Retired admiral urges U.S.-Taiwan joint drills, economic warfare readiness

Washington, July 11 (CNA) Retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery on Friday called for bilateral military exercises between the United States and Taiwan, saying Taiwan must also train for Chinese economic warfare, both of which are missing from this year's Han Kuang military drills.

Speaking at a Hudson Institute panel on Taiwan's defense readiness, Montgomery said the Han Kuang exercise, currently underway through July 18, focuses only on a full-scale Chinese invasion but neglects more likely scenarios, such as cyber-driven economic attacks targeting Taiwan's financial, energy and communications systems.

He emphasized that the absence of U.S.-Taiwan joint drills is a major flaw, blaming it on U.S. reluctance.

"There is only one really big country in the world, and it's not China, it's the United States, and we need to act like it when we deal with them," he said.

Montgomery warned that without joint exercises, the two sides lack the ability to coordinate in a real conflict.

Taiwan and the U.S. are not ready to fight together," he said, adding that interoperability, shared equipment, and synchronized tactics are essential and currently lacking.

Fellow panelist and Hudson researcher Bryan Clark agreed. Joining remotely, he stressed that defending Taiwan requires minimizing U.S. casualties through coordinated action, firepower and unmanned systems.

"We can only do that if we start to do these exercises together and build the command and control and communications interoperability between the two countries so that if we don't do that, we're simply setting ourselves up for escalation followed by capitulation," he said.