Amid Beijing’s escalating saber-rattling, Taiwan has turned increasingly to tabletop exercises (TTXs) to prepare for a possible war with China. In doing so, it joins a practice exercised by the US — long the world’s pre-eminent military hegemon — and more recently emulated by Japan. Yet, despite this apparent convergence, Taiwan’s approach reveals profound variations in purpose and focus compared with its American and Japanese counterparts.
In the US, these exercises predominantly focus on operational aspects, honing military tactics, strategies and force readiness. Japan, facing severe constraints under its pacifist constitution, has instead leaned toward policy simulations. The Japanese exercises mainly serve to educate political leaders and media elites about legal, policy and bureaucratic bottlenecks impeding national security policy decisionmaking and implementation.
Japan’s most prominent practitioner of policy simulations is the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies (JFSS), whose membership includes retired Self-Defense Forces (SDF) brass, senior ex-bureaucrats and security experts. The JFSS has conducted at least three major annual policy simulations, planned and led by a former SDF general. These exercises invite, on a non-partisan basis, key political leaders, senior ex-bureaucrats and journalists, functioning as a form of elite practical training and public education on defense policy. The Sasakawa Peace Foundation hosted a similar event this year. While the SDF conducts classified war games internally, these policy simulations play a vital complementary role in bridging Japan’s civil-military gap.
Taiwan’s situation is more complicated, rooted in its unique political history. The Republic of China military was once embedded within the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) party-state regime. As a result, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and its pan-green coalition, despite being in power for years, still struggle with a dearth of defense talents and expertise. Although the DPP has cultivated a defense industrial caucus within the Legislative Yuan, it continues to rely heavily on inputs from the broader defense establishment.
Against this backdrop, Taiwan has seen two distinct efforts emerge to fill the gap in civil-military preparedness, reflecting differing visions within its defense establishment.
The first approach complements traditional war gaming, with policy simulations emphasizing midterm economic, social and political resilience in the gray zone between peace time and wartime. The Taiwan Center for Security Studies, directed by professor Liu Fu-kuo (劉復國) at National Chengchi University’s Institute of International Relations, has organized such simulations at least three times. These exercises are designed by retired admiral Chen Yeong-kang (陳永康), who is a KMT legislator and chief of the KMT’s defense policy caucus in the Legislative Yuan. Participants include Taiwanese experts on energy security, regional instability, community and submarine cable vulnerabilities, global conflict dynamics and semiconductor security, alongside some foreign academics. This approach underscores the recognition that Taiwan’s midterm survival depends more on the resilience of its critical infrastructure and society.
The second approach supplements traditional war gaming with upgraded operational scenarios. In June, a major war game was co-organized by retired admiral Lee Hsi-min (李喜明), who heads the Center for Peace and Security at the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation, Council on Strategic and Wargaming Studies Director-General Alexander Huang (黃介正), and Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation chairman Huang Huang-hsiung (黃煌雄), a senior DPP figure. The war game brought together Lee, four retired Taiwanese generals, retired US Navy admiral Michael Mullen, former US director of national intelligence and retired admiral Dennis Blair, former Japan SDF chief of staff and retired general Shigeru Iwasaki, and former maritime SDF chief and retired admiral Tomohisa Takei.
The contrast between these two approaches reflects not just differing simulation models, but also deeper strategic divides within the military. Chen and Lee share similar career paths, having served in senior positions within the Ministry of National Defense and the military. Yet, they have become entrenched rivals, representing competing schools of thought.
Lee is the leading proponent of the “Overall Defense Concept” (ODC), an asymmetric warfare strategy that seeks to move away from traditional platform-centric acquisitions toward agile, survivable and mobile capabilities designed to withstand a numerically superior Chinese assault. This approach emphasizes distributed, small-unit operations and the ability to deny China a quick and decisive victory.
By contrast, Chen is among the foremost skeptics of the ODC. He would argue that a full-scale Chinese attack on Taiwan remains unlikely, favoring continued investment in conventional deterrence and high-end platforms.
This fundamental divergence surfaced publicly when the 2019 National Defense Report spotlighted ODC as the military’s strategic pivot, only for the 2021 and 2023 editions to omit any mention of the concept, signaling an internal policy retreat.
This strategic rivalry has not only divided Taiwan’s military leadership, but also influenced the very nature of its tabletop exercises. Chen’s approach prioritizes societal resilience and the continuity of the government during prolonged crises, while Lee’s camp pushes for enhanced warfighting readiness through upgraded operational simulations.
At its core, these competing perspectives mirror deeper currents within Taiwan’s partisan and factional politics. While the growing frequency and sophistication of the exercises in Taiwan might seem encouraging on the surface, outside observers should remain cautious. These exercises often involve internal power struggles and unresolved debates over Taiwan’s defense posture than a unified national strategy. As always in Taiwanese politics, factional maneuvering and veiled antagonisms lurk just beneath the surface.
In this sense, foreign analysts and policymakers should avoid reading too much coherence into Taiwan’s evolving tabletop exercise practices. They must either detach themselves from these domestic political undercurrents or risk becoming unwittingly embroiled in them.
For all the apparent innovation, Taiwan’s war preparedness remains as much a battlefield of political contestation as of military planning. Nothing new under the sun.
Masahiro Matsumura is professor of international politics and national security at St Andrew’s University in Osaka.
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