Whole-of-society resilience: A new deterrence concept in Taipei

Taiwan President Lai Ching-te announced in June the establishment of a Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee to better prepare the country to face natural and human-made disasters, including the threat of blockade or invasion by China. Taiwan is disaster-prone—it experiences approximately 18,649 earthquakes and three to four typhoons annually which regularly cause flooding and landslides. Taiwan’s infrastructure is built to withstand natural disasters due to some of the most stringent building codes in the world, but Lai determined that Taiwan’s society needs resilience on par with its buildings. Beijing’s military coercion and the threat of blockade, missile strikes, and invasion are the primary human-made challenges Taiwan must also contend with. Just as Taiwan faces increasing risk from climate change-driven natural disasters, the military threat from China is also growing.

The whole-of-society resilience (WOSR) effort is a substantial part of Taiwan’s overall approach to defense and deterrence. By changing the Taiwanese people’s perceptions of China’s military threat and realizing their own agency to address it, Lai is seeking to empower the Taiwanese people. He plans to counter military coercion by galvanizing society to cooperate with the military and government to increase Taiwan’s will to resist coercion. Taiwan’s commitment to developing WOSR presents significant opportunities to expand U.S.-Taiwan cooperation to enhance Taiwan’s deterrence and increase cross-Strait stability.

WOSR and the Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee

The foundations for Lai’s WOSR campaign were laid in 2022 during the previous Tsai Ing-wen administration. The Ministry of National Defense stood up the All-out Defense Mobilization Agency (ADMA) on January 1, 2022, and published a handbook for civil defense. In September 2022, the National Security Council began studying other countries’ resilience initiatives, including national plans for incident response centers; civilian training; stockpiling strategic materials, medical, and social welfare; digital resilience; and civil air defense and evacuation models. Some relevant materials have been translated, such as Swedish government handbooks on resistance.

Lai chaired the first Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee meeting on September 26, 2024, establishing the political framework for mobilizing society and coordinating government efforts. The committee is made up of government departments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), corporations, and academic experts.

The committee’s mandate is to address societal resilience to natural disasters and military operations against Taiwan, such as a blockade or missile strikes. There are important distinctions between a natural disaster and a military operation. A natural disaster would likely last days or a few weeks, would likely be localized, and would likely not disrupt communications between national command authorities and responders in the field. A blockade or missile strikes would likely last weeks or months, affect all of Taiwan, potentially result in greater casualties, and likely disrupt civil and military communications and the government’s command and control networks. The WOSR campaign clearly intends to address vulnerabilities in both long- and short-term risk scenarios.

The committee has prioritized three key objectives in its implementation of the WOSR campaign: to ensure the government can maintain continuous operations, sustain critical social services and core functions of society, and provide civil support to military operations when necessary. These objectives will be supported by five “pillars”: civilian training; strategic material stockpile and distribution; critical infrastructure; social welfare, medical, and evacuation; and information systems, communications, transportation, and financial networks.

Civilian training

Lai’s administration has set a goal to train 400,000 citizens to contribute to societal resilience. A critical aspect of the campaign is ensuring citizens are aware of threats, aware of available resources, know their roles in a disaster or attack, and feel empowered to protect themselves and their country. One goal is for citizens to be able to augment government-provided services such as emergency first response, distributing emergency supplies, and supporting victim services, including shelters. Lessons are being taken from the Baltic states and Sweden, which have well-developed total defense doctrines and infrastructure to address the threat they face from Russia.

The Ministry of the Interior (MOI) is currently evaluating its role in citizen training efforts and will play a central role in the campaign. MOI works in conjunction with the Ministry of National Defense (MND) to manage Taiwan’s conscription program, and it plans to establish an Alternative Military Service and Social Resilience Training Center. It is also planning to overhaul the Taiwan Civil Emergency Response Teams program to enhance volunteer firefighter training, update equipment, and initiate call-up training for reservists in alternative service.

Nongovernmental organizations are training civilians, while social and religious groups are providing training, education, and disaster relief services. Retail companies are also expected to serve as distribution points for critical materials.

Strategic material stockpile

Government departments are tasked with identifying and stockpiling critical materials, including food items, cooking fuels, ready-to-eat meals, and self-heating rations. They are also developing plans for the distribution of these materials to affected communities and for coordination with local governments and retail outlets. Local disaster coordination centers have been established in local governments throughout Taiwan, and apps are being developed to efficiently distribute supplies to citizens.

Critical infrastructure resilience (energy, utilities)

Protecting critical infrastructure, particularly Taiwan’s energy supply and the delivery of electricity, is critical to meet society’s needs, sustain government operations, and supplement and support military operations. The Ministry of Economic Affairs currently manages the supply of imported coal, petroleum, and natural gas and is investing in expanding facilities for a strategic energy reserve. Initiatives are also underway to enhance Taiwan’s power grid and secure water supplies, including drilling water wells for emergency use. Plans are being developed to increase the security of critical infrastructure, including protection against sabotage.

Social welfare, medical, and evacuation facilities

According to conversations I had with members of Taiwan’s National Security Council, Taiwan’s authorities have already established over 84,000 air raid shelters, 4,600 wartime disaster relief centers, and 6,000 evacuation centers to be used in the event of an attack. Buildings with basements in urban areas are marked with shelter signs, while plans are being made to utilize underground facilities, such as parking garages, as temporary medical centers, which will be staffed with civil and military medical teams. A National Resilience Medical Preparedness Management Center has been set up by the Ministry of Health and Welfare to oversee a wartime medical command system and implement a National Medical Resilience Preparedness Plan.

Information systems, communications, transportation, financial network security

The Ministry of Digital Affairs is developing a redundant emergency communications network to ensure civil and military authorities can maintain command and control in the event of a contingency. This includes the planned deployment of medium- and low-orbit satellites, cross-network roaming, cloud-based data backup for government and public networks, and the development of a public protection and disaster relief communications system. Smartphone apps are being developed to support societal resilience, access to resources and services, and continuity of operations for critical communications networks.

The WOSR campaign is an ambitious undertaking that requires considerable financial and human resources and is only sustainable with Lai’s continued attention and commitment. Involved ministries will all need to develop specific line items in their budgets for WOSR initiatives, which will likely be debated in the opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan. Exercises will be conducted in each of the five pillars to test plans and assumptions, including a planned tabletop exercise in December 2024 and small-scale disaster relief exercises in each pillar beginning in spring 2025. Civilian involvement in exercises will be expanded, including in Wan’an air defense drills and the Han Kuang annual military exercises starting in June 2025. The presidential-level Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee will continue to meet quarterly and hold continual coordination meetings at working levels convened by the National Security Council and Executive Yuan.

Role of the military, fire, and police in WOSR

The ministers of defense and interior are key members of the presidential-level committee, and their respective subordinates already play critical roles in national responses to a major disaster or military contingency, especially the Ministry of National Defense’s All-out Mobilization Department and the Ministry of the Interior’s fire and police agencies. However, these ministries and agencies do not have clear roles in the five pillars set out by the committee. Since the WOSR campaign is top-down, not bottom-up, these agencies will face challenges in committing resources to internal strategic planning efforts and determining how to integrate their efforts with society and the other agencies to avoid waste and inefficiencies.

Interagency coordination is a challenge in any government, and Taiwan is no exception. Still, there are a few mechanisms to help departments break through stove pipes or share information. For example, the Ministry of Digital Affairs is developing an emergency communications network, but it is uncertain whether there is adequate coordination with the Taiwan Armed Forces and fire and police agencies to ensure that the wartime communications system meets their and civilian ministries’ requirements. Likewise, the Ministry of the Interior is building a system to train civilians as an alternative to the military reserve system, which is already struggling to adapt to changes in conscription terms as well as the overall challenge of a shrinking population.

Risks and challenges

The WOSR campaign is ambitious, complex, and expensive, all of which present risks to execution. The president’s personal attention and the WOSR approach’s clear rationality increase the campaign’s chances of success over the long term, but there are at least three risks that the government will need to monitor: public opinion, resource constraints, and bureaucratic competition.

At its core, the WOSR campaign is a narrative about resilience, and Taiwan’s ability to confront human-made and natural disasters. Taiwan’s citizens have lived with the specter of a Chinese blockade or invasion for decades and are already cognitively resilient to the threat, which sometimes leads outside observers to determine that Taiwanese are naïve or ignoring it. Lai needs to tread carefully when making the case for society to enhance its resilience against aggression from the People’s Republic of China without overhyping the threat, causing panic, or undermining confidence in Taiwan’s long-term development and prosperity.

Resilience is expensive. Developing redundant communications systems and stockpiles of critical materials is costly and not necessarily a high priority for Taiwan’s taxpayers, who prefer to see government resources expended on social services they immediately benefit from. Making the case for WOSR investments and their price tag will certainly be politically contentious, particularly in the opposition-controlled legislature.

The WOSR campaign entails extensive government involvement and coordination and will likely result in some competition within the bureaucracy, particularly over scarce resources. There will undoubtedly be a need to meld civilian and military requirements for certain resiliency programs, such as emergency communications and the allocation of the electromagnetic spectrum for civil and military use. There may also be competition between the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Defense for a shrinking number of conscripts due to Taiwan’s low birthrate. Coordination between the national government and local governments will need to be developed to roll the program out to the entire country. Local government needs and national government prescriptions and support may not be perfectly aligned.

These challenges are likely manageable because of Lai’s personal attention to the WOSR campaign, but it will be crucial to align interests and objectives, maximize coordination, and minimize friction between diverse stakeholders in both the public and private sectors.

Recommendations for U.S.-Taiwan cooperation

The Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee and the WOSR campaign comprise a rational approach to defense and deterrence and present an opportunity for the U.S. government and civil society to expand engagement. Societal resilience is an integral component of Taiwan’s national defense that contributes to deterring China’s use of force. It is therefore advantageous for the United States to look beyond arms sales and military strategies to expand how Washington conceptualizes and bolsters Taiwan’s deterrence.

The American Institute in Taiwan, the de-facto U.S. Embassy in Taipei, already sponsors and participates in NGO training sessions, but the WOSR campaign creates more opportunities to strengthen Taiwan’s resilience and the bilateral relationship. Expanded bilateral cooperation should not be limited to direct-counterpart ministries, since the government departments on either side do not always line up evenly in terms of roles and missions. While Taiwan has a Ministry of Interior, for example, its role and structure are different from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Therefore, U.S. government interlocutors should reach beyond counterpart dyads to expand cooperation to nontraditional partners, including local governments and the private sector. Working across agencies on the Taiwan side of a cooperation equation could help foster interagency coordination between Taiwanese organizations that lack a culture or history of engagement with one another.

Individual U.S. government departments at the national and state levels have tremendous experience and expertise that they can share to help Taiwan counterparts tackle monumental WOSR tasks. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, for instance, has a massive inventory of civilian resilience materials and expertise to contribute. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency under DHS coordinates cyber and critical infrastructure defense, including missions aligned with the WOSR Defense Committee such as protecting the power grid from electromagnetic pulse and geomagnetic disruption. DHS’s Office of Emergency Communications could share valuable experience about contingency communications networks and spectrum management with Taiwan counterparts.

DHS should consider making significant human resources investments to ensure effective coordination and strategic planning with Taiwan, both at headquarters and based full-time in the American Institute in Taiwan. A DHS attaché based in Taipei working closely with a robust “Taiwan Desk” in Washington could develop engagement and cooperation plans and encourage and coordinate partnerships between state-level emergency management departments and local-level Taiwan counterparts.

Likewise, other U.S. government departments, including Defense, Treasury, Energy, and others, should evaluate how they can support the WOSR campaign as part of a whole-of-government effort to enhance Taiwan’s resilience and deterrence. Taiwan, for its part, should consider designating a full-time coordinator at the National Security Council level to lead bilateral dialogues and strategic planning with U.S. counterparts.

U.S. companies in Taiwan should also consider engaging NGOs such as the Forward Alliance (a member of the WOSR Defense Committee) to conduct resilience training for their employees.

Conclusion

Lai’s intention is to raise awareness of resilience as much as prepare for catastrophe. He sees WOSR as a means to demonstrate Taiwan’s resolve to defend itself, enhance its defense and economic security, and strengthen its democratic institutions and relations with other democracies—what Lai has described as his four-pillar plan, including a stable and consistent cross-Strait policy.

Societal resilience and the fundamental notion that Taiwan’s people have agency are integral to Taiwan’s democracy. Promoting those messages is therefore as important to protecting Taiwan’s way of life as the actual investments in preparedness. The messaging and visible steps being taken within the committee’s five pillars also enhance other aspects of societal resilience beyond the committee’s scope, such as societal responses to disinformation and influence campaigns. The resilience campaign is an important measure against the comprehensive political, economic, and military coercion the Taiwanese people now face. It has the added advantage of being inherently defensive and unprovocative.

The WOSR campaign will give the Taiwanese people hope and appreciation that they can stand up to threats. It is central to Taiwan’s continued ability to deter China from using force to compel unification and therefore complements Taiwan’s military defense spending. U.S. cooperation with Taiwan in the WOSR campaign amplifies the deterrence effect and builds the confidence of Taiwan’s citizens.

Lai’s campaign to foster WOSR improves Taiwan’s ability to defend itself and meaningfully contributes to Taiwan’s deterrence. It also increases the population’s morale and will to resist and ultimately fight should China choose to use coercion or force against Taiwanese, thereby justifying the strategy and the investment of public resources. Furthermore, WOSR creates new avenues for U.S.-Taiwan cooperation which enhance deterrence, and Washington also benefits because increased cooperation accentuates U.S. credibility as a partner and security provider in the eyes of U.S. regional allies as well as the people of Taiwan. Expanded U.S.-Taiwan cooperation as well as Taiwan’s resilience investments will not go unnoticed in Beijing either. Taiwan’s investments in WOSR complicate Beijing’s choices about whether to use force and challenge assumptions that Taiwan would succumb to a blockade military assault and surrender. WOSR is a potentially game-changing policy that should be wholeheartedly supported by the incoming Trump administration.