Taiwan students turn to wargaming amid rising strait tensions

On a Friday evening in late November, tables filled the student commons of the College of Social Sciences at National Taiwan University (NTU), spread with maps of Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait and dense arrays of wargaming counters. As the turn timer sounded, students huddled in urgent discussion — within seconds, they had to decide whether to raise alert levels, seek international coordination, or adjust their force posture.

What appeared to be a board game meetup was in fact a student wargame simulating a Taiwan Strait crisis, jointly organised by NTU’s National Security & Strategy Studies Institution (N3SI) and KTT Popular Science Wargame. Though far simpler than a formal military simulation, its brisk pace kept more than 20 students so absorbed for over four hours that none stepped away — not even for a toilet break.

Amid escalating tensions in the Taiwan Strait in recent years, wargames — once confined to military operational research — have gradually entered university campuses. From Tamkang University and the National Defense University to NTU’s N3SI and the newly established Institute of International Relations (IIR) Wargaming Lab at National Chengchi University (NCCU), an increasing number of students are now deeply involved with wargaming as an extracurricular activity.

Alexander Huang, an associate professor with the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University, is a leading strategic studies scholar in Taiwan and also regarded as a forerunner in promoting political-military wargaming education. He pointed out to Lianhe Zaobao that wargaming has a long tradition in the US, and that the Russia–Ukraine war, US–China rivalry, and frequent media simulations of a Taiwan Strait conflict have “given Taiwanese society a basic understanding of wargaming”.

Since 2004, he has offered wargaming-related courses at Tamkang University, and over the past 20 years co-organised nearly a hundred national security and disaster response wargames with the National Defense University and local governments, actively involving students. “It’s only through years of sowing seeds and promotion that we now see the popularisation of and active student participation in wargames. Wargaming has now become a distinctive and prominent field in Taiwan,” noted Huang.

The most striking example of wargaming’s surge in popularity among university students is NTU’s N3SI. Within just two years of its founding, the society has built links with political circles, academia and the military industry, and has systematically launched public courses on military affairs and strategy, attracting students from several universities.

Urania Juan, the society’s current president and a third-year political science student at NTU, said it was founded when her senior, Rion Wu, and several classmates — drawn to defence and international politics — wanted to “scale up” the issues they were examining. The student society gradually built and expanded its network through defence industry exhibitions and academic conferences, and this May helped organise a major forum that drew key figures from across Taiwan’s political spectrum, including Raymond Greene, director of the American Institute in Taiwan.

Although most members of NTU’s N3SI come from law, political science and international relations, the group also includes students from medicine, chemistry, agricultural economics, mathematics and foreign languages. Of the ten committee members, six are female. Juan noted that this shows that national defence is neither the exclusive domain of the humanities nor the military, and that gender boundaries in security discussions are being broken down on campus.

Meanwhile, efforts are underway at NCCU to elevate wargaming education to the institutional level. Wang Hsin-Hsien, chair of NCCU’s Institute of International Relations (IIR), officially launched the IIR Wargaming Lab on 3 December, making it Taiwan’s first university-level wargaming lab managed by a campus think tank. Starting on campus, it will host regular wargaming competitions, offer cross-department course modules and provide guidance to student societies.

Wang recalled participating in wargames with Tamkang University’s Huang and other scholars at think tanks and government departments in his early days, and later teaching courses at universities, graduate programmes and even high schools, all to enthusiastic student response. “Being able to elevate wargaming to a higher, more systematic level this time is like a dream come true,” he said.

Before the establishment of the Wargaming Lab, the NCCU’s IIR had already organised a series of lectures and held its first public student wargame on 1 December. Unlike the NTU, which focused more on the military aspects of wargaming, NCCU’s Wargaming Lab emphasised political-military wargaming, teaching students to attain objectives through diplomatic negotiations, military deterrence and public opinion campaigns based on international and regional situations.

Additionally, encouraged by scholars such as Wang, NCCU’s IIR began preparations in November and has since recruited about ten core organisers and more than 20 students.

The main convener, Huang Ching-Tsung, a second-year master’s student in the Department of Diplomacy at NCCU, explained that the society’s lessons would be divided into two main modules: one focuses on designing political-military wargames, “which is like simulating a National Security Council perspective rather than a purely military wargame like those done by the General Staff Headquarters or Heng Shan Military Command Center”. This incorporates political, legal and financial security aspects from the perspective of Taiwan vis-a-vis Indo-Pacific security. 

The second module involves inviting retired military and national security officials to give lectures “and we can all learn something from them”.

However, in Taiwan, some public opinion has questioned whether university students “simulating wargames” risks encouraging war. Students and faculty at both NTU and NCCU are keenly aware that promoting wargaming inevitably stirs deeper anxieties — including fears of fatalism and the notion of a “doomed nation”.

In response, Wang emphasised that “the purpose of wargaming is not to promote war, but peace”. Students must simultaneously employ political, military, diplomatic and economic means to reduce conflict and strive for survival in high-risk scenarios. He said, “Giving the young a chance to truly understand how terrifying war is and what can be done to avoid it is one of the most important purposes of wargaming education.”

During the NCCU IIR’s Wargaming Lab inauguration ceremony on 3 December, Chen Yeong-kang, former vice-minister of national defence and current Kuomintang legislator, also mentioned that wargaming is key to national security strategy, but talent is the most critical resource. Without addressing gaps in skilled personnel, adding more equipment or infrastructure will not change the outcome.

He also expressed gratitude to NCCU’s IIR for promoting the Wargaming Lab, allowing scholars from various fields as well as foreign experts to exchange ideas on the same platform, helping to stabilise the situation in the Taiwan Strait.

Interviewed students unanimously agreed that wargaming is more akin to training for social resilience, learning to make better decisions under pressure through simulated scenarios. However, they also admitted that the anxiety brought on by rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait was one of their motivations for focusing on wargaming.

NCCU’s Huang emphasised that the society’s mission is to promote national security knowledge. “We focus on understanding both ourselves and our adversaries,” he said. “With deeper insight, we can more accurately discern what is true and right.”

N3SI’s Juan also stressed, “We never hope for war to happen, nor do we advocate for it. Instead, we hope to stand against it”.

Wu Mao-peng, a third-year political science student and vice-president of NTU’s N3SI, acknowledged that if going to the battlefield became unavoidable, he would not oppose it. But he stressed, “There are far wiser options to consider first. By promoting wargaming, we make sure no one loses without understanding what’s at stake.”

He added, “Whether you call the nation the Republic of China or Taiwan, what matters is protecting the people who live on this island.”

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “台大政大掀校园兵推热 战略显学在台湾年轻世代发酵”.

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