Analysis: What Does 'Whole of Society' Civil Defense Mean?

Taiwan is boosting its civil defense drills and leaning more towards a “whole of society” approach, but what does that mean?

Transcript

00:00So Taiwan is jumping fully on this idea of a whole-of-society defense. What does

00:05that mean and why is it important specifically to Taiwan? So whole-of-society

00:09defense is actually part of a group of concepts which we might call total

00:13defense. You see this in a lot of different countries. Israel is probably

00:17the most kind of iconic example but you also have many of the Baltic states,

00:21Finland, Singapore, even South Korea to some extent. The idea is that you're a

00:26small country facing a really big potential aggressor. How do you marshal

00:31the resources in order to be able to respond to this? How do you create

00:34defense in depth, especially when you don't have that much territory? You're

00:38facing a much larger opponent. Also, I think very critically, to be able to

00:42protect and shelter your own people and then also to keep continuity of

00:46government operations. So not just where is your leadership, will they be okay, but

00:51also can you keep the lights on so that your society can still function, maybe

00:55at a lower level, but can still function despite a massive conflict coming at you.

01:00When we look at the way that Taiwan responds to emergency situations like an

01:05earthquake or typhoons, we do see the military play a very big role in these

01:10kinds of operations. What is the benefit of letting the civilian side handle

01:14these kinds of situations? So in the event of a military conflict

01:19specifically, you want your frontline troops to be at the front line.

01:24Let's just say it's an invasion. Well, you want the conventional forces, your

01:28best trained military forces, to be fighting back on the beachheads

01:33and pushing the people and pushing the invaders out. The more that the military

01:37has to divert its attention towards things like civilian protection or

01:42logistics, the less it's able to move the most skilled troops up the

01:49chain to be at the point of combat or points of combat. The more that reserve

01:56forces or civil society can take up some of these civilian protection, logistics

02:02and resources, sustainment missions, the easier, the more the Taiwanese military

02:08can flow those forces to where they need to be. And how does this help the average

02:12person in Taiwan who's maybe looking at this drill for the first time and

02:16wondering, what should I be doing in the event of an emergency? Well, so it

02:21helps in a number of different ways, right? One is just if the bombs are

02:25falling, where do people go? Where should they go? You know, I don't know if I would

02:30be able to say, and I want to be clear, this is a really difficult thing. I don't

02:33think any country has ever had their civil defense system tested yet. You

02:41know, obviously major war or I guess within the kind of modern era. Everyone

02:45in all the countries I mentioned earlier are still trying to figure their way

02:48through this. No one has a perfect answer. So at the very least, it's admirable that

02:52Taiwan is really kind of, the Lai administration is focusing and making

02:56this a priority.