Taiwan's reservist Drills 'Great first step': The retired USADMIRAL highlights must counteract the KPCP aggression

Taipei [Taiwan]July 20 (Ani): A counter -admiral of the US Marine, Mark Montgomery, praised Taiwan's mobilization of over 20,000 reservists in this year's military exercises in Han Kuang as a significant step towards strengthening the island's defense skills, reported in Taiwan.

Mark Montgomery, Senior Director at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a Pensioner of the US Navy 2017, said that participation of more than 20,000 reservists is a “big first step” to cope with an important defense challenge for Taiawan.

“Taiwan has to redesign her balance of her active service in order to do it right,” he said, emphasizing that optimizing the reservist use will improve the overall defense of the island.

According to Taiwan's Defense Minister Wellington Koo, the 10-day Han Kuang exercises included up to 22,000 reservists, the highest number in the history of the exercises. Despite this progress, Montgomery said that the Han Kuang exercises with limited military participation in the US military remain “one-sided Taiwanese” events. “Maybe there are American observers there, but it's really a Taiwanese exercise,” he said.

Montgomery emphasized that Taiwan can not only confront the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and demanded joint military exercises that include US marine, air and ground troops.

He referred to the Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act from 2023, which the US Department of Defense proves to increase military exercises with Taiwan. “The Han Kuang series is the perfect platform for such a training,” said Montgomery and underlines the need to build interoperability in order to prevent the KPCH from taking aggressive measures.

In the case of defense expenditure, Montgomery said that Taiwans is currently sufficient for 3 percent of the GDP assignment for the moment, but recommended to increase 5 percent by the end of President Lai Ching.

Montgomery is to visit Taiwan later this month to take part in war games, which are organized by the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and emerging technology in Taipei.

The simulations will concentrate on energy-based economic war and cyber attack scenarios and aim to protect the power grid and the supply of Taiwan from potential disorders by the PLA or the Chinese coast guard, reported Focus Taiwan. (Ani)

(This content is obtained from a syndicated feed and published as received. The tribune assumes no responsibility or liability for its correctness, completeness or content.)