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Retired U.S. military generals attend tabletop war games: Source

ROC Central News Agency

05/20/2023 06:51 PM

Taipei, May 20 (CNA) An observation group composed of retired United States generals attended the five-day tabletop war games phase of Taiwan's annual Han Kuang military exercises this past week, a source told CNA on Saturday.

They came as observers and to provide their suggestions on the tabletop war games, which simulated the armed forces' defensive response to various attack scenarios, the source said, without going into detail.

As in previous years, this year's Han Kuang exercises are being held in two stages.

The tabletop war games phase was held from Monday to Friday and the live-fire exercise component is scheduled for July 24-28.

Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at Taiwan's Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that while Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense (MND) has never confirmed the presence of observation groups, retired U.S. military personnel have come to watch war games in Taiwan for many years.

With the U.S. becoming more open about arms sales to Taiwan and pushing initiatives friendly to Taiwan, it was not a surprise that the group's members this year consisted of many high-ranking retired officers, Su said.

In late April, a MND official said the computerized war games this year would be conducted using the U.S.-built Joint Theater Level Simulation (JTLS) platform to simulate joint, combined, and coalition civil-military operations at the operational level.

The JTLS is highly informative because the system incorporates data from the actual combat experiences of the U.S. and NATO, Su said.

The parameters obtained from the recently concluded tabletop war games, he added, will be put into practice in the live-fire Han Kuang drills in July and will be used to refine and modify future exercises.

The Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan's major war games, have been held annually since 1984, in the form of live-fire drills and computerized war games, to test Taiwan's combat readiness in the face of a possible Chinese invasion.

This year will mark the 39th edition of the annual exercises, which are Taiwan's most important military drills that include all branches of the armed forces.

(By Matt Yu and Ko Lin)

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