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Sardaukar20

Sardaukar20

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Bellum_Romanum said:
‘If war breaks out … I will just become cannon fodder:’ In Taiwan, ex-conscripts feel unprepared for potential China conflict



World



Soldiers take part in the Han Kuang military exercise, which simulates an invasion by China's People's Liberation Army, on July 28, 2022, in Pingtung, Taiwan.
Annabelle Chih/Getty Images

‘If war breaks out … I will just become cannon fodder:’ In Taiwan, ex-conscripts feel unprepared for potential China conflict
By Eric Cheung, CNN
Updated 8:36 PM EST, Fri January 20, 2023
Taipei, TaiwanCNN —
Rising concerns over increasingly aggressive military maneuvers by China have prompted Taiwan to extend the mandatory military service period most of its young men must serve. But former conscripts interviewed by CNN say Taipei will need to do far more than that if it is to make the training effective.

Outdated, boring and impractical. That was the verdict of six young men who spoke to CNN about their recent experiences of mandatory service in Taiwan’s military.

They describe a process that was designed decades ago with a heavy emphasis on bayonet training, but lacking instruction in urban warfare strategies or modern weapons like drones. Some say there were too few rifles to go around, or that the weapons they trained with were too old to be of use. Others recount “specializing” in cannon, grenade and mortar units, but never receiving any ammunition to train with.

Their criticisms come at a crucial time for Taiwan’s military. President Tsai Ing-wen announced recently that the period of mandatory service for men born in or after 2005 will be extended from four months to a year, saying that the present system “no longer suits the needs” of the island’s defense. The military says the rethink follows comparisons to the militaries of other democratic jurisdictions that have longer conscription periods – such as South Korea (18-21 months), Singapore (24 months) and Israel (24-30 months).


Strengthening the island’s military has become a key concern for Tsai, who has spoken of the need to highlight Taiwan’s determination to defend itself amid increasingly aggressive noises from Beijing. The ruling Chinese Communist Party claims the self-governing democracy of 23.5 million people as part of its territory, despite never having controlled it, and has sent record numbers of air and sea patrols to harass it since former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited in August. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly refused to rule out the use of force to “reunify” the island with mainland China.

“No one wants war,” Tsai said in announcing the lengthening of mandatory service periods in December. “This is true of Taiwan’s government and people, and the global community, but peace does not come from the sky, and Taiwan is at the front lines of the expansion of authoritarianism.”


A military exercise in Taiwan simulates an invasion by China on Jan. 6, 2022.
I-Hwa Cheng/Bloomberg/Getty Images
‘I only shot 40 rounds’
But former conscripts are skeptical, telling CNN the problems with mandatory military service go beyond the short time frame and will only be fixed by a more thorough revamp.

Tsai herself has acknowledged that many citizens feel serving in the military is “just a waste of time.”

“In our company, we had more than 100 assault rifles, but only slightly more than a dozen could be used for shooting practices,” said Frank Liu, a 26-year-old auditor from the central Changhua county who served in 2021. He said about 140 conscripts received training in his company.

“A lot of those assault rifles were made many decades ago, and many were too worn out to be used in training. The weapons had to be rotated among ourselves.”

Paul Lee, a factory manager from Taipei who served in 2018, had a similar experience.

“We didn’t fire many rounds during the military training,” Lee said. “I was practicing with the T65 assault rifle, and I only shot about 40 rounds during the entire training period.

“I’m concerned that many people who underwent the training with me won’t even be able to operate a rifle with confidence.”

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Well either the ruling DPP is truly incompetent. Or maybe the ROC military is just giving lip service to them. With an ROC army as rusty as that, it's much better to do a coup to oust the warmongering DPP than to fight a war with the PLA. It saves lives and expenses.
 
FriedButter

FriedButter

Colonel
Registered Member
siegecrossbow said:
What kind of retards are running the country?
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The progressive side of the dems and economists side (which the articles says) believes they should print money to pay for government expenses because they can.

It’s called “Modern Monetary Theory” which I think it’s stupid but somehow people believe this works.

Put simply, modern monetary theory decrees that such governments do not rely on taxes or borrowing for spending since they can print as much money as they need and are the monopoly issuers of the currency. Since their budgets aren’t like a regular household’s, their policies should not be shaped by fears of a rising national debt.

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M

measuredingabens

Junior Member
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emblem21 said:

I know I shouldn’t watch crap like this, but it does surprise me on how many channels as of late that I once found informative have devolved into madness and paranoia over time from how things are working out in the world right now. It is funny how certain channels can get so much wrong, that they believe that China and Russia to being in the losing end of things when it is the west that is completely losing it in every sense of the word, for evidence of this , simply watch Davos 2023 and you would easily see just how mad they have all become, I mean look as how crazy the elites are in how they behave, more weapons will solve the problem when such things need training for months to use. For them, diplomacy is dead and more of the same is the only solution and this is supposed to be a conference that is supposed to guided by reason and humanity, not some old fool that believes he can use economic sanctions and out right bullshit (microchips in brains and meta verse) to rule the world despite the companies responsible for such are now in economic free fall (simply looking at the number of layoffs from the tech companies recently in thousands demonstrates my point). To own nothing and being happy should never be in the same sentence and until this idiot understands how stupid this sentence is, his dream of a new world order will never come to be and the channel attached above shows just how disjointed the west world has finally become, a lot of what ifs and not enough reality, no attempts to understand the true cause and trying to insist that they are right without a single regard that maybe the side they cheer for are the sole and direct cause for all the misfortune happening right now and even worse, no amount of reasons being present are being considered until these peoples heads are slowly lowered onto the chopping block
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The Infographics Show is one of the worst offenders in terms of jingoism and misinformation these days. The channel all but blatantly supports genocidal repression of America's geopolitical rivals and its audience mindlessly laps it up. Even when it covered other topics the show regularly didn't perform due diligence in its research and often got facts wrong.
 
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