Taiwan's largest annual military exercise kicked off on August 5, and for the first time, two full reserve brigades — one from the north, one from the south — are being mobilized simultaneously to test whether Taiwan's reserve system can do what the military needs it to do in wartime: absorb casualties, reconstitute, and keep fighting.
That capacity for "sustained combat" — the doctrine that Taiwan's armed forces will fight for as long as the enemy attacks — depends critically on a reserve force that can actually perform. Defense Minister Wellington Koo (顧立雄) told reporters at a media roundtable that included Storm Media that rebuilding this capacity is the problem he is spending most of his time on right now. "The force structure," he said, "needs constant adjustment."
Longer Conscription and Growing Volunteer Ranks Strengthen Taiwan's Reserves
The Han Kuang Exercise No. 42 — running August 5 to 14 and combined with the Tung Hsin No. 36 mobilization drill — is putting two specific units through a full brigade-level activation: the Taipei Reserve Brigade and the 137th Infantry Brigade based in Tainan. Both will be tested on their ability to complete mobilization call-up, unit organization, pre-combat training, and combat power reconstitution within prescribed timelines. The exercise will mobilize more than 5,000 reservists.
The challenge behind the exercise runs deeper than logistics. Taiwan has no equivalent of the US National Guard — a standing reserve force that trains on a regular, structured schedule. Its reserve system instead relies on reservists who return to civilian life after service and are called back for periodic training. Whether those reservists can fight, and fight quickly, is a question that has shadowed Taiwan's defense planning for years.
Koo identified two developments working in his favor. First, mandatory military service has been extended from four months to one year. Graduates in 2027 who do not continue to graduate school are expected to add approximately 30,000 new troops to the pipeline — personnel who will receive full training across basic, garrison, base, and joint operational phases before discharge. Second, volunteer recruitment is meeting its targets, with total volunteer headcount trending upward. New conscripts, Koo said, will be distributed not just to frontline combat units but to garrison brigades and reserve brigades as well — formations that previously had officers but no enlisted personnel to lead.
Koo Pushes 'Precise Mobilization' to Replace Headcount Boasting
Starting in 2027, the military will implement an annual 14-day reservist recall exercise — applying to both conscripts and volunteer soldiers — designed to ensure that personnel can restore combat effectiveness rapidly after mobilization. But the volume of reservists returning to service is only part of the problem. The more difficult question, Koo said, is how to make mobilization precise.
"The military cannot simply claim it has hundreds of thousands of troops," he said. "Every brigade needs to calculate exactly who is where when mobilization is called." The example he gave was an artillery platoon leader: it is not enough to train that officer in the skill — you also need confidence that you can recall that specific person when needed. Each battalion is now being required to assess its own combat readiness indicators across four dimensions: personnel, equipment serviceability rates, training, and logistics. That assessment then drives what the unit actually needs in terms of mobilization personnel, not what looks good on a force structure chart.
To address chronic shortages of non-commissioned officers and junior officers, the military is restoring recruitment for the reserve officer and reserve NCO programs. Active-duty officers will also be rotated to serve in garrison brigades and reserve brigades, bringing experienced leadership into formations that have historically lacked it. The scope extends beyond combat units — combat support formations and the logistical support structure behind them are equally part of the mobilization equation, as is civil-military integration: the organized requisition of civilian personnel and resources, which Koo said needs to be drilled regularly.
Koo is personally overseeing the review. "I am going through it brigade by brigade," he said directly — an acknowledgment that the reserve system's dysfunction is not something that can be fixed at arm's length.
Taiwan's Mobilization System Must Evolve Beyond Service-Era Records
The most pointed problem Koo addressed is also the most human: what happens when the military recalls a reservist to a role that ignores everything they have become since leaving service?
He used himself as the example. He served as a transport platoon leader, then became a lawyer. If recalled today under the current system, the military's records would show him as a transport platoon leader — and that is what he would be assigned as. "Should I go back as a transport platoon leader," he asked, "or should I be at a military court?" The current mobilization management system carries only service-era data. Taiwan's Veterans Affairs Council tracks post-service specializations, but the military's own system does not draw on that information in any structured way.
The fix Koo is pushing toward is what he called "designated selection" — a mobilization framework that identifies personnel with high-value civilian specialties and routes them into roles where those skills are genuinely needed, rather than defaulting to the position they held at discharge. The most straightforward approach — returning each person to their original unit — solves one problem but wastes another: the soldier who has since become a physician, an engineer, or a cybersecurity professional is exactly the kind of person the military may need most. Building a system capable of tracking and acting on that information after discharge, Koo acknowledged, is where the Ministry of National Defense still has serious work to do. （Related： Opinion | China Ran 19 Drills Near Taiwan. Taipei Disclosed Three. ｜ Latest ）
