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Assessing Agile Gaming: War is Hard, Wargames Don’t Have to Be

Philip S. Bolger-Cortez is a Wargame Director with the LeMay Center for Doctrine Development and Education at the Air University whose previous job was in Agile Gaming at Headquarters Air Force (HAF) A5.  Alexandria Brill is an Agile Gamer with HAF A5.  Divergent Opinions’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group. 

Title:  Assessing Agile Gaming: War is Hard, Wargames Don’t Have to Be

Date Originally Written:  June 12, 2021. 

Date Originally Published:  July 12, 2021. 

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The authors are professional wargamers and Agile Gaming practitioners. 

Summary:  With Department of Defense leaders so busy, they can rarely participate in large-scale wargames.  Agile Wargames approach a large problem by taking small bites rather than swallowing the whole elephant.  While a large-scale and highly detailed wargame may be viewed as perfection, perfection can be the enemy of good enough.  A tightly focused Agile Wargame that actually takes place, is superior to a large-scale wargame that can never fit into a schedule.

Text:  The most valuable commodity for any military commander is time. On any given day, a typical flag officer has a wall-to-wall schedule packed with meetings, decisions, more meetings, inspections, presentations, yet more meetings, and precious little time for anything that isn’t scheduled weeks or months in advance. Getting a full day of a general’s time is a Herculean task. Getting a full week is impossible without a signature from a higher ranking general or a congressional mandate. Getting the same amount of time out of field grade officers is not much easier.

Officers still want, and need, wargames. Discussions around large games run by the Air Force[1] have driven discussions in the defense community, in Congress, and at Headquarters Air Force[2][3]. 

Wargames are an essential step for military leaders to ensure confidence in plans, decisions, and concepts. Stakeholders, sponsors, and players agree that wargames can answer certain questions or problem sets. Yet, the average player’s demanding schedule remains an obstacle for participation.

Large wargames can account for the needs of many stakeholders and organizations. In a large game, hundreds of moving pieces compete for attention from many players. In an agile game, the focus is narrower—much of the war is abstracted out into a series of mechanics designed to show how the broader war impacts a narrow slice, without needing to focus on these other parts. Players often face only three to four decisions in a turn, such as where to place resources, what to use for operations, or who should conduct an action. The result is a lower fidelity game—but one easy to play, in only a few hours[4]. Similar fidelity games in the commercial space include Axis & Allies[5], World at War ’85[6], and Thunderbolt Apache Leader[7].

For concept writers looking to develop immature concepts, low fidelity games are helpful. The low time demand and ease of learning means the game can be played multiple times.  This increase in repetition of iterative low fidelity games feeding higher fidelity games in an event series has previously been identified as useful by wargaming grandmaster Matt Caffrey in his work On Wargaming[8]. 

It is the aim of agile games to use time wisely and concisely without sacrificing objectives and outputs. The goal of agile games is to approach any problem by taking small bites rather than swallowing the whole elephant, ideally leading to further concept refinement through either more detailed games, modeling and simulation, or concept writers using game insights to further their writing.

Agile gaming answers questions that are pressing or urgent—not completely, but just enough to set the decision makers in the right direction. Agile gaming requires being comfortable with sacrificing total fidelity to focus on a more playable, approachable game—for many nascent defense concepts, a 70% solution in three hours may be more useful than a 95% solution in a week of gameplay. Compare the commercial games Afrika Korps and Campaign for North Africa—the former is not perfectly realistic, but it is easily teachable and playable in a few hours, compared to the latter, which while more realistic, requires an excessive amount of table space, players, and time[9][10].

In the agile gaming methodology, a series of three or four iterations of the same game or topic may be necessary, with one difference between them. These multiple iterations could allow the gaming team to conduct difference-in-difference analyses. For example, an agile game might give players slightly more resources between iterations would allow for conversation and insights about how priorities change, or how resource allocation decisions are made under certain budgetary conditions[11]. 

To keep games quick and intuitive, agile gaming leverages gaming mechanics from the world of commercial recreational board gaming. The commercial gaming world is both broad and deep—thousands of designers have come up with game mechanics for everything from how to assemble a hamburger[12] to how to outfit an F/A-18 Hornet[13] to how to manufacture a car under the Kanban Just In Time manufacturing system[14].  Leveraging knowledge of these mechanics can shape the effectiveness of an agile game, showing how to translate complex systems to easily learnable game mechanics. 

With games varying in topic, complexity, and required expertise, the ideal agile gaming team will be a small footprint, modular team able to operate independently or with additions from external agencies. A small team allows for quick turns for gaming, while the modularity ensures that the team consults subject matter experts to ensure sufficient fidelity.

Agile gaming is not a perfect solution, more than any other approach to wargaming is—but agile gaming is a way to conduct rapid, iterative games. While agile gaming will not provide conclusive answers to national security problems, it can refine concepts and provide insights on how the US will conduct warfare today and tomorrow, as well as provide valuable stage setting for more detailed wargames.

Endnotes:

[1] Both authors adjudicated a Title 10 USAF game last year

[2] Insinna, V. (2012, April 12). A US Air Force war game shows what the service needs to hold off — or win against — China in 2030. Retrieved from Defense News: https://www.defensenews.com/training-sim/2021/04/12/a-us-air-force-war-game-shows-what-the-service-needs-to-hold-off-or-win-against-china-in-2030

[3] Trevethick, J. (2021, April 12). Today’s F-35As Not Worth Including In High-End War Games According To Air Force General. Retrieved from The Drive: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40142/air-force-general-says-current-generation-f-35as-not-worth-including-in-high-end-wargames

[4] Of the more than 15 games the Foxes conducted in 2020, the mean time of a game was below three hours

[5] Harris, L. (1981). Axis & Allies. USA: Milton Bradley.

[6] Tracton, K. (2019). World at War ’85: Storming the Gap. USA: Lock ‘n Load Publishing.

[7] Verssen, D. (2012). Thunderbolt Apache Leader. USA: Dan Verssen Games (DVG)

[8] Caffrey, M. (2019). On Wargaming. Newport, RI: Naval War College Press. Pg. 318

[9] Roberts, C. (1964). Afrika Korps. USA: Avalon Hill, Inc.

[10] Berg, R. (1979) Campaign for North Africa. USA: Simulations Publications, Inc.

[11] Observed by the authors in multiple agile games at HAF A5.

[12] Parkes, M. (2016). Burger Up. Australia: Greenbrier Games.

[13] Verssen, D. (2010). Hornet Leader: Carrier Air Operations. USA: Dan Verssen Games (DVG).

[14] Lacerda, V. (2014). Kanban Driver’s Edition. Stronghold Games.

Alexandria Brill Assessment Papers Georgetown University Wargaming Society (GUWS) Philip S. Bolger-Cortez U.S. Air Force Wargames and Wargaming
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Assessing Wargame Effectiveness: Using Natural Language Processing to Evaluate Wargaming Dynamics and Outcomes

Dr. Leah C. Windsor is a Research Associate Professor in the Institute for Intelligent Systems at The University of Memphis.   Dr. Windsor can be found on Twitter @leahcwindsor.  Dr. Susan Allen is an Associate Professor at the University of Mississippi.  Dr. Allen can be found on Twitter at @lady_professor.  Divergent Opinions’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group. 

Title:  Assessing Wargame Effectiveness: Using Natural Language Processing to Evaluate Wargaming Dynamics and Outcomes

Date Originally Written:  October 1, 2020.

Date Originally Published:  July 5, 2021.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The article is written from a neutral point of view to evaluate the conversational dynamics during wargames that are predictive of wargaming outcomes.

Summary:  Group decision-making research, while well-established, is not applied in wargames with a win / lose focus.  The deliberative data within wargaming can yield predictive metrics for game outcomes. Computational text analysis illuminates participant effects, such as status, gender, and experience. Analyzing participants’ language can provide insight into the intra-group and inter-group dynamics that exclude or invite potential solutions. 

Text:  The outcome of wargames reveals who wins and loses – but how do participants and strategists know if this is the optimal outcome from the range of potential outcomes? To understand why groups make particular decisions that lead to success or failure in wargames, the authors focus on the intra-group and inter-group communication that transpires during the wargame itself. The processes of group dynamics influence the outcomes of wargaming exercises, yet little attention is paid to these deliberations. Implicit biases manifest in language and other multimodal signals that influence participants and shape the process of negotiations [1][2]. 

A novel approach to analyzing wargames would include a process that informs the outcome, and models communicative interchanges computationally by examining linguistic features of participants’ deliberations. Participants’ exchanges and deliberations influence the dynamics within and across wargaming exercises and rounds of play. At present, the authors are aware of no computational models of wargaming deliberations exist that assess the intra-group and inter-group deliberations. A wealth of research using computational text-as-data approaches has established that language has predictive power in analyzing attributes like hierarchy, deception, and closeness [3][4][5]. 

Examining group dynamics is essential for understanding military and foreign policy decision-making because such choices are rarely made by individuals, particularly in democracies, but also within the winning coalition in autocracies. Despite the fact that deliberative group dynamics are affected by emotions, pride, status, reputation, and communication failures, these dynamics are seldom studied[6]. Natural language processing (NLP) approaches can help reveal why teams arrive at various outcomes, how power structures evolve and change within groups during deliberations, what patterns of group deliberation emerge across iterations, and how biases, whether implicit or through participant selection, affect the process of deliberations and outcomes. Because the dialogue patterns of participants have not been evaluated using the multimodal methods proposed, the authors anticipate that NLP will provide agenda-setting contributions to both the scientific and DoD communities.

To illustrate this point, the authors analyzed some of the communications from a wargaming exercise, Counter-Da’esh influence operations: Cognitive space narrative simulation insights[7]. Using computational linguistics techniques, the authors analyzed the use of language related to positive emotion over time, by rounds, across teams in this wargaming simulation. NLP can explore several aspects of between-group and within-group communications, as shown in Figure 1. First, NLP can compare the patterns of language between teams that lead to different outcomes, such as which team wins or loses. 

Second, NLP can model the language relationship between teams to understand which team is leading, and which team is following. Lexical entrainment, semantic similarity, and linguistic style-matching all refer to the process of speakers aligning their language as they collaborate and interact more [8][9][10]. This is visible especially in Rounds 2 and 3 where the Red and Blue teams show similar patterns of positive emotion language use, although with different magnitudes. 

Third, this analysis can be approached with more granularity to examine the individual participants within groups, over time, and between rounds, to determine who are the thought leaders, influencers, and idea entrepreneurs with the greatest power of persuasion. Sentiment analysis has been used to explain how leaders use emotionally evocative language to persuade followers, where positive emotion leads to improved public opinion ratings[11].

       Figure 1. Positive emotion by round, over time, and across teams for ICONS wargaming exercise

One of the critiques of wargaming has been that it is not always cross-culturally representative, which may introduce unintended cultural biases that lead to sub-optimal outcomes. Linguistic analysis of wargaming transcripts using cutting edge natural language processing approaches like Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers aka BERT[12] can help reveal how word meanings vary across issue area, culture, and context, and in doing so, provide objective metrics of language and cultural bias. Computational linguistics approaches can help reveal what people mean when they refer to particular concepts, and how this meaning is interpreted differently by other audiences. Figure 2 illustrates this point well: Windsor[13]  plots the use of two semantically related terms, conflict and war, over time between 1900 and 2000 in six different languages. While the use of these terms generally follow similar patterns, they vary in three different ways: over time; by language; and by term. 

In practice, war and conflict can be used interchangeably, but they also demonstrate remarkable differences over time and between languages. This means that when speakers use these terms, listeners may broadly share related interpretations of the words’ meanings, but room for misinterpretation clearly exists. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis suggests that language makes different interpretations of the world available based on the structure of language and lexicon available to speakers[14][15]. Using the BERT process on wargaming transcripts can help reveal instances where participants in the wargaming exercise misunderstand each other, and which concepts provide the most ambiguity and need the most clarification. In the field, understanding the opponent is part and parcel of the “winning hearts and minds” strategy. Gaps in cultural and linguistic understanding can create potentially dangerous, and unnecessary, chasms between people in conflict zones[16]. Computational linguistics approaches can help to identify these gaps so that military personnel, strategists, policymakers – and scholars – can better understand the optimal conditions for negotiating mutually beneficial outcomes. 

Figure 2. Trends in Google NGram for “War” and “Conflict” by Language (1900-2018), taken from Windsor (2021)

Theories of group decision-making are becoming more sophisticated as scholars of international relations and foreign policy re-embrace and return to the foundations of behavioral psychology. While Janis[17]  hypothesized about group-think a generation ago, more recently scholars focused on political psychology have highlighted the importance of experience, poly-think, and framing effects for groups[18]. While this research has advanced ideas about the nature of group decision-making, in practice the group dynamics that shape foreign policy decision-making are more opaque. Wargaming exercises prove a unique opportunity for exploring such theories. This approach builds on the extant literature on wargaming[19][20][21], and offers a path forward for advancing the study of wargaming using theoretically-grounded computational social science methods. 

Endnotes:

[1] Greenwald AG, Krieger LH. Implicit Bias: Scientific Foundations. Calif Law Rev. 2006;94: 945–967. doi:10.2307/20439056

[2] Jones HM, Box-Steffensmeier J. Implicit Bias and Why It Matters to the Field of Political Methodology. In: The Political Methodologist [Internet]. 31 Mar 2014 [cited 6 Jun 2018]. Available: https://thepoliticalmethodologist.com/2014/03/31/implicit-bias-and-why-it-matters-to-the-field-of-political-methodology

[3] Hancock JT, Curry LE, Goorha S, Woodworth M. On lying and being lied to: A linguistic analysis of deception in computer-mediated communication. Discourse Process. 2007;45: 1–23.

[4] Gonzales AL, Hancock JT, Pennebaker JW. Language style matching as a predictor of social dynamics in small groups. Commun Res. 2010;37: 3–19.

[5] Pennebaker JW, Chung CK, others. Computerized text analysis of Al-Qaeda transcripts. Content Anal Read. 2008; 453–465.

[6] Lin-Greenberg E, Pauly R, Schneider J. Wargaming for Political Science Research. Available SSRN. 2020.

[7] Linera R, Seese G, Canna S. Counter-Da’esh Influence Operations. May 2016 [cited 10 Jan 2021]. Available: https://nsiteam.com/counter-daesh-influence-operations

[8] Rogan RG. Linguistic style matching in crisis negotiations: a comparative analysis of suicidal and surrender outcomes. J Police Crisis Negot. 2011;11: 20–39.

[9] Taylor PJ, Thomas S. Linguistic Style Matching and Negotiation Outcome. Negot Confl Manag Res. 2008;1: 263–281. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-4716.2008.00016.x

[10] Taylor PJ, Dando CJ, Ormerod TC, Ball LJ, Jenkins MC, Sandham A, et al. Detecting insider threats through language change. Law Hum Behav. 2013;37: 267.

[11] Love G, Windsor L. Populism and Popular Support: Vertical Accountability, Exogenous Events, and Leader Discourse in Venezuela. Polit Res Q. 2017.

[12] Devlin J, Chang M-W, Lee K, Toutanova K. BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding. ArXiv181004805 Cs. 2019 [cited 20 Sep 2020]. Available: http://arxiv.org/abs/1810.04805

[13] Windsor L. Linguistic and Political Relativity: AI Bias and the Language of Internatioanl Relations. AI Ethics. Routledge; 2021.

[14] Whorf BL. Science and linguistics. Bobbs-Merrill Indianapolis, IN; 1940.

[15] Kay P, Kempton W. What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? Am Anthropol. 1984;86: 65–79.

[16] Morrison T, Conaway WA. Kiss, Bow, Or Shake Hands: The Bestselling Guide to Doing Business in More Than 60 Countries. Adams Media; 2006.

[17] Janis IL. Victims of groupthink: A psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and fiascoes. 1972.

[18] Hermann MG. Foreign policy role orientations and the quality of foreign policy decisions. Role Theory Foreign Policy Anal. 1987; 123–140.

[19] Asal V, Blake EL. Creating simulations for political science education. J Polit Sci Educ. 2006;2: 1–18.

[20] Brynen R. Virtual paradox: how digital war has reinvigorated analogue wargaming. Digit War. 2020; 1–6.

[21] Reddie AW, Goldblum BL, Lakkaraju K, Reinhardt J, Nacht M, Epifanovskaya L. Next-generation wargames. Science. 2018;362: 1362–1364.

Assessment Papers Dr. Leah C. Windsor Dr. Susan Allen Georgetown University Wargaming Society (GUWS) Wargames and Wargaming
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Options to Increase Diversity by Forging Pathways into the Wargaming Profession

Tom Vielott is a recent graduate from the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and the creator of the Itooran Peace Game. He can be found at tvielott.wordpress.com. Divergent Opinions’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group. 

Title:  Options to Increase Diversity by Forging Pathways into the Wargaming Profession

Date Originally Written:  June 16, 2021.

Date Originally Published:  June 28, 2021.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The author is a longtime member of the hobby wargaming and tabletop roleplaying community and the designer of a serious game for training use in a university classroom. He is writing from his experiences in those communities and in attempting to find his place in the professional wargaming community. The author is not a member of a minority group and has not personally experienced discrimination on the basis of his gender, sexuality, or race.

Background:  It is not novel to notice that the demographic makeup of the ‘wargaming community’ – the military professionals, academics, policy researchers, and others who play, design, and facilitate serious games – is almost entirely white, male, heterosexual, able bodied, well educated, and often with a military background. One need only look around at the attendees at the average Connections Conference[1] to observe the fact of the matter: there is not much diversity in the wargaming community.

Significance:  A lack of diversity in the wargaming community leads it along a path of stagnation and, in the long term, irrelevance. As Sally Davis eloquently expresses in her Wavell Room piece[2], well made games are art, an intimate way of experiencing other perspectives and new ideas through direct experience. A wargaming community without significant participation by women; Black, Indigenous and People of Color; and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender designers loses many great opportunities to expand ideas about war and international politics. The ultimate goal of diversity in the wargaming community is not only to produce a general improvement in the thoughtfulness, quality, and emotional range of games produced for serious purposes, but to also improve the lives of the marginalized within it. If this lack of diversity within the wargaming community continues, it risks relegating many wargames to exercises in bias-confirmation and self-aggrandizement rather than exploration and analysis.  

Action can be taken with an eye towards the recruitment of new gamers and designers, but the roots of this diversity problem are deeper than that. Every member of the community, from the oldest designers to the newest players, will have to adjust their attitudes and assumptions for any of these options to be successful[3].

Option #1:  Diversify Skillsets in Wargaming Roles. 

A brief look at the job market in wargames reveals two significant trends: First, most of the jobs require the applicant to already have military experience. Second, most require advanced degrees, often in specific modeling disciplines like physics or engineering or in policy analysis. These trends greatly restrict the kinds of people who are able to find paid work in serious gaming outside of academia to the dominant wargaming milieu described earlier. One might suspect that professional wargamers are seeking more people who look and think like them. It is a natural inclination, but one that the profession can fight against by revalidating and possibly relaxing those requirements and actively seeking out and training those with experience in other disciplines, particularly ones in the humanities, to be wargamers.

Risk:  Option #1 will be costly in time and resources to bring in those without intimate familiarity with the military or with analytical techniques up to speed on wargaming techniques. 

Gain:  Opening positions to skillsets outside of those traditionally held within the wargaming field will enable an increase in diversity by searching out people with different backgrounds and experiences and inviting them to join the wargaming community explicitly.

Option #2:  Make More Games Unclassified. 

Security classification is a major barrier to participation in the wargaming community. It means that a security clearance, often an existing one, is a requirement to become a part of many wargaming projects.  It also means that once created, games often languish and disappear from the consciousness of the community because they are not shared around because of the difficulty of getting approval for any kind of release. RAND’s Hedgemony[4] is an excellent example of a successful unclassified game with a public release which garnered interest both in the U.S. and abroad. More games following in Hedgemony’s footsteps could seek to be widely seen outside of the professional community. 

Risk:  Not utilizing classified information can make designing wargames harder and reduce the fidelity of highly analytical games. Ensuring games can be unclassified requires extra effort in some contexts since the content will have to undergo security review.

Gain:  Unclassified games can more easily involve people without clearances, especially if they are in a freelance or contractor position. These games can also be used in a far wider variety of contexts, especially in outreach and in the recruitment of more gamers and designers. As a further effect, the unclassified games will increase the pool of existing games from which designers can learn and expand their repertoire.

Option #3:  Expand Outreach Beyond the Traditional Wargaming Community. 

Many of the same problems in the professional community are mirrored in the hobby community[5]. There is a far greater diversity of designers and players in hobby communities outside of traditional wargaming, particularly in the independent (or ‘indie’) roleplaying community. More effort could be directed towards drawing members of these communities to wargames. Many members have experience with game jams[6] and other game design events.  Hosting similar events with a serious gaming focus with advertising in hobby spaces could draw new designers to the fold.

The Zenobia Award[7], which seeks out both underrepresented game concepts and underrepresented game designers, is an excellent example of what this could look like: challenges and collaborations that encourage people who otherwise would not be involved in serious gaming to try their hand at game design, and which offer them connections within the community, mentorship, and professional opportunities. 

Risk:  Some groups will react poorly to outreach, and serious efforts will have to be made to make them feel comfortable enough to participate and to prevent the intended audience from being crowded out.

Gain:  The option, if well executed, will provide a greater pool of diverse wargame designers, and a flowering of unusual game designs.

Other Comments:  The complexity and difficulty involved in this issue cannot be overemphasized.  Even successful execution of all of the options given above would not alone be sufficient to ‘solve’ the diversity problem. Only serious concerted effort to enact change along multiple axes, among them: hiring, institutional culture, outreach, personal behavior, and fundamental attitudes about the purpose of gaming, will address this situation.

The author would also like to thank Dr. Yuna Wong for being open to a frank conversation that deeply informed his writing on the topic.

Recommendation:  None.

Endnotes:

[1] Connections Wargaming Conference. (n.d.). Retrieved June 16, 2021, from https://connections-wargaming.com. Connections is a family of conferences around the world which focus on the professional practice of the design and facilitation of ‘serious games’ including wargames and other tabletop exercises. Its attendees are generally representative of the most active members in the field.

[2] Davis, S. (2021, January 15). Wargaming has a Diversity Problem. Wavell Room. https://wavellroom.com/2021/01/15/wargaming-has-a-diversity-problem 

[3] My year of doing terrifying things for diversity and inclusion. (2020, December 31). PAXsims. https://paxsims.wordpress.com/2020/12/31/my-year-of-doing-terrifying-things-for-diversity-and-inclusion 

[4] Linick, M. E., Yurchak, J., Spirtas, M., Dalzell, S., Wong, Y. H., & Crane, Y. K. (2020). Hedgemony: A Game of Strategic Choices. Www.rand.org. https://www.rand.org/pubs/tools/TL301.html#download 

[5] See for example: Why Don’t More Women Play Wargames? (n.d.). Www.youtube.com. Retrieved June 12, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6atdeEMrLCE 

[6] Game jams. (n.d.). Itch.io. https://itch.io/jams. Itch.io, a hub of independent game activity, hosts a dizzying array of jams, most of which are for video games, but a sizable minority are for roleplaying games.

[7] Zenobia Award. (n.d.). Retrieved June 12, 2021, from https://zenobiaaward.org

Georgetown University Wargaming Society (GUWS) Option Papers Tom Vielott Wargames and Wargaming
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Assessing Wargaming in Turkey

M. Fatih BAS is a lecturer in the Department of History at the Turkish Military Academy in Ankara, Turkey.  He is currently pursuing a PhD in modern military history at Gazi University and can be found on Twitter @mefaba.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  Assessing Wargaming in Turkey

Date Originally Written:  June 7, 2021.

Date Originally Published:  June 21, 2021. 

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The author is a lecturer of military history in the Turkish Military Academy. The author believes that the absence of a wargaming culture in Turkey can be overcome by a close cooperation between the Turkish military and the academia.

Summary:  Wargaming in Turkey has a long history but it has always been confined to military circles. Wargaming was never a civilian hobby or educational tool for academics. Even in the military, wargaming is reserved almost exclusively for staff officers and higher echelons. Civilian-military cooperation to establish a wargaming community will improve the wargaming capacity of Turkish military and academia.

Text:  When the young Prussian Captain Helmuth von Moltke arrived in Istanbul as a military advisor in 1835, he was received by the Ottoman Minister of War Hüsrev Pasha who showed him a wargame kit and asked for his help with the rules. Hüsrev Pasha’s game was almost definitely a copy of Kriegsspiel designed by von Reisswitz the younger[1]. Hüsrev Pasha, being apparently enthusiastic about this new tactical training tool, could never have implemented it in the Ottoman Army at the time. The army was already going through a massive reform and the quality of the officer corps was far from ideal. 

It would take nearly half a century for the Ottoman professional military education to produce officers who would appreciate wargaming as a useful tool for training. Ottoman re-discovery of wargaming came soon after the first large-scale German military mission’s arrival in Istanbul, in 1882. The same year, Senior Captain Ömer Kâmil Efendi translated and published Colonel Verdy du Vernois’s wargame rules, which was the first appearance of wargaming in Turkish military literature[2]. 

During the Ottoman military modernization under German supervision, wargaming entrenched itself in Ottoman military regulations and manuals which were mostly word-by-word translations of the German ones. With the implementation of the so-called application method of the German professional military education, wargaming became an important part of the Army War College curriculum[3]. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Navy seemed not to be interested in wargaming, as the first ever mention of wargames in the Ottoman naval literature appeared in 1916 when Lieutenant Nail Efendi translated and published the wargaming conferences delivered in 1887 by William McCarty Little in the U.S. Naval War College[4]. 

Though the Ottoman Army tried to implement wargaming as a valid training tool, this never went beyond the classroom exercises in the War College, and does not seem to have been adopted by regular officers. Staff rides -another Prussian tradition- are known to have been regularly held with the attendance of staff officers from all ranks but there is no mention of wargames conducted by army headquarters or by the Ottoman Ministry of War. 

Things did not quite change after the proclamation of the Turkish Republic in 1923. But still, the first ever recorded large-scale Turkish wargame was conducted in 1924. The Turkish General Staff, with the attendance of army commanders and President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, tested various strategies to be employed in case of a joint aggression by Italy and Greece in Western Anatolia and Thrace[5]. In the modern Turkish Army, just like it was the case with its Ottoman predecessor, wargaming was confined to the halls of the War College. Wargaming remained an integral part of staff officer training and army regulations recommended it to staff officers as a useful training tool but the rest of the officer corps remained almost entirely oblivious to wargaming[6]. 

Wargaming habits of the Turkish Army changed very little in the past hundred years. While wargaming solutions developed by the government agencies such as the Presidency of Defense Industries (SSB), government affiliated corporations such as HAVELSAN or private software companies appear regularly in defense news[7], references to wargaming in Turkish military journals and official documents have always been extremely limited. Army field exercises regularly make the headlines of major national news outlets[8] but there is almost no open access information about regular wargaming activities of any branch of the Turkish Armed Forces. Currently, wargaming seems to remain almost exclusively as a training activity for staff officer candidates in the War College which has its own wargaming center in its campus. 

According to current military exercise regulation, each army headquarters of the Turkish Army is required to conduct wargames regularly[9]. Strategic-level political-military wargames seldomly take place and they are widely reported by the media when they do[10]. Also, every operational and tactical level headquarters is required to conduct regular command post exercises which are simulated with various software[11]. Such exercises are held exclusively as a headquarters readiness tests, rather than tactical training exercises. So, it is debatable if these exercises count as wargames. It is safe to assume that the majority of the Turkish officer corps complete their careers without participating in any kind of wargaming activity. 

Despite all its shortcomings, a tradition of professional wargaming exists in Turkey. One cannot say the same about hobby wargaming. Apart from a small minority who mostly play fantasy themed tabletop games, there is no wargaming hobby society known to have ever existed in Turkey. Strategy themed video games have always been popular, but realistic military simulations which can be categorized as wargames are virtually unknown to the Turkish gamers. The main reason for that is the language barrier. The need to digest lengthy rule sets written in English is not an appealing feature for the average Turkish gamer, even for the ones who are interested in military matters. 

Today, wargaming is creating its own academic field and it surely is not entirely a military activity any more[12]. Wargaming societies in academia are known to benefit initially from commercial wargames and hobby wargaming base in their respected countries[13]. The absence of the hobby aspect of wargaming in Turkey, naturally hinders wargaming in academia, and the academics remain mostly unaware of wargaming activities conducted by their colleagues in other countries. 

Developing a wargaming culture in Turkey would definitely be an uphill struggle. But a civilian-military cooperation may overcome this challenge. The current situation in Turkey is quite suitable for civilian-military cooperation in various subjects, and wargaming can be one of them. A jointly established wargaming community would be the first step in developing a wargaming culture that would benefit both the military and the academia. If this community receives adequate support, it would also be an excellent solution for increasing wargaming capabilities of the Turkish Armed Forces. 

Endnotes:

[1] Von Moltke, H. (1969). Moltke’nin Türkiye Mektupları. (H. Örs, Translator). İstanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, p. 29.

[2] İhsanoğlu,E. et al. (2004). Osmanlı Askerlik Literatürü Tarihi, I. Cilt. İstanbul: İslam Tarih, Sanat ve Kültür Araştırma Merkezi, p. 195.

[3] İskora, M. M. (1944). Türk Ordusu Kurmaylık (Erkânıharbiye) Tarihçesi. Ankara: Harp Akademisi Matbaası, p. 57.

[4] Kıdemli Yüzbaşı Nail. (1916). “Sevkülceyşî Harb Oyunu Yahud Harita Manevrası”, Risâle-i Mevkute-i Bahriye 2/6, p. 273-288.

[5] Özkurt, F. (2017). Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk ve Askerî Manevra ve Tatbikatlar (1909-1938) Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, p. 71-81.

[6] Mehmed Nihad. (1925). Zabitin Harb Çantası Üçüncü Cüz’ü. İstanbul: Matbaa-i Askerî, p. 183-185. İskora, M. M. (1966). Harp Akademileri Tarihçesi 1846-1965 1’inci Cilt. Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, p. 80.

[7] For a piece on HAVELSAN’s Joint Wargame and Education Center see: MSI. (2019, June 11). HAVELSAN Müşterek Harp Oyunu ve Eğitim Merkezi. Retrieved June 5, 2021, from https://www.savunmahaber.com/havelsan-musterek-harp-oyunu-ve-egitim-merkezi-2/. For a piece on Turkish private corporation JEY Defense’s Joint Wargame Simulation see: Görgülü, E. (2018, October 19). TSK için ürettiler! Tatbikatlarda bir ilk. Retrieved June 5, 2021, from https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/tsk-icin-urettiler-tatbikatlarda-bir-ilk-40991754.

[8] For a piece on recent joint exercise conducted with Azerbaijani Army see: Rehimov, R. (2021, May 22). Azerbaycan ve Türk askerleri ortak tatbikat yaptı. Retrieved June 5, 2021, from https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/dunya/azerbaycan-ve-turk-askerleri-ortak-tatbikat-yapti/2250886

[9] Kara Kuvvetleri Komutanlığı. (2010). KKT 190-1 (B) Tatbikatların Sevk ve İdaresi. Ankara: KK Basımevi ve Basılı Evrak Depo Müdürlüğü, 3. Bölüm. 

[10] For a piece on the Joint/Combined Wargame conducted in İstanbul, in 2016 see: DHA. (2016, May 17). Yıldız 2016 Harp Oyunu. Retrieved June 5, 2021, from https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/yildiz-2016-harp-oyunu-40105395

[11] Akkaya, S. (2003). “MUHSİMLEM Komutanlığının Görev ve Fonksiyonları”, Kara Kuvvetleri Dergisi Sayı: 5, p. 54-57.

[12] Brynen, R. (2019, 8 May). Wargaming as an academic discipline. Retrieved June 5, 2021, from https://paxsims.wordpress.com/2019/08/05/wargaming-as-an-academic-discipline/

[13] Sabin, P. (2012). Simulating War: Studying Conflict Through Simulation Games. London: Bloomsbury, Introduction.

Assessment Papers Georgetown University Wargaming Society (GUWS) M. Fatih BAS Turkey Wargames and Wargaming
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Assessing Practical Educational Wargaming

Mitch Reed has served in the United States Air Force since 1986 as both a commissioned officer and a government civilian. He presently works at Headquarters U.S. Air Force as wargamer and is also a hobby wargamer who runs the website NoDiceNoGlory.com. He can be reached at iprop27@gmail.com.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  Assessing Practical Educational Wargaming 

Date Originally Written:  June 8, 2021.

Date Originally Published:  June 14, 2021.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The author is a retired U.S. Air Force (USAF) officer and a wargamer in both the USAF and the hobby communities. The article is written from the basis that wargaming is the perfect laboratory for social science students and helps develop leaders with critical decision-making skills. 

Summary:  Hard science educators use laboratory environments to assess student progress.  Social sciences and other areas of endeavor can do the same via wargaming.  While one may assume wargaming focuses solely on war, its applications are both for war and beyond, including nearly any context in which an organization or individual desires to determine the cost of action or inaction.  

Text:  Educators continuously seek means to validate the progress of their students. In hard science curriculums, educators often use a laboratory environment where the students can apply and hone their knowledge in a controlled manner. Subsequently, educators can truly assess the level of learning of their students – beyond a student’s ability to retain and recite the coursework. In contrast, social science courses lack a laboratory environment where knowledge transforms into practical application.  Within the Department of Defense, wargaming is used a practical exercise to validate learning.  A wargame creates a specific environment where the players face challenges and will need to apply their knowledge to come up with decisions to solve the problems that the game presents. 

In 2021, the author supported a global wargame at the Marine Corps University (MCU) where the War College students played the roles of various nations involved in a major conflict. The students were all senior Field Grade Officers with 16-18 years of military experience and various positions of leadership during their military career. Despite their years of experience, students consistently stated how the wargame enabled them to utilize what they learned over the preceding eight months in a manner where they were able to test the concepts in a simulated environment. This “eureka” moment was not evident at first. Initially, the students relied on concepts they felt most comfortable with, often reverting to knowledge they had before attending the course. Yet, the students quickly recognized that by synthesizing and applying the coursework, they could solve the problems that game presented. The students were able to leverage military capabilities and execute them across warfighting domains to generate the effects they desired to “win” the game. 

These observations validated two concepts; the first is that the students grasped the coursework and secondly, they were able to use what they learned during the wargame. This second point is critical because it indicates that after the students graduate the War College at MCU they will have the capability to apply the knowledge they have gained in a manner which will benefit the military operations they are involved in for the rest of their careers. These observations validate not only what the students learned at MCU but also the need for professional military education and the need for wargaming to play a major role in these courses. 

The author’s experience at MCU was not a singular. When teaching concepts such as military operational planning and execution as an instructor or mentor war-games are invaluable to reinforce the curriculum.  

It should be no mystery on why wargaming provides such a robust means of validating learning. Through a wargame, an instructor can tailor the environment of the game in such a manner where students apply the newly learned concepts in a pressure-filled environment[1]. Unlike a test where each question usually has only one correct answer, a wargame offers no simple answers, but a multitude of paths forward. Students possess several means to solve a problem and the outcome is not predetermined if the game uses a stochastic methodology. A risky gamble may succeed, a thorough plan may fail or vice versa – reflective of capricious reality. Ultimately, students must contend with decisions and their consequences.  

Seemingly counter intuitive, failure serves to illustrate several factors, which are often out of the control of the players that can affect the game’s outcome, which proves that the lessons of a game may be quite indirect[2] and gives the players a sense of uncertainty when making their decisions. Within its artificial environment, a wargame can pull a student out of their comfort zone and force them to make sound decisions rapidly to prevent a negative outcome in the game. Wargames also emulate the environment the students will have to make decisions in when in an operational assignment. 

The military is not the only benefactor of wargaming and the benefits of wargaming translates very well to other fields. Students learning about the failure of the Weimar government in 1930s Germany can use a game to examine a ‘What if” scenario that can uncover the events that lead to the election of the National Socialists in 1933. In business, a wargame can gain insight into how best to market a product or execute a product recall. The uses of wargaming in social science matters is endless and is worthy of inclusion in any course of study or decision-making process. 

Despite their value, war-games are not often included in the educational environment.  Wargames are not always the easiest of things to create and making a wargame that achieves all desired objectives is as much of an art and science.  No matter how tough the challenge, educators can gain by seeking out avenues in which wargaming can enrich the academic environment. 

Wargamers are the best ambassadors for wargames as an educational tool and are well positioned to describe the benefits of war-games and wargaming to the uninformed or curious.   Grassroots advocacy will ensure that wargaming grows and plays a major role in academia. 

Endnotes:

[1] Elg, Johan Erik, “Wargaming in Military Education for Army Officers and Officer Cadets,” King’s College London, September 2017.

[2] Wong, Bae, Bartels, Smith (2019) Next-Generation Wargaming for the U.S. Marine Corps, retrieved 21 May 2021; from https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2227.html 

Assessment Papers Georgetown University Wargaming Society (GUWS) Mitch Reed Wargames and Wargaming
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Assessing Wargaming in New Zealand

Michael Gardiner is completing a Masters in Strategic Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University. He is also a co-founder of the Victoria University of Wellington Wargaming Society which designs, implements, and teaches wargaming to students and other stakeholders within New Zealand. He can be found on Twitter @Mikey_Gardiner_. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  Assessing Wargaming in New Zealand

Date Originally Written:  May 19, 2021.

Date Originally Published:  May 31, 2021.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The author is a co-founder of the Victoria University of Wellington Wargaming Society. The author believes that New Zealand’s national security community, businesses and other organisations can benefit from using wargaming as an educational and analytical tool. 

Summary:  While New Zealand has a strong wargaming history, the country has a heavy reliance on tactical-level wargames that limits the scope of wargame utility to hobbyist and defence force practitioners. Contemporary practitioners such as the VUW Wargaming Society can plug the gap by providing strategic level thinking to policymakers and other actors. Wargaming will grow in popularity as New Zealand’s threat environment changes. 

Text:  New Zealand’s wargaming history is primarily one at the hobbyist level. ‘Miniature wargaming’ which focuses on assembling, painting, and playing with figurine armies became increasingly popular from the early 20th Century. Wargaming societies and suppliers soon established themselves across the country from Auckland to Dunedin. Founded in 1972 as the Wellington Wargames Section, the Wellington Warlords is one of New Zealand’s oldest wargaming societies and still attracts hundreds of members with an interest in miniature wargaming[1]. While the focus remains entrenched in building, painting, and playing with miniature armies, the philosophies of hobbyist wargames in New Zealand’s wargaming culture remain relevant to wider applications. Writing in the 1980s, Wellington wargamer Andrew Hatt notes “the charm of wargaming lies in its infinite adaptability[2].”  This practicality stemming from the country’s population of “do it yourselfers[3]” suggests New Zealand has a foundational hobbyist culture that would lend itself well to more professional wargaming ventures. 

New Zealand’s Defence Force also has experience participating in wargames. Computer wargames are important for simulating battlefield developments at the operational and tactical levels, particularly in training contexts. The New Zealand Army uses video games, such as those run by Bohemia Interactive’s Arma 3 engine for tactical training[4]. Inspired by the United States Marine Corps, the New Zealand Army’s Wargaming Battlelab in 2017 involved a series of tactical-level decision-making wargames that would culminate in the creation of a New Zealand specific module[5]. In terms of joint exercises, the New Zealand Army has significant experience wargaming with the United States military, such as in the 1978 exercise ‘First Foray[6].’ Meanwhile, the New Zealand Navy has participated in numerous joint exercises such as a humanitarian focused operation with Vanuatu[7] and more large-scale exercises such as RIMPAC[8]. International exercises to improve interoperability in space such as through the Schriever wargame, have also included New Zealand[9]. 

Outside of the tactical level, wargaming in New Zealand has failed to take off. A kaleidoscope of stakeholders can stand to reap the benefits of strategic level wargames. Providing the predictive capabilities of wargaming are not overestimated[10], the advantages of strategic level wargames include:

  • Strategic level wargames embrace the messiness of reality. The immersive nature of wargames allows participants to gain insights into situational complexities. These complexities are particularly useful for crisis simulations[11].  
  • Strategic level wargames enable interactions within a wargaming environment that promotes robust discussions and debates over key variables, information, and insights. Wargame disagreements, when handled effectively, lead to stronger policy and strategic recommendations[12].
  • Strategic level wargames can bring to light previously missed weak signals and whispers from the ‘grey zone[13].’ 

The newly created VUW Wargaming Society (VUWWS) seeks to fill the gap at the strategic level. Specialising in futures-casting and strategic tradecraft, VUWWS recognises the importance for wargaming as an analytical and educational tool[14]. In its nascent form, VUWWS could soon occupy an important position within New Zealand’s small national security apparatus. Works such as the soon-to-be-published Emperor Penguin report – which focuses on great power competition in the Antarctic region – will add important insights to New Zealand’s foreign policy and future strategic planning. Given the revived debate over New Zealand’s relationships with the United States and China, testing New Zealand’s strategy within the safe container of a strategic level wargame has never been more valuable. As such, VUWWS could become a significant force given its competitive advantage, the emerging confluence of strategic threats, and a return of national security concerns to New Zealand discourse. 

Naturally, wargaming does not have to focus explicitly on traditional threats and military power. New Zealand’s security is becoming increasingly challenged from a wide variety of sources, particularly from non-conventional threats. Consistent with New Zealand’s “all hazards – all risks” approach to national security[15], wargaming’s adaptability means it can be a useful tool for assessing national responses to issues like climate change, cyber-security, trans-national crime, natural disasters, etc. For example, while New Zealand has mitigated the threat from Covid-19, wargaming could have been used to identify blind spots in the response strategy to prevent more lockdowns and community transmission[16]. As “trade is not just about trade[17],” New Zealand’s geographic reality as a small island reliant on trade would significantly benefit from wargaming issues such as the impacts of policy decisions on supply chain resilience, especially given recent initiatives to diversify away from dependence on China. Businesses, non-governmental organisations, think tanks and other actors can also leverage the power of wargaming to test strategies, draw insights and act with more confidence despite future uncertainty.

The accessibility of wargaming knowledge and practice also improves the transparency of national security issues. Keeping constituencies and stakeholders in the dark around strategic issues and threat landscapes gives national security apparatuses ‘shadowy’ reputations[18]. While some information must remain classified for security reasons, more public debates around national security issues are valuable. New Zealand’s national security ecosystem and general public would stand to benefit from more enriching conversations about New Zealand’s place in the world, supported by publicly accessible wargaming tools and information created from it’s use. A student-oriented club like VUWWS uses open-source information, and as a result could find itself contributing to more national discussions. 

Finally, a thriving wargaming community within New Zealand offers the potential for greater security cooperation. A well-established and supported wargaming community within New Zealand’s national security apparatus signals a willingness to engage seriously regarding security concerns, particularly within the Indo-Pacific. Furthermore, working together with regional partners on joint-exercises and sharing wargaming best practice can become an important facet of Track II discussions. Relationships and cooperative outcomes can be developed through wargaming, with improved ties across governments, defence forces, academia, and wider society.  

Endnotes:

[1] History of the Club. Wellington Warlords. (n.d.). Retrieved May 18 2021, from  https://warlords.org.nz/history-of-the-club. 

[2] Hatt, A. (1981). Wargaming: A New Zealand handbook. Wellington: Wellington Wargames Society, p. 3

[3] Millar, A. (1975). So you want to play wargames. Wellington: Wellington Wargames Society, p. 4

[4] Curry, J. (2020). Professional wargaming: A flawed but useful tool. Simulation & Gaming, 51(5), 612-631. doi:10.1177/1046878120901852, p. 626

[5] Wargaming Battlelab. New Zealand Defence Force (2017, December 11). Army News. Retrieved May 18, 2021, from https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE31102363, pp. 32-33

[6] Caffrey Jr., M. B. (2019). On Wargaming: How Wargames Have Shaped History and How They May Shape the Future. Newport, Rhode Island: Naval War College Press. https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1043&context=newport-papers, p. 114

[7] Corby, S. (2018, May 01). New Zealand wargames Pacific intervention in Vanuatu. Retrieved May 18, 2021, from https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/new-zealand-wargames-pacific-intervention-in-vanuatu

[8] Thomas, R. (2020, June 10). Rimpac war GAMES exercise: New Zealand government urged to withdraw. Retrieved May 18, 2021, from https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/418720/rimpac-war-games-exercise-new-zealand-government-urged-to-withdraw

[9] Ministry of Defence. (2018). Strategic Defence Policy Statement 2018. Wellington: Ministry of Defence. https://www.defence.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/8958486b29/Strategic-Defence-Policy-Statement-2018.pdf, p. 38

[10] Curry, J. (2020). Professional wargaming: A flawed but useful tool. Simulation & Gaming, 51(5), 612-631. doi:10.1177/1046878120901852, p. 612

[11] Schechter, B., Schneider, J., & Shaffer, R. (2021). Wargaming as a Methodology: The International Crisis Wargame and Experimental Wargaming. Simulation & Gaming, doi:10.1177/1046878120987581

[12] Nagle, T. (2021, May 11). Conflicts in wargames: Leveraging disagreements to build value. Retrieved May 18, 2021, from https://warontherocks.com/2021/05/conflicts-in-wargames-leveraging-disagreements-to-build-value

[13] Rubel, R. C. (2021, March 08). Whispers from Wargames about the Gray Zone. Retrieved May 18, 2021, from https://warontherocks.com/2021/03/whispers-from-wargames-about-the-gray-zone

[14] VUW Wargaming Society. Bio and contact details. Retrieved May 18, 2021, from https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/students/campus/clubs/directory/wargaming-society 

[15] Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. New Zealand’s national security system. Retrieved May 18, 2021, from https://dpmc.govt.nz/our-programmes/national-security-and-intelligence/national-security/new-zealands-national-security 

[16] Dyer, P. (2021). Policy & Institutional Responses to COVID-19: New Zealand. Brookings Doha Center. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/MENA-COVID-19-Survey-New-Zealand-.pdf, p. 16

[17] Sachdeva, S. (2021, May 13). UK diplomat: ‘Trade is never just about trade’. Retrieved May 18, 2021, from https://www.newsroom.co.nz/laura-clarke-trade-is-never-just-about-trade

[18] Manch, T. (2021, March 24). New Zealand’s national security apparatus remains shadowy, two years on from the March 15 terror attack. Retrieved May 18, 2021, from https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/124611960/new-zealands-national-security-apparatus-remains-shadowy-two-years-on-from-the-march-15-terror-attack

Assessment Papers Georgetown University Wargaming Society (GUWS) Michael Gardiner New Zealand Wargames and Wargaming
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Assessing the Impact of a Kriegsspiel 2.0 in Modern Leadership and Command Training

This article is published as part of a Georgetown University Wargaming Society and Divergent Options Call for Papers on Wargaming which ran from May 1, 2021 to June 12, 2021.  More information about this Call for Papers can be found by clicking here.

Colonel (Generalstaff) Soenke Marahrens has served in the German Airforce since 1987.  Now he serves as Head of Research for Strategy and Forces.  He presently works at the German Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies in Hamburg.  He can be found on Twitter at @cdr2012neu. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  Assessing the Impact of a Kriegsspiel 2.0 in Modern Leadership and Command Training.

Date Originally Written:  May 1, 2021.

Date Originally Published:  May 17, 2021.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The author is an active German military member with General Staff officer training. The author believes in wargaming as tool to teach leadership and command. He has written two master theses on the topic of the Prussian Wargame at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of the Armed Forces in Hamburg. Over the last four years the author observed and took part in a multiple Prussian-Kriegsspiel-sessions with civilian and military students run by the University of Würzburg[1]. The article is written from the point of view of a senior German officer towards military education and training and reflect his personal views.

Summary:  The Prussian Kriegsspiel was introduced in 1824 to educate and train officers in leadership and command in an interactive setting. Providing a fair and unbiased platform, it allows for modern forms of tutoring, mentoring, self-learning, and competence-based learning. However, without a moderate digitalization and conceptual makeover, the Kriegsspiel will not reach its full potential.

Text:  When Lieutenant v. Reisswitz[2] presented his Kriegsspiel[3] to the Chief of Defence General von Müffling in 1824[4], he couldn’t know, that his ideas would last forever. His Kriegsspiel allowed two parties of one or more players to solve military tasks under the adjudication of a neutral umpire. This neutral umpire oversaw running the simulation on a master map, executing orders of the parties, resolving battles, creating reports and providing feedback after the game.

Reisswitz’ Kriegsspiel wasn’t the first of its kind. In his introduction he mentioned military games back to the old Greeks, but his “Kriegsspiel” – war game is the direct translation of the German word – was new in two regards: a. using a real-world map in 1:8000 scale and b. rolling dice to decide outcomes and losses. Reisswitz’ Kriegsspiel challenged its players with a geographically correct battlefield merged with dice-driven randomness, what Clausewitz would 1832 call friction and the fog of war[5]. Reisswitz’ intent was to create an instructional tool rather than a game, he wrote: “Anyone, who can manoeuvre naturally and calmly, can quickly appreciate the idea of a plan, and follow it through logically, can make the most of good luck and adjust to bad luck, fully deserves approval. The winning or losing, in the sense of a card or board game, does not come into it[6].”

Following the dissemination of the Kriegsspiel to all Prussian Regiments by personal order of the king, Reisswitz’ rule set was revised. The first revision was by a group of young Prussian officers from 1826 – 1827, who published their findings as a Supplement in 1828[7]. The next revision came around 1846-1848, when the Wargaming-Societies of Magdeburg and Berlin updated the von Reisswitz rules in accordance with the technological advancements for artillery guns and infantry rifles[8][9]. In 1862[10], Lieutenant von Tschischwitz merged both rule sets into one abbreviated new rule set and published updates in 1867[11], 1870[12] and 1874[13]. Tschischwitz’ rule set started a renaissance of the Kriegsspiel in Prussia, which was attributed to the Prussian Victories[14]. Around 1873 Lieutenant von Meckel, a lecturer at the Kriegsschule in Hannover, criticised publicly, that the rigid use of dice and rules would diminish the personality of the umpire[15]. Lieutenant von Meckel’s criticism led to the creation of the “free” Kriegsspiel by Colonel Count Verdy du This Vernois[16], who discarded the dice.

Despite the discarding, the use of the dice and strict rules make the “rigid” Kriegsspiel a “fair” game for all players, unfortunately, adjudication by dice is a complex and time-consuming task for the umpire, deeming it almost unplayable. The freeplay -without dice and rules- Kriegsspiel occurs much faster but has become dependent on the personality and bias of the umpire, increasing the risk of fostering flattering behavior instead of intellectual debate amongst the players. The Kriegsspiel, even with its rigid use of dice, remains valuable for a variety of reasons.

1. The Kriegsspiel creates more immersion, engagement, and sustainability than any other classroom teaching on leadership and command.

2. While its use of historic artillery, infantry, and cavalry seems a rather artefactual approach to war, this approach:

a. Creates enough complexity to demonstrate the challenges to leadership and command as the coordination of space, time, and forces through information.

b. Minimizes discussions on the realism of rules, assets, and capabilities in its rigid version.

c. Is still close enough to war to discuss moral factors like impact of losses or moral hazards like winning for any price. Despite this

d. Risks “gamer mode behavior,” where players use game features like rules or limits of the underlying model to reach their given aims[17].

3. The Kriegsspiel allows players to experience a real Observe-Orient-Decide-Act loop without a determined outcome while confronting a smart enemy, which fosters and promotes creative thinking. While the Kriegsspiel was traditionally just for officers, it can be used today to train all ranks.

4. The Kriegsspiel is particularly valuable as it reinforces the vanishing skills of map reading.

5. Through simple modifications, like adding levels of command or using staff setups, any aspects of leadership and command competencies can be self-experienced. Through Kriegsspiel the philosophy and principles of Auftragstaktik (which is more than leader centric mission command) can be taught and trained effectively.

6. Beyond its military applicability, Reisswitz’ Kriegsspiel is a military cultural property like Carl von Clausewitz “On War,” and should be preserved as a part of history.

However, to be relevant as a training tool for a modern environment and to overcome above-mentioned deficiencies, Kriegsspiel requires get a careful makeover through digitalization and some didactical concept work. A Kriegsspiel 2.0 would include a digital messaging system and digital umpire support system to accelerate move adjudication to that rules such as “One move equals two minutes” can be permanently observed. Kriegsspiel 2.0 would have an instructor’s book with specific (didactical) concepts and proposals for e.g. “How to teach Auftragstaktik” or objective skill assessment tables for superiors, tutors, mentors, or human resource evaluators, to prevent single impression evaluations. Due to its proven stability, Kriegsspiel 2.0 will have a rule set from around 1870 (e.g., v. Tschischwitz, 1870), also translated into English by Baring 1872. In this modern version of Kriegsspiel the rule sets can be further simplified due to the absence of expert knowledge on tactics and procedures on the player level. Moving beyond these envisioned minimums for Kriegsspiel 2.0, eventual versions could use augmented reality and virtual reality technologies. These technologies would:

1. Reduce the efforts of providing and maintaining a physical Kriegsspiel apparatus.

2. Enable the players to learn the basics of how to act, fight and lead in a modern virtual environment, and possibly enable experimentation with artificial intelligence as a part of leadership and command and control.

History has proven the value of the Kriegsspiel. An evolving security environment will force its adaptation to a modern world. Beyond this article, the author is working on a prototype for Kriegsspiel KS 2.0, and his results and experience will be reported.

Endnotes:

[1] Prof. Dr Jorit Wintjes, University of Würzburg is currently the only German Professor researching the Prussian Wargame. He was the scientific supervisor for the two co-master thesis’ of the author of this article. He has published a variety on articles on the Prussian Kriegsspiel e.g. Wintjes, Jorit (2017). When a Spiel is not a Game: The Prussian Kriegsspiel from 1824 to 1871, in: Vulcan 5., 5-28. 22.

[2] Georg Heinrich Rudolf Johann v. Reisswitz (1794 -1827)

[3] Reisswitz, B. G. (1824). Anleitung zur Darstellung militaerischer Manoever mit dem Apparat des Kriegs-Spieles. Berlin: Trowitzsch und Sohn.

[4] Dannhauer, E. (1874), Das Reißwitzsche Kriegsspiel von seinem Beginn bis zum Tode des Erfinders, in Militair Wochenblatt 59, Berlin , P. 527–532.

[5] Clausewitz, C. v. (1991), Vom Kriege. (W. Hahlweg, Editor) Bonn: Ferdinand Dümmler, P. 233-234.

[6] Reisswitz (1824), P. 5, translated by Bill Leeson 1989. Anleitung zur Darstellung militairische Manover mit dem Apparat des Kriegsspiels. 2nd rev. ed, .Hemel Hempstead.

[7] Decker, C. v., & Witzleben, F. v. (1828), Supplement zu den bisherigen Kriegsspiel-Regeln. Zeitschrift für Kunst, Wissenschaft, und Geschichte des Krieges, Band 13. Berlin : Mittler, Editor, P. 68-105.

[8] Anonymus (1846), Anleitung zur Darstellung militärischer Manöver mit dem Apparat des Kriegsspiels. Berlin, Posen, Bromberg: Ernst Siegfried Mittler.

[9] v. Tschischwitz mentions the Berlin rules -collated by a Colonel Weigelt, in his foreword to his 1862 rules set.

[10] Tschischwitz, W. v. (1862). Anleitung zum Kriegsspiel. Neisse: Joseph Graveur.

[11] Tschischwitz, W. v. (1867). Anleitung zum Kriegsspiel (2. Auflage). Neisse: Graveur.

[12] Tschischwitz, W. v. (1870). Anleitung zum Kriegsspiel (3. Auflage). Neisse: Graveur, translated and applied to the British Force structure by Baring, E. (1872). Rules for the conduct of the War-Game. London: Superintendence by her Majesty’s Office.

[13] Tschischwitz, W. v. (1874). Anleitung zum Kriegs-Spiel (4. verbesserte Auflage). Neisse: Joseph Graveur (Neumann).

[14] Löbell, H. K. (1875), Jahresberichte über die Veränderungen und Fortschritte im Militairwesen 1874, Band 1. Berlin: Mittler und Sohn, P. 723

[15] Meckel, J. (1873). Studien ueber das Kriegsspiel. Berlin: Mittler und Sohn, P. 17.

[16] Verdy du Vernois, A. F. (1876). Beitrag zum Kriegsspiel. Berlin: Mittler und Sohn.

[17] Frank, Anders (2011). Gaming the Game: A Study of the Gamer Mode in Educational Wargaming. Research Article https://doi.org/10.1177/1046878111408796.

Assessment Papers Georgetown University Wargaming Society (GUWS) Soenke Marahrens Wargames and Wargaming
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Call for Papers / Georgetown University Wargaming Society: Wargaming

Background:

Divergent Options is a non-politically aligned non-revenue generating national security website that, in 1,000 words or less, provides unbiased, dispassionate, candid articles that assess a national security situation, present multiple options to address the situation, and articulate the risk and gain of each option.  Please note that while we assess a national security situation and may provide options, we never recommend a specific option.

Below you will see a Call for Papers.  If you are not interested in writing on this topic, we always welcome individual articles on virtually any national security situation an author is passionate about.  Please do not let our call for papers cause you to hesitate to send us your idea. We look forward to hearing from you!

Call for Papers:

The Georgetown University Wargaming Society and Divergent Options have teamed up to call for national security papers assessing situations or discussing options related to Wargaming.  Articles published with this Call for Papers will be published on both websites.

To inspire potential writers, we provide the below prompts:

– Assess the state of wargaming (considering either the wider defense community, a specific service, institution, or more).

– Assess the state of wargaming in other countries, either allies, partners, or competitors. Provide options for collaboration or identify insights.

– Assess how wargaming can be advanced or evolved – by incorporating specific technologies, techniques, reforms, or other opportunities. Provide options.

– How can the U.S. military better integrate educational wargaming into the training and education enterprise?  Provide options.

– How can the wargaming community raise the next generation of designers and / or wargamers?  Provide options.

– Assess the barriers and challenges to increasing diversity in the wargaming community.  Provide options on how to overcome or mitigate these barriers and challenges.

– Assess what makes a wargame effective (educational or analytical)?  If the metrics of effectiveness or impact of wargames needs to change, provide options.

– Assess how the linkage between wargaming and other forms of analysis can be improved or evolved.  Provide options.

– Assess the viability of wargaming establishing itself as an academic discipline.

– Assess the larger ecosystem and / or community of wargaming and identify options for reform or change.  Provide options.

Please limit your article to 1,000 words and write using our Options Paper or Assessment Paper templates which are designed for ease of use by both writers and readers alike.

Please send your article to submissions@divergentoptions.org by June 12, 2021.

Call For Papers Sebastian J. Bae Wargames and Wargaming