, nor clump up on a few suitable landing beaches. The enemy would not have to sustain and defend the massive level of logistics needed to move, feed, and arm an invasion force across the strait. The enemy would not need to immediately transition from a D-Day landing into a massive urban assault on the Taoyuan / Taipei region.
The primary reason why a blockade or a quarantine is not the first choice for the CCP is that the time necessary for this type of attack to have an effect would heighten the CCP’s strategic risk: namely, that the United States would be able to rally a global coalition and intervene in force. Given the choice between assuming greater operational risk through a rapid full-scale invasion versus the strategic risk of a blockade / quarantine, the Party likely prefers the former.
However, as Taiwan’s ability to fend off a rapid invasion increases, Taiwan will need to consider that foreclosing one option will force the Party to lean into the other. Taiwan’s defense needs are many, and resources are limited. However, Taiwan can hedge between these interlocking scenarios, with a long-term national defense plan based on the first principles of the strategy of erosion.
First Principles of the Strategy of Erosion
Within the strategy of erosion, there are two key innovations that differentiate it from earlier strategies: systematic weakening of the enemy, and protraction. By breaking these innovations down to first principles, a vision of Taiwan’s future defense can be extrapolated.
- The first concept, “systematic weakening of the enemy”, is based on the following insight: As the aggressor, the PLA wants a rapid decisive battle with the tactical and operational advantages of striking first.
- This leads to the conclusion: Do not do what the enemy wants.
The strategy of erosion thus seeks to absorb the first blow, instead of resisting with full force at the outset. New PLA technical capabilities such as the PCH-191 modular long-range rocket launcher make massed attacks vulnerable. Moreover, the continued expansion of the PLA landing fleet means that if Taiwan gambled too heavily on defeating the initial invasion wave, the enemy would still have reserves that Taiwan would be challenged to match under fire. The new strategy thus seeks to structure defense as a campaign versus a battle: methodically weaken the enemy force as they get closer to Taiwan, while defensive forces strengthen over time.
- The second concept, “protraction,” is a logical outgrowth of this line of thinking: The CCP fears a long war, with the resulting loss of “war control” (控制戰爭).
- This leads to the conclusion: Do what the enemy fears.
Thus, to deter the adversary, Taiwan must be seen to be prepared for a long war, and able to stoke CCP fears of losing control of the direction and scope of the war.
Taiwan’s defense reforms, including whole-of-society defense resilience, are in the service of these two concepts. It is a radical vision of reform and can be extended to provide for an effective all-around defense.
Human-Machine Teaming
The concepts of systematic weakening and protraction are both manpower and resource intensive. In the Russia-Ukraine war, Ukraine gambled heavily on decisive action in its 2023 counter-offensive; but hastily-trained recruits had trouble coordinating their attacks into the teeth of Russia’s long-prepared defenses, resulting in high casualties for little gain. Ukraine was forced to spend the next two years without the necessary reserves as they pivoted to an erosion strategy. This almost led to disaster for Ukraine several times, with exhausted units collapsing without adequate back-up during withdrawal. Taiwan has neither the manpower nor space nor time to make that same mistake.
Human-machine teaming is how Ukraine is regaining the ability to sustain the war, after trying to fight Russia on Russia’s terms. To offset dangerously low troop density, Ukraine sought methods for unmanned systems to both substitute for and integrate with manned forces. In 2024, Ukraine established the Unmanned Systems Forces as an independent branch. The USF worked through a step progression system: development of unmanned systems for front-line logistics, then for stationary defense. AI integration in interceptor drones and turrets followed. Finally, there was a transition to the counter-offensive: Ukraine has begun to use unmanned systems for reconnaissance and shaping strikes to open the way for manned, mechanized maneuver warfare. In 2026, Ukraine gained ground for the first time in years, while casualties have gone down by 30%.
For Taiwan, a similar transformation will certainly not be cheap or easy to replicate. The battlefield environment would involve considerably more enemy defensive systems— kinetic, electronic warfare, or cyber—in a smaller space; and the PLA has greater capabilities compared to the Russians. The right mix of force integration with unmanned systems will likely be very different from the mix that Ukraine uses. In a blockade or quarantine scenario, the relevant tactical target sets will likely be focused on finding and overwhelming ships to punch holes in the blockade, as opposed to creating an anti-ground maneuver kill zone. This is a technically harder task to master. However, Taiwan has stronger conventional capabilities compared to Ukraine; it is not for nothing that Ukraine, despite being a leader in UAV development, is still desperate for modern fighter and airborne early warning and control aircraft.
The success of Taiwan in getting this transformation right holds the promise of offsetting PRC numerical, electronic warfare, and firepower superiority—particularly when the enemy is transiting vulnerable open terrain and waters. Human-machine teaming is key to sustaining the erosion strategy into the future.
Victory through Time
Sustaining a protracted war, however, is not enough. Ukraine has protracted the war far past Putin’s timelines and sharply driven up the Russian casualty rate, but that has not been sufficient to force Putin to the negotiation table. Protraction needs to be paired with the plausible threat of sharply escalating costs for the attacker, beyond tactical costs alone. This is particularly true in Taiwan’s case, where a successful deterrence effort, or even the defeat of an invasion, may lead the PRC to consider long-term strategies like a blockade.
Ukraine’s long-range strategic strike campaign, and to a lesser extent Iran’s strikes in the US-Iran conflict, show how weaker actors can impose escalating costs on a grander level. Ukraine’s strategic strike campaign is now capable of sustaining a near-daily attack rate involving dozens and sometimes hundreds of UAVs. This turns Russia’s size from an asset into a vulnerability, with the strikes on key economic targets like fuel refineries slowly strangling the Russian war economy and exhausting air defense interceptors. Time and attrition warfare no longer works in Russia’s favor.
Meanwhile, Iran’s strikes show another method of horizontal escalation. Iran sought to impose economic costs on US allies and partners in a bid to restrain US power projection. This is not directly applicable for Taiwan, as the PRC is bereft of allies. However, it shows that both countries have adapted elements of deterrence by punishment into an overall strategy that still focuses primarily on deterrence by denial.
Ukraine has shown the ability to impose economic costs by oil refinery strikes on an extractive Russian economy. Iran has shown the ability to impose economic costs by blocking freedom of navigation in a chokepoint. Taiwan can similarly strategically deter by being able to do elements of both. This means developing the capability and capacity to sustainably strike PRC ports at scale, thereby shuttering PRC maritime trade and the export-oriented PRC economy—as well as disrupting the PLA’s capability to reinforce a landing on Taiwan, or sustain a blockade. This type of operation used to require large manned force packages to suppress enemy air defenses, conduct the strike, protect and potentially rescue the strikers in what would be a very risky operation. In the era of precise mass, where relatively cheap platforms can replicate elements of a more complex and expensive air force strike complex, this can now be conducted repeatedly via a combination of decoys, UAVs, and low-cost cruise missiles.
Systemic tactical adaptation and integration of unmanned platforms will demonstrate Taiwan’s ability to sustain a protracted war. Wartime capacity to threaten thousands of long-range strikes over time will demonstrate Taiwan’s ability to win a protracted war.
Conclusion
Taiwan has overcome much of its former paralysis from defense incoherency and embarked upon an ambitious set of military reforms, centered on the strategy of erosion against an invasion. These reforms are not complete and must be prioritized. The recent passage of the truncated special defense budget goes some way to funding a force that is capable of carrying out both the reform and strategy.
However, both the reform and the strategy’s end-states are insufficient. They are realistic, based on the desired reform timeline and current budget; however, if Taiwan wants the capabilities and capacities to carry out an effective all-around defense, this is only the very beginning of a long-term investment.
Yet what is unrealistic with today’s ways and means can, and should, change over the long-term. The expansion of Taiwan’s industrial capacity, paired with a truly massive economic boom, means that Taiwan has a unique opportunity to scale up defensive capabilities without serious economic pain. With continued fast reform and investment, time can be made to work for Taiwan.
The main point: Taiwan’s new strategy of erosion is an excellent start, but it is only a start. Taiwan can make time work in its favor against PRC coercion by applying its strategy of erosion into an all-around defense framework. This enlarged strategy relies on both the capability to conduct human-machine teaming and the capacity to threaten PRC ports at scale.
