![]() ![]() Strategy writing teams in the Pentagon extensively wargamed candidates for the 2018 National Defense Strategy. Surely, at some point, interest would die down.įive years into its reinvigoration, the military’s interest in wargaming remains strong. We then spent a few frantic years organizing conference after conference to “feed the newbies,” as we called it, trying to give hands-on wargaming experience to the large number of action officers suddenly being sent out to wargame (or “wargame”) to the best of their abilities. There were only so many experienced wargamers who were prepared to instruct at the time, and presumably a flood of interest was coming. One person brought warning of Work’s impending interest in wargaming, adding additional urgency to the situation. ![]() A few months before that, in December 2014, several of us within the wargaming community met to discuss wargaming education. ![]() They drew parallels to the interwar years, when the pace of technological change and disruption caused some militaries to fall behind, and others to innovate. Paul Selva pushed to revitalize wargaming in order to better prepare the nation for future wars. In 2015, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. The flood of interest in wargaming that started when Pentagon leaders leaned in to the idea five years ago shows no signs of abating, but we still don’t know if the department’s wargames are working. Too many games are one-off exercises when the situations for which they purport to prepare will be anything but. This is a problem for reasons you can imagine - done right, gaming is one of the few ways to test out battle plans and designs for a military that can match China’s - and some you might not. The Nintendo generation is coming and, still, most games happen on physical tables, around which conventional wisdom is reaffirmed. Much of what the Department of Defense calls wargaming is not actually wargaming. ![]()
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