
Legislative Yuan report warns persistent personnel shortages could affect combat readiness and increase workloads for serving troops.
Taiwan's military faces a worsening manpower shortage, with volunteer staffing remaining below the 80 percent target for the third consecutive year, raising concerns over combat readiness.
AI-generated summary
Volunteer staffing rate in Taiwan's military peaked at 88.52 per cent in 2020 before falling below 80 per cent in 2023.
Taiwan’s military is grappling with a worsening manpower shortage, with its volunteer staffing rate remaining below the 80 per cent target for a third consecutive year and concerns mounting over the impact on combat readiness, according to the island’s legislature.
A Legislative Yuan Budget Centre assessment of the government’s proposed 2027 budget warned this week that persistent personnel shortages could increase workloads and training demands on serving troops while affecting readiness.
Defence ministry figures cited by the centre showed that the number of staff positions successfully filled by volunteers peaked at 88.52 per cent in 2020 before falling below 80 per cent in 2023. It dropped to 75.93 per cent in 2024 and stood at 77.31 per cent at the end of last year.

The United States has accelerated its expansion of Javelin anti-armor missile production capacity, nearly doubling its output. As an experienced user, Taiwan has planned to purchase a total of 2,200 Javelin missiles from the United States over the years, continuing to enhance its anti-armor capabilities.

Japan's Kyodo News revealed that the Japanese government is considering including relevant content on "exploring the introduction of nuclear-powered submarines" in the "Three Security Documents" revised within the year. This trend triggered strong vigilance from the outside world about Japan's breach of the principle of "exclusive defense" and the "three non-nuclear principles".

In order to accelerate the use of unmanned helicopters, the U.S. Army ordered three more UH-60MX Black Hawk helicopters equipped with the MATRIX autonomous flight system from Sekowsky to expand testing of single, double and unmanned operation modes.

The 2026 Taiwan-Japan Science and Technology Future Forum was held in Taipei. The Indo-Pacific Strategic Think Tank displayed the US-made Vision 60 military-standard four-legged robot dog. The robot has features such as extreme environmental adaptability, modular design, AI image recognition, and autonomous navigation. It has been adopted by the US military and included in Japanese military exercises.

The Chinese military purchases M109A7 self-propelled artillery from the United States and plans to replace old towed artillery. Political and military sources said that the next generation of artillery of the Chinese army will be fully vehicle-mounted in design, taking into consideration wheeled vehicles and tracked vehicles to improve the efficiency of position entry and withdrawal and deal with contemporary drones and counter-artillery threats.

Since the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the number of applicants for conscientious objections to military service in Germany has increased year by year, reaching 3,879 in 2025. As of the end of August this year, 12,102 applications have been received. Germany recently introduced relevant regulations for a new military service system.