A Warning by a Retired Green Beret: Taiwan’s ‘Porcupine Strategy’ to Stop China Has No Quills on the Inside

National Security Journal | Stephen D. Cook

Taiwan’s current defense doctrine relies dangerously on standoff platforms like Harpoon anti-ship missiles and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems while ignoring the internal human resistance infrastructure required to survive a complete maritime blockade by China. Without contiguous land borders to allow NATO-style resupply, the island risks rapid paralysis once Chinese precision strikes destroy centralized military infrastructure and energy grids.

To prevent rapid collapse, defense planners must operationalize the Resistance Operating Concept by establishing a decentralized civil-military underground, clandestine auxiliary networks, and dispersed guerrilla forces before hostilities commence. Geography makes post-invasion resupply impossible. Pre-positioning encrypted radios, Javelin missiles, and medical supplies inside thousands of urban and mountain caches offers the only realistic counter to blockade-induced attrition. Utilizing Section 1202 of the National Defense Authorization Act, low-visibility Special Operations Forces Liaison Elements can train Taiwanese cadres in clandestine tradecraft without triggering premature regional escalation.

Comment

Adopting US Special Operations Command Europe’s Resistance Operating Concept shifts defence doctrine from concentrated maritime interdiction to total population resilience. While anti-ship missiles delay coastal landings across the Taiwan Strait, an island blockade renders Keelung's centralized depots vulnerable to initial People's Liberation Army strike packages. Decentralised guerrilla cells and pre-positioned arms caches shift the operational burden onto small, autonomous territorial units inside the Central Mountain Range.

This doctrinal decentralisation inevitably restructures Taiwan’s All-Out Defense Mobilization Agency by stripping top-heavy headquarters of direct operational control. Decentralised command authority forces municipal administration and local civil-defence cadres to manage battlefield logistics independently when primary communications collapse. Consequently, tactical survivability relies on whether pre-positioned Javelin caches and satellite links can sustain isolated island pockets without central direction.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If Taiwan transitions to the Resistance Operating Concept, will decentralising command authority to municipal units strengthen territorial resilience, or will it exacerbate command fragmentation under a total blockade?

The pattern suggests that delegating engagement authority to localized civil-military cells significantly increases target complexity for invading forces during initial bombardment. However, the available evidence indicates that without robust pre-conflict operational security and compartmentalized cell structures, early decapitation of municipal leadership could turn intended resistance networks into uncoordinated pockets.

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