Hsinchu County, northern Taiwan, Sept. 22 (CNA) Republic of China President Chen Shui-bian presided over an anti-airborne exercise carried out by the ROC Army's reserve forces Friday, and called for their continued training to augment the nation's defenses.
Speaking to the 1,698 reservists, who had been called up for a week of training that culminated in Friday's drill, Chen said that reserve forces play an important role in ground warfare. The drill was a key element of this year's ongoing Hankuang No. 16 and Tunghsin exercises.
Inspecting the troops in his capacity as the nation's supreme commander-in-chief, Chen added that reserves are not only in a position to support regular forces, but are even more essential as a stable foundation for cross-strait relations.
He went on to note that the Army's recent streamlining project has led to the establishment of various kinds of combined brigades, which rely heavily on the reserves to make up their garrison forces.
Chen pointed out that maintaining a large standing military no longer conforms with the trend in developed nations. Citing Israel and the United States as examples, he said that a nation's defense should rely on a sizable, well-trained, and capable pool of reserves.
Chen said that the minute war in the Taiwan Strait erupts, nobody in the society can place himself outside the war, and the key to victory in such a defensive war will be the ability and willpower of the people to support military operations by providing huge amounts of human and material resources.
The anti-airborne exercise showed how the reserves can utilize existing civil sector resources to deny enemy forces from carrying out a successful landing, the president said. This is exactly the concept of "defense by the entire people" that he has been promoting, he added.
According to the Ministry of National Defense, Friday marked the first time that reservists had practiced anti-airborne "mobile denial" tactical drills during the Hankuang and Tunghsin Exercises. Military officials added that the annual Wanan Exercise—a nationwide air-defense exercise --will include this type of drill in the future, so that the public can experience realistic anti-airborne operations.
The drills consisted of using various anti-airborne equipment to transform a field suitable for airborne landing into one that is hostile to enemy landings. Armored vehicles and various mobilized civil sector vehicles also took part in the exercise.