Wargame Meant to Show European Resolve Exposes Deeper Weaknesses

A wargame intended to demonstrate Europe’s ability to confront Russia without U.S. leadership instead exposed a deeper problem: greater willingness to act did not produce a coherent strategy.

According to Die Welt’s account, European participants moved faster and accepted more risk than in its earlier “Ernstfall” simulation.

Yet Moscow retained the initiative, Washington ultimately shaped the negotiations, and the allies struggled to define what success should mean.

The exercise prevented Russia from securing lasting control over Lithuanian territory.

It did not establish that Europe could deter Moscow from engineering another crisis.

A Corridor Crisis

Organized by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, the exercise took place in Tel Aviv in mid-September.

It was presented as an “Allied Answer to Ernstfall,” whose findings, published in February, had highlighted European dependence on Washington.

Back in December 2025, when Die Welt and the German Wargaming Center at Helmut Schmidt University ran "Ernstfall," the scenario was set in October 2026, following a coerced ceasefire in Ukraine.

The result was bleak. Without the United States, the findings argued, Germany and Europe could barely respond in time and with resolve to a limited Russian attack.

This time the fictional scenario opened in March 2027. Russia assembled 160 trucks near Lithuania’s border with Belarus, describing their cargo as essential supplies for Kaliningrad.

Armed men and unmarked vehicles accompanied the convoy, while up to 10,000 Russian troops stood ready in western Belarus.

Lithuania offered passage after international inspections, without an armed Russian escort. Moscow demanded a guaranteed corridor and imposed a six-hour deadline.

The German-led response was forceful. Berlin put its brigade in Lithuania on alert and authorized Taurus missiles for Ukraine.

A NATO exercise was brought forward, while the EU targeted Russia’s shadow fleet.

But Russian special forces posing as civilians subsequently clashed with Lithuanian personnel. NATO activated regional defense plans without invoking Article 5.

Moscow’s Objective Was Broader

The central mismatch concerned the purpose of the confrontation.

European participants concentrated on containing successive incidents.

Russia’s team pursued a wider political objective: weakening NATO through limited military action and fracturing Western cohesion.

Julius von Freytag-Loringhoven, who played Germany’s foreign minister, praised the allies’ tactical performance but identified the omission: “But what we lacked was an endgame.”

Moscow chose the pressure point, imposed the deadline and controlled the sequence of escalation. Europe’s more assertive measures did not reverse that relationship.

Some participants also acknowledged that they had largely disregarded domestic political resistance, allowing decisions that a real German government might struggle to sustain.

Washington Reclaims the Initiative

The simulation’s premise was further tested when the U.S. president dispatched envoys to negotiate directly with Moscow, bypassing European governments.

Russia extended its deadline by 24 hours, matched by a pause in European inspections of Russian ships.

Lithuania then faced pressure from allies over the convoy and the return of Russian casualties and prisoners.

Three simulated weeks later, a possible settlement involved inspected cargo traveling under U.S. and Turkish escort. Poland and Lithuania accepted.

The arrangement unraveled after a simulated Russian missile attack killed 90 people in Kyiv and unidentified drones struck a German-Polish military site in Poland.

The allies withdrew their offer, leaving the outcome unresolved.

Crisis Management is Not Deterrence

Ukraine offered Europe another way to pressure Russia, but it also introduced uncertainty about escalation.

Participants questioned who would take responsibility for subsequent Ukrainian strikes.

The exercise also revealed a leadership gap. Gerlinde Niehus, playing NATO’s secretary-general, argued for a joint NATO-EU security council after participants improvised shared objectives during the crisis.

Both teams nevertheless believed they had succeeded. The Europeans judged themselves on containing the confrontation; Russia’s players believed they had advanced parts of their political agenda.

An Israeli observer captured the discrepancy: “For the Germans, anything that is not World War III is a victory.”

That left the exercise’s central question unanswered: whether containing one confrontation amounts to deterrence when the adversary still sees value in starting another.