TAIPEI (TVBS News) — At 5 a.m. Monday (Aug. 10), tracer rounds lit up the waters off Penghu as Taiwan's military simulated an enemy beach assault. Tanks fired, howitzers thundered, and drones circled overhead. But the real test wasn't firepower — it was whether small-unit commanders could fight effectively if communications went dark.
Taiwan's annual Han Kuang 42 (漢光42號) exercises, now in their sixth day, are stress-testing a doctrine the military calls "decentralized command" (去中心化指揮) — pushing decision-making authority down to platoon leaders who may have to act without battalion approval. Here is how it works and why Taiwan believes it could determine the outcome of a future conflict.
In traditional military hierarchy, a platoon leader needs approval from battalion headquarters before taking significant action. Under decentralized command, once a mission is activated — say, defending a port — the platoon can make tactical decisions on its own.
The goal is to ensure that even the smallest units can continue fighting if the chain of command is disrupted — a scenario Taiwan's military considers increasingly likely in any conflict with China. The approach mirrors U.S. military doctrine: Taiwan has adopted the Rapid Decision and Synchronization Process, or RDSP — a method American forces use when battlefield conditions deviate from plan.
Han Kuang 42, which runs through Friday (Aug. 14), has moved into its "joint anti-landing, coastal strike, and beach combat" phase. The exercises simulate realistic wartime conditions, including electromagnetic blockades and communication cutoffs that would sever links between frontline units and command centers.
On Sunday evening, signal corps troops in Taoyuan conducted a fiber optic cable repair drill, using optical time-domain reflectometers to locate breaks and fusion splicers to restore connections.
But what happens when repairs are not possible? Troops are trained to understand their commander's intent so precisely that they can act autonomously — making tactical decisions without waiting for instructions that may never arrive.
Liu told reporters that cadres at all levels must implement "mission-type command" and deepen decentralized response measures to maintain combat effectiveness under intense electromagnetic interference.
What does it look like in practice?
The doctrine was put into practice Sunday night. Troops from the Second Theater Command (第二作戰區) in Hualien completed a nighttime tactical march to reinforce Yilan, roughly 100 kilometers (62 miles) north. By Monday morning, they were conducting port defense drills — simulating a scenario where enemy forces had landed on the Lanyang coast and were attempting to seize the port.
The Combined Arms Battalion (聯合兵種營) deployed smoke grenades, launched tactical drones for surveillance, and used M60A3 tanks to suppress the simulated assault. The goal was to prevent enemy forces from capturing port facilities — which would allow them to offload troops and equipment without a contested beach landing.
Defense Minister Wellington Koo (顧立雄) visited a joint fire coordination center on Sunday to review what the military calls the "kill chain" — the sequence from detecting a threat to destroying it.
The underlying assumption is sobering: Taiwan expects that in a real conflict, its communications infrastructure would be targeted early and often. The exercises suggest the military is preparing for a scenario where units may have to fight largely on their own, guided by training and doctrine rather than real-time orders from above.
The question the drills are designed to answer: Can Taiwan's smallest units fight effectively even when they are fighting blind? ◼