Could Taiwan’s military continue to fight after Iran-like decapitation?

Protesters hold pictures of Iran's former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at a mass unity protest set to highlight opposition to the conflict in Middle East and restrictions against Cuba being imposed by the U.S. outside the U.S. Embassy in central London, March 22. AFP-Yonhap

The survival of Iran’s political and military apparatus following a massive U.S.-Israeli decapitation strike has ignited a strategic debate in Taiwan, with experts weighing the island’s ability to withstand a similar “surgical” opening to an attack from the mainland.

Military analysts and officials in Taipei are closely studying the February 28 strikes that killed Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader, and Iran’s ability to sustain organised resistance in the weeks that have followed.

Iran’s capacity to absorb the severe blow of the loss of its top leadership has provided a real-world test of “distributed command” — a doctrine Taiwan has been racing to adopt as part of its strategy against the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

“The lesson from Tehran is that decapitation is not the end of the war but the beginning of a much more chaotic one,” said Max Lo, executive director of the Taiwan International Strategic Study Society.

Lo pointed out that an article published in November by a PLA Navy-affiliated journal outlined how precision strikes on Taipei’s “nerve centre” could force rapid capitulation, noting that these were options that Beijing had long considered.

“But Iran shows that if you push authority down to the local level before the missiles fly, the body can keep fighting even if the head is targeted,” he said.

At the centre of the debate is a stark question: if Taiwan’s leadership and command nodes were struck in the opening hours of a conflict, could the island continue to function — and fight?

According to analysts, the answer is mixed.

A key pillar of Taiwan’s evolving doctrine is decentralised command and control, introduced in recent years to address the risk of precision strikes.

Shu Hsiao-huang, from the government-funded Institute for National Defence and Security Research, said the concept — sometimes described as a “headless but still fighting” force — was to ensure that combat operations could continue, even if senior leadership was incapacitated.

“Each unit is now expected to continue operating based on pre-assigned missions if higher command is disrupted,” he said, adding that Taiwan’s annual Han Kuang war games had begun testing these assumptions.

Recent Han Kuang exercises had included scenarios that involved strikes on command systems, communications breakdowns and degraded coordination, Shu said.

For some analysts, Iran’s experience in the face of a war waged by Israel and the U.S. offers reassurance.

Despite losing its most senior leaders, Tehran had maintained command continuity and mounted retaliatory strikes, suggesting decapitation did not necessarily lead to collapse, they said.

But other observers cautioned that any comparison had its limits.

“Iran has combat experience, strategic depth and alternative command systems,” Lo said. “Taiwan lacks those advantages.”

The Taiwan military’s limited real combat experience could complicate the execution of decentralised operations under pressure, Lo added. He also warned that decentralisation required more than doctrine.

“It needs comprehensive planning, systematic training and strong logistical support. Even if lower-level units can make decisions independently, sustaining operations depends on supply chains — and those could be disrupted early in a conflict,” he said.

Decentralisation alone cannot overcome Taiwan’s structural constraints, according to analysts, among them military expert Lu De-yun, a former defence ministry press secretary.

“Operational autonomy is still bounded. A unit operates within its assigned area. It cannot simply make decisions beyond that,” he said.

That limitation could prove critical in a fast-moving conflict, where coordination across regions would be essential but difficult if communications were degraded, Lu added.

A Taiwan Coast Guard patrol vessel moves in Keelung, as China conducts "Justice Mission 2025" military drills around Taiwan, in Keelung, Taiwan, Dec. 30, 2025. Reuters-Yonhap

There were also geographic disadvantages, Lu said, contrasting Iran’s vast, mountainous terrain that provided strategic depth and concealment with the geographically compact, highly urbanised island lying just across the Taiwan Strait from mainland China.

“There is very little room to hide. Even underground facilities are difficult to conceal under modern surveillance,” he said.

“Iran’s resilience is supported by decades of war experience, parallel command structures such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and extensive use of hardened underground facilities.”

Lu added that Taiwan was vulnerable to saturation attacks by PLA missiles, rockets and drones, which could overwhelm defences and threaten both leadership and infrastructure.

“Iran can disperse and absorb strikes. Taiwan has a much smaller margin for error,” he said.

Analysts said that the Iran case had also underscored the central role of intelligence in enabling decapitation strikes, noting that such operations relied on precise real-time targeting data derived from signals intelligence, geospatial tools and human sources.

This has heightened concerns in Taiwan, where a series of espionage cases — some of them involving people linked to the offices of senior officials — has raised alarms about potential intelligence penetration.

Chang Yen-ting, a retired air force lieutenant general, warned that “Beijing could consider similar operations,” citing its expanding intelligence network, drone capabilities and detailed planning.

He pointed to the Zhurihe training base in Inner Mongolia, which includes mock-ups of Taiwanese government facilities, as evidence that the PLA was preparing for such scenarios.

Beyond the battlefield, Taiwan’s continuity-of-government framework remained a critical vulnerability, analysts said.

Alexander Huang Chieh-cheng, a professor of international relations and strategic studies at Tamkang University in New Taipei City, said that authority in Taiwan was highly concentrated.

“This creates a significant structural vulnerability, particularly in the context of large-scale decapitation operations,” he said.

According to Huang, the line of leadership succession is narrow and operational command is concentrated among a small number of senior figures, increasing systemic risk in crisis scenarios.

Although Taiwan had been discussing continuity planning for more than two decades, progress was uneven and lacked institutional depth, he added.

Huang warned that Beijing and the PLA would be closely studying the recent U.S. operations that showed rapid, coordinated decapitation capabilities integrating air power, special forces and intelligence.

“Taiwan, by contrast, has not experienced a major conflict since the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1958,” he said, noting that this left the island relatively underprepared for a modern decapitation scenario.

In Huang’s view, the recent reforms — including decentralised command and asymmetric strategies — were important but insufficient. “Addressing these long-standing structural weaknesses will require sustained commitment over several years before meaningful resilience can be achieved,” he said.

Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including the U.S., do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state. But Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the island and is committed to supplying it with weapons.

Read the article at SCMP.