In July 2025, Taiwan conducted one of its most extensive military exercises in decades. This time, however, the training did not occur in isolated training grounds but in the heart of Taiwan’s cities. Tanks moved through urban streets, more than 20,000 reservists were mobilized, soldiers transported weapons via underground metro systems, and simulated strikes targeted critical infrastructure, including the river crossings that link Taipei’s urban core. As part of the exercise, planners tested civilian agencies under extreme contingency scenarios while air-raid alerts emptied the streets. Underground parking lots and metro stations served as bomb shelters, and schools and civic centers became relief shelters and emergency medical hubs. The exercise also mobilized nongovernmental organizations and fire and police agencies to support material distribution logistics and community protection efforts. The government even released updated civil defense instructions, providing the public with air-raid sheltering and safety guidelines.
The exercise, in other words, extended far beyond the armed forces and reflected Taiwan’s deepening belief that effective deterrence against China relies not only on military modernization but also on societal resilience—the ability of Taiwan’s people to withstand the most extreme scenarios or to resist an invasion. Although it was the first time the Taiwanese people witnessed such a large-scale exercise in their own neighborhoods, the public did not panic but instead expressed strong support for these realistic training and preparedness efforts.
Since 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping has made no secret of his ambitions to annex Taiwan, by force if necessary, and to seek Indo-Pacific dominance. The Chinese Communist Party has framed these objectives as essential to the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” and has targeted Taiwan with escalating military pressure and hybrid operations across multiple domains. From near-daily incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone to large-scale kinetic drills, cyberattacks, and disinformation operations, Beijing has pursued a campaign designed not simply to intimidate but to erode Taiwan’s confidence and capacity to resist.
In response, Taiwan is undertaking a systemic effort to build its “whole-of-society defense resilience,” a comprehensive strategy that combines military preparedness with democratic cohesion, infrastructure hardening, and societal strength. The goal is to raise the costs of aggression to such a degree that no adversary can hope to achieve victory. Taiwan is making great strides in this approach, as seen in the July exercise. But deterrence is strongest when it is collective. Now is the time for democracies to help preserve peace by investing in Taiwan’s resilience.
Under Pressure
Long before any conventional methods of war are deployed, authoritarian powers are increasingly trying to exploit their democratic adversaries’ societal vulnerabilities. By breaking public morale, degrading infrastructure, and paralyzing decision-making, an aggressor can cripple a state’s ability to function before war is even declared. Prior to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, for instance, Moscow targeted the country with a steady campaign of hybrid aggression: cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, disinformation aimed at sowing internal discord, economic coercion leveraging Ukraine’s reliance on Russia’s energy supplies, and political interference exploiting pro-Kremlin forces. These actions were not tactical diversions but rehearsals for a full-scale invasion, designed to soften the target and test its ability to endure systemic shocks. When hostilities began in earnest, Moscow followed a similar script: attacking infrastructure, communications systems, and power plants to create widespread disruption and psychological fatigue.
But Ukraine—leaning on pillars of resilience such as media literacy, a mobilized civil society, redundant infrastructure, and territorial defense—denied the Kremlin a rapid victory. What Moscow expected to be a lightning campaign became a grinding conflict that drained its military strength, triggered unprecedented sanctions, and heightened domestic political risks. Ukraine’s resistance has shown that modern deterrence hinges on a society’s capacity to absorb shocks and continue resisting under fire.
Ukraine, of course, is not the only country with a formidable civil defense. In response to decades of threats, Finland and Israel have cultivated some of the world’s most resilient traditions of whole-of-society defense, or total defense. Their systems go far beyond military readiness. Civilian defense training programs, medical networks, and civic protection rapid-response units are underpinned by a deeper societal conviction that surrender is never an option. Public communication strategies and psychological support structures seek to ensure that civilian morale can withstand prolonged crises, and continuity-of-government planning helps prevent societal breakdown even under extreme pressure.
But it was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that served as the wake-up call for Taiwan. The war made clear that peace cannot be secured through appeasement. It also showed how quickly coercion can escalate into full-scale assault and how the survival of a small democracy up against a powerful authoritarian adversary depends on preparations made long before the first shot is fired. Kyiv’s resistance against overwhelming odds was a clear lesson for Taipei, which is why, three years ago, then President Tsai Ing-wen’s administration quietly initiated preparations across government agencies to integrate civil defense planning into daily life, fortify critical infrastructure, and foster a society prepared mentally and materially for any contingency.
From the Ground Up
The Tsai administration started its national resilience campaign by auditing living necessities and essential supplies, including combat medication. It pledged $18.5 billion over ten years to harden and decentralize the power grid, reducing the risk of a single point of failure. It also started investing in low-orbit satellites to maintain communications if undersea Internet cables are severed. To improve reserve mobilization and civil-military coordination, it created the All-Out Defense Mobilization Agency. Amid the intensifying war in Ukraine, the Tsai administration extended conscription from four months to one year and enhanced training programs. These efforts laid the foundation for a much more structured whole-of-society resilience campaign when President Lai Ching-te took office in 2024.
Deterrence is as much about perception as it is about capability.
President Lai has made resilience building one of his administration’s top priorities. For instance, he has established a national-level committee on whole-of-society defense resilience, which meets quarterly with representatives from the business community, religious groups, academia, and nongovernmental organizations to review the progress of government plans and coordinate across sectors. With the participation of experts and representatives from various sectors, the committee has undertaken new initiatives throughout the last year, including a tabletop exercise to improve coordination among different levels of government, a small-scale live exercise testing civilian agencies’ crisis response mechanisms, and the Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience International Forum to exchange experiences with like-minded partners, including the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union. The Lai administration also oversaw the July exercise, which emphasized not only military training but also the involvement of civilian agencies—signaling a shift in Taiwan’s defense approach. These efforts have underscored that defending Taiwan is a shared responsibility, one that does not rest solely with the military but must also be upheld by all civilian agencies. To that end, Lai has also tasked the National Security Council with closely monitoring each government agency’s progress across five major lines of efforts: civil manpower training and utilization, emergency supplies, energy security, medical capacity, and cyber and communication redundancy.
This strategy of whole-of-society defense is far from complete, but these efforts over the past three years demonstrate how decisively Taiwan has progressed from pure military defense to broader societal survivability. The objective is not only to resist armed aggression but also to maintain democratic governance, economic stability, and institutional continuity under pressure, thereby blunting Beijing’s use of “gray-zone” and hybrid tactics that fall short of war.
The proposed defense budget, which is set to exceed 3.3 percent of GDP in 2026 and aims to reach 5.0 percent by 2030, further underscores Taiwan’s commitment to deterrence. Taipei is not merely investing in conventional systems; it is also directing substantial resources toward asymmetric capabilities, including coastal missile systems, mobile air defense platforms, and a growing array of unmanned technologies such as drones and counterdrone systems. In parallel, the Lai administration has also proposed an $18.1 billion special budget package, with $4.9 billion for national resilience supporting the coast guard’s intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities; disaster relief equipment; and the hardening of shelter facilities. This fund, when combined with regular resilience spending and the core military budget, will elevate Taiwan’s total security-related spending to meet NATO’s defense benchmarks by the end of 2026.
Taiwan’s ability to resist has repercussions far beyond its shores.
Still, resilience cannot be built through procurement alone: it also requires unwavering public support and societal consensus. Some opposition voices have called the government’s efforts to strengthen resilience and defense a provocation to Beijing. But the reality is that authoritarian aggressors are preparing for military expansion and seeking to change the world order, whereas Taiwan’s practices are preserving the status quo and, with it, freedom and democracy. There is no time to waste, so the Lai administration has chosen to accelerate the pace of societal preparedness through more rigorous discussion with the public, including bipartisan and public-private partnerships, particularly in technology and logistics, to ensure preparedness at both the state and societal levels. Many of Taiwan’s international partners, including the United States, are also engaging across Taipei’s political lines to illustrate the importance and urgency of such preparations.
Ultimately, unity—whether domestic or international, public or private—sends a powerful signal to potential aggressors that Taiwan remains politically strong under pressure. Deterrence is as much about perception as it is about capability. This is why the Lai administration has explicitly stated in its newly published civil defense handbook: “In the event of a military invasion, any claims that the nation is defeated or the government has surrendered are false.”
Ripple Effects
As Taipei’s leaders have repeatedly warned partners and allies, Beijing’s ambitions extend well beyond Taiwan. China and its allies seek to reshape the global order. Across the Indo-Pacific, the People’s Liberation Army has intensified large-scale military exercises, harassed Philippine vessels in the South China Sea, and even staged unannounced live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea near Australia that disrupted civilian air routes and naval travel. China has also supplied critical components and dual-use technologies to Russia and Iran, enabling Moscow’s war in Ukraine and bolstering Tehran’s capacity to initiate attacks. Taken together, this pattern of regional aggression and global military support underscores Beijing’s determination to erode the existing balance of power and challenge the security architecture that has underpinned peace and stability for decades.
Taiwan’s ability to resist, therefore, has repercussions far beyond its shores. Should Taipei fall to Beijing, the resulting power shift could fundamentally alter the global order. Strategically, China would gain a forward operating base in the western Pacific, threatening several vital sea-lanes and undermining the United States’ ability to meet security commitments to its Indo-Pacific partners and allies. The collapse of part of the first island chain—which stretches from Japan to the Philippines, separating China from the Pacific Ocean—could erode regional deterrence, raising alarm bells for key U.S. allies such as Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea. China’s annexation of Taiwan would also send a dangerous signal that small democracies cannot survive in the shadow of strong autocracies. It would fracture the credibility of democratic solidarity and further legitimize the use of force as a tool of statecraft.
The global economic consequences, meanwhile, would be immediate and severe. As part of a highly specialized global supply chain, Taiwan manufactures cutting-edge components that power today’s economy, including the majority of the world’s most advanced semiconductors. Taiwan is also a critical hub for global trade: in 2024, its ports handled a record $690 million revenue tons in cargo, and analysts estimate that roughly half of the world’s container ships pass through the Taiwan Strait each year. Any disruption to either this maritime lifeline or Taiwan’s high-tech manufacturing would reverberate across global markets, crippling industries from consumer electronics to automotive manufacturing and even defense systems. The potential consequences are staggering: Bloomberg has estimated that a war over the Taiwan Strait could inflict as much as $10 trillion in annual losses on the world economy, erasing more than ten percent of global GDP.
The future of Taiwan is not merely a regional concern; it is a test of whether the international order can withstand the pressure of authoritarian expansionism. Taiwan, especially the current Lai administration, understands this reality and has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to building credible deterrence through both defense capacity and societal resilience. Yet as authoritarian powers coordinate more closely—combining cyber-operations, economic coercion, and military pressure across the region—the preservation of Indo-Pacific peace cannot rest on Taiwan alone.
Although the Taiwanese people deeply appreciate statements of solidarity, further action is needed. More of the world’s democratic leaders should take immediate, tangible steps to enhance security cooperation with Taiwan, including improving the ability of security forces to work together across domains. By recognizing that the resilience of one democracy strengthens the security of all, Taiwan and the United States have bolstered their security cooperation in 2025 through military procurement and arms deliveries, significantly accelerating Taiwan’s preparedness. This should serve as a call to action for other democracies, as well. Taiwan is doing its part with urgency and resolve and is committed to achieving peace through strength by going beyond military readiness to strengthen whole-of-society resilience. As Taiwan accelerates its preparations, there should be no doubt about its determination to defend its future and its freedom.
