Europe’s Taiwan Dilemma: Lessons from a Tabletop Exercise

By Tomasz Szatkowski, Octavian Manea, Luis Simón and Giulia Tercovich

CSDS In-Depth Paper

21/2025

This CSDS In-Depth Paper presents findings from a CSDS tabletop exercise conducted in November 2025, examining European decision-making during a simulated Taiwan Strait crisis compounded by Russian coercion in Europe. Unlike most Taiwan-focused exercises, the simulation centred on Europe’s strategic constraints: limited military capacity, economic exposure to China, institutional fragmentation and reliance on US extended deterrence. Across three phases (2028–2029), the exercise demonstrated that a Taiwan contingency rapidly becomes a two-front dilemma for Europe, as US forces prioritise the Indo-Pacific while Europe must deter Russian opportunism. The exercise revealed a dynamic of progressive European entanglement, shifting from initial caution to structural involvement through industrial mobilisation, logistics, sanctions and sustainment. Its central insight is that Europe’s primary contribution to a Taiwan war lies not in expeditionary combat power, but in contributing to the industrial and logistical supply lines of a US-led coalition, binding the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific theatres into an interdependent strategic system.

This CSDS In-Depth Paper is part of a broader “Taiwan Strait Update” series focusing on European perspectives on Taiwan and China’s strategic adjustment in Europe.

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