New Delhi, Aug. 5 -- TAIPEI - On Wednesday morning, millions of mobile phones across Taiwan loaded slower than usual. No glitch, no technical failure. The military had told the carriers to throttle the network on purpose.

if fighting comes to Taiwan, what happens to bandwidth? Can government agencies, emergency responders, and ultimately the public communicate under constrained conditions? The 2026 exercise is, at its core, built around that kind of question, not the questions with a predetermined answer.

Taiwan's military launched Han Kuang 42 on Wednesday, beginning ten days of live-fire operations that will involve more than 20,000 troops and some 5,000 reservists deployed in brigade-level formations, the largest reserve mobilization...