Tag Archives: Wargaming

Wargaming

Do You Have To Do “Analysis” To Call It A Wargame? Actually, No.

2 Comments

By BJ Armstrong and Marcus Jones

“If my career were ahead instead of behind me, I should endeavor to the extent of my ability, and at the earliest opportunity, to acquire as thorough a knowledge of the principles of the art of war as possible, and should neglect no opportunity to train myself in their application by playing competitive war games.” –Admiral William Sims, 1921

With enemy destroyers approaching from the southern end of the Philippine archipelago, the commander faced a critical decision: Should he launch a risky strike with his dwindling VLS weapon supply, or chart a course eastward to evade and regroup in the vast Pacific for a future battle?

This scenario was the challenge for a Midshipman Fourth Class, serving as the commander of American forces in a recent wargame hosted by the Naval Academy Wargaming Society in collaboration with Bancroft Hall’s training program. Facilitated by CDR Ken Maroon, PhD, these combat scenarios in and around the contemporary South China Sea have become a staple of Saturday mornings in the Wargaming Lab beneath Mahan Hall. Acting as part of a makeshift Maritime Operations Center, Naval Academy Plebes in this scenario not only reinforced their professional knowledge of American naval forces, but also grappled with the complexities of naval decision-making and critical thinking in a dynamic, high-pressure environment.

Phil Pournelle’s recent article “Does it Matter if You Call It a Wargame? Actually, Yes,” calls on CIMSEC readers and the larger military and national security community to consider the taxonomy of how we think about the events that are commonly called “wargames.” He offers vital distinctions and a way to think about the teleology of exercises that often fall into a rather large kitchen sink. However, there is an important element of the wargaming enterprise which is overlooked, when the focus is only on analysis and the operations research outcomes that good wargames can provide, but not their education value.

Educational wargaming is not merely an exercise in concept development in the upper reaches of command. It is a crucible for forging the decision-making skills, adaptability, and intellectual overmatch required for contemporary naval challenges in the earliest stages of a young officer’s development. Wargaming, particularly at the pre-commissioning level, transforms the learning experience by engaging participants in narrative-rich, synthetic environments that mimic the pressures of real-world decision-making. Drawing on historical precedents and recent innovations, we see a central role of wargaming in cultivating the next generation of naval leaders at the U.S. Naval Academy. 

More Than Concept Development and Analysis

Since the 19th century, wargaming has been an invaluable educational tool for the U.S. military. Early efforts, including Kriegspiele at U.S. Army schools after the Civil War, were followed by Lieutenant McCarty Little’s development of a wargaming curriculum in the early years of the U.S. Naval War College. Later, the interwar games conducted there shaped the strategies and tactics for victory in the Pacific during World War II and were transformative not only because they tested operational concepts but because they prepared commanders for the cognitive and emotional challenges of command. This historical precedent underscores the enduring value of wargaming in creating synthetic experiences that sharpen the mind for future crises.

In the 21st century as they did then, these efforts offer a low-cost, low-risk environment for naval professionals to test tactics, strategies, and operational concepts, shape their knowledge of past and contemporary military scenarios, and condition their decisions within them. At USNA, a host of recent initiatives have laid the keel of our midshipmen’s knowledge of the maritime world and established their understanding of the core concepts of American seapower.

The Naval Academy is doubling down on the educational value of wargames through Saturday morning battalion training sessions, the activities of the student-led Wargaming Society club, wargame scenarios in history department classrooms, and the incorporation of wargame modules into the new Maritime Warfare (NS300) course taught by the Professional Development Department.

The resurgence of wargaming in military education over the past decade underscores its value in achieving an intellectual overmatch against today’s potential adversaries. In 2015, then Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus described wargaming as invaluable for testing new ideas in a low-risk environment. Former Marine Corps Commandant General David H. Berger later emphasized that wargaming is essential for practicing decision-making against a thinking enemy, while then-Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles Q. Brown highlighted the role of wargaming in adapting continually to a shifting global strategic landscape. ​Despite this, current military education often delays wargaming exposure until mid-career, resulting in missed opportunities for developing decision agility and professional competency from the outset of a naval professional’s development.

Introducing wargaming at the pre-commissioning level lays the groundwork to address the Department of the Navy’s admitted deficiency in wargaming literacy at the operational and strategic levels of war. By introducing the practice of wargaming as early as possible in an officer’s development, we cultivate a mindset that embraces complex, multi-layered, competitive decision-making and innovative thinking about enduring military problems and concepts. Early exposure also mitigates later-career reliance on professional civilian wargamers and facilitates the operational integration of wargaming principles into military organizations. This in turn enhances the role and value of wargaming later in officers’ careers.

Laying the keel with early wargaming experiences embeds key cognitive attributes in young officers, preparing them to think deeply and creatively about history and its relation to contemporary warfare. The initiatives at USNA introduce midshipmen to the complexities of naval decision-making early in their careers, fostering the critical thinking and adaptability essential for future operational challenges. By embedding these skills at the pre-commissioning level, USNA prepares its graduates to contribute meaningfully to advanced wargaming processes later in their careers.

Wargaming as Interdisciplinary Thinking and Applied History

The educational program at USNA is admirably multidisciplinary, with particular focus on the study of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Integrating wargaming into this educational framework puts specific aspects of STEM education into context, demonstrating how these disciplines contribute to the multi-domain operations of today’s Joint Force. For example, understanding hypersonic technology’s impact on military operations or how cyber capabilities enable traditional land, sea, and air operations provides a deeper and broader understanding of modern warfare. Additionally, wargaming offers invaluable practical applications for the disciplines of math and economics by highlighting the central role of risk and probability in the adjudication at the heart of wargame processes, allowing midshipmen to apply theoretical concepts to real-world strategic and tactical scenarios.

Done well, educational wargaming serves as a form of applied history, offering midshipmen a unique way to engage with historical events, processes, causation, and outcomes. By building and working through historical scenarios, students develop a deeper understanding of the complexity and contingency of historical decision-making, amplifying their growth as leaders at every level. Midshipmen learn to ask the hard questions and wrestle with complex answers in ways that apply both to thinking about the past and reasoning through the operational and strategic challenges of the present.

Critical thinking and decision-making skills are, of course, buzzwords of the moment in higher education generally and officer development especially. More than just asking hard questions, however, thinking critically involves being willing to explore disruptive and alternative ideas. The process of designing, playing, and analyzing wargames requires students to think strategically, anticipate opponents’ moves, and make quick, informed decisions under pressure. These skills are directly transferable to real-world military and civilian leadership roles, where effective decision-making can have significant consequences. Of course, poorly designed scenarios can reinforce false assumptions or oversimplify complex realities, leading to flawed conclusions. As Peter Perla warns, the danger lies in creating narratives that are emotionally compelling but factually misleading.

To maximize their educational value, wargames must strike a careful balance between realism and abstraction, ensuring that participants grapple with the uncertainty and complexity of real-world operations without succumbing to simplistic or sanitized portrayals. Moving forward, wargaming activities at the Naval Academy must remain engaged with the Fleet’s contemporary posture and challenges, lest the practice of wargaming become abstract and fall into irrelevance.

Charting a Course on the Severn

Wargaming has a long history on the banks of the Severn River, though perhaps not as long as in Narragansett Bay. In the 1930s and 1960s, Naval Academy professors developed wargames for class use to enhance historical and contemporary understanding. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Academy relied on computer-based Navy Tactical Game (NAVTAG) to provide valuable opportunities for professional development and competition between companies and classes. The NAVTAG provided both educational and training simulation opportunities to the Brigade, but was sunset because of lack of financial and technical resources with the end of the Cold War.

In 2020, the Naval Academy Museum and History Department launched a wargaming initiative which created two main lines of effort. For a few years the History Department offered an experimental historical wargaming class, where midshipmen intensively studied an historical scenario and developed a wargame based on it. Concurrently, the Combat Action Lab was established, an Extra-Curricular Activity (ECA) today called The Wargaming Society, for Midshipmen to engage with the practice in an informal, midshipman-led setting. These efforts have developed over four years to include professional development events on Saturday mornings and the introduction of contemporary wargaming problems as the crowning experience in the new Maritime Warfare course. Efforts to bring these and other multidisciplinary lines of effort together, with the necessary resourcing and organizational structure, offer much promise for a robust future wargaming enterprise at USNA.

When today’s naval professionals and veterans think of wargaming, they often map it to operations research analysis, Pentagon decision-making, and mid-to-senior career development. There is great value in the analytical games, as described by CDR Anthony LaVopa in his recent article “Building Warfighting Competence: The Halsey Alpha Wargaming Experience,” and in their staff and war college level use. But, wargames are ‘story-living experiences’ that transcend traditional methods of teaching and analysis at all levels of seniority and experience including at the precommissiong level. By immersing participants in synthetic environments where decisions have tangible consequences, they provide a powerful means of cultivating the intellectual and emotional resilience essential for leadership in today’s demanding operational environments. As the U.S. Naval Academy continues to expand its wargaming initiatives, it is laying the keel for a generation of officers prepared to confront the uncertainties of a rapidly changing strategic landscape.

Captain Benjamin “BJ” Armstrong, PhD is an Associate Professor of War Studies and Naval History and the U.S. Naval Academy. 

Dr. Marcus Jones is an associate professor of history at the U.S. Naval Academy.

The thoughts and opinions expressed by the authors of this article are offered in their personal and academic capacities and do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the U.S. Navy or any government agency. 

Featured Image: U.S. 5TH FLEET AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY (Jan. 1, 2013) An F/A-18C Hornet of the Warhawks of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 97 launches from the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kenneth Abbate/Released)

Wargaming

Does it Matter if You Call it a Wargame? Actually, yes.

2 Comments

By Phillip Pournelle

Much of what the Department of Defense calls wargaming is not actually wargaming and this abuse of nomenclature has real consequences. Wargame-like activities, if conducted properly, are necessary and valuable, but the Department needs to do a better job of differentiating between true wargames, and wargame-like activities. Understanding the types and styles of wargames and wargame-like activities, when which is appropriate, what they look like, and what they can do for you is critical. Without a proper understanding of what a wargame is, and what it is not, the Department of Defense risks wasting money, time, and talent. It has become is all too common that a group of people together having an unstructured conversation is referred to as a “wargame,” and then the sponsor claims to be better prepared for having done it. Such claims are tautological, self-serving, and do not advance organizational learning.

Over the years, the analytic and wargaming community has developed a set of tools with known standards and expectations. Leadership in the Department of Defense should familiarize themselves with them because government sponsors control the larger analytic ecosystem. Better informed customers and sponsors will be able to responsibly choose designers and events appropriate to their purpose and thus generate good strategies.

This article will briefly describe different types and styles of wargames and wargame-like activities, when they are appropriate, what they look like, and what you get out of them (and just as importantly, what you don’t get out of them). It is focused on wargaming and analysis in support of the Department of Defense, not wargaming for education or entertainment.

Wargaming and Strategy

Defense analytic wargaming’s purpose is to assist in the development of good strategy. Thus, we should first examine what good strategy looks like and how wargame-like activities and wargaming can assist in the development of strategy. Defined by Richard Rumelt a good strategy is:

“…in the end, a hypothesis about what will work… A good strategy has at a minimum, three essential components:

  • A diagnosis of the situation
  • The choice of an overall guiding policy
  • And the design of coherent action.“

Consequently, a good strategy goes beyond the minimum elements of “ends, ways, and means” described in most defense strategy textbooks. And, as many can attest to, the enemy has a vote. Accordingly, a good strategy contains a crucial element:

“In general, strategic leverage arises from a mixture of anticipation, insight into what is most pivotal or critical in a situation, and making a concerted application of effort… the most critical anticipations are about the behavior of others, especially rivals.”

When a military service, or other organization, claims they have “wargamed” a concept, it implies they have followed the best practices described in Joint Publication 5-0; a series of iterative games against thinking opponents in a cycle of research to develop a good strategy. In essence, they have subjected the concept in question to a clash of competing hypothesis (theories of victory) in a dialectic crucible and conducted follow up analysis. To have done less than this means such a label conveys a false imprimatur, but unfortunately it happens all the time.

Often concepts are not ready for wargaming because they lack the essential components of a good strategy. Conducting a wargame on a strategy like this is a waste of time, talent, and resources. Before bringing in teams to participate in wargames or wargame-like activities concepts should be assessed using Structured Analytic Techniques, Intelligence Analysis, Liberating Structures, and Red Teaming techniques to diagnose the situation and divine an effective overall guiding policy. To use an American football analogy, the new coach of a team needs to take a hard look at his playbook with coaches and coordinators over the summer to determine if the playbook will be effective against the other teams in the league before the the season starts. 

Definition Wars

While some experts do not believe the exact definition of wargaming matters, those of us who deliver wargames to sponsors in the Department of Defense and other government agencies in support of developing good strategy strongly believe that discussions over ontology and taxonomy are extremely important. Correct taxonomy ensures the right tool is employed to address the right question. Wargame sponsors need to understand the full set of tools available and when to use them because they control the larger analytic ecosystem.

There is a general consensus within the defense professional community regarding what wargame is. The Joint Staff offers a definition for the Department of Defense: “Wargames are representations of conflict or competition in a synthetic environment, in which people make decisions and respond to the consequences of those decisions.”

The Joint Staff has identified best practices for wargaming in JP 5-0. Wargaming is most effective when it involves the following elements:

1. A well-developed, valid Course of Action
2. People making decisions
3. A fair, competitive environment (i.e., the game should have no rules or procedures designed to tilt the playing field toward one side or another)
4. Adjudication
5. Consequences of actions
6. Iteration (i.e., new insights will be gained as games are iterated)

Other wargaming professional publications agree that the critical elements of a wargame are: factions in conflict or competition (live competitors), people making decisions, and revealing the consequences of those decisions. Talking vaguely about what you might do and not making choices undermines the entire point of a wargame. When wargames are properly done, they provide the participants a synthetic experience to enable an understanding of the perspective of other and thus to anticipate the actions of others, especially rivals, and the range of outcomes which can occur. Wargame-like analysis that does not meet these criteria can still be valuable, but it is important to recognize where it falls short and work toward designing a true wargame if that is the required level of analysis.

Table Top Exercises

Returning to our football analogy, having a playbook and a roster of players does not mean you are ready to play a game, and certainly not a championship. The quarterback and the receivers must know the routes which will be run. The linemen must know which play employs pass-blocking or rush-blocking, etc. Each element of the team must understand a play in order to execute it properly. The team’s walk throughs and practices are our wargame-like events and just as the coach can increase the difficulty until the team is conducting a full scrimmage, game designers can increase the complexity of wargame-like activities until the concepts and the players are ready for a clash with a professional red team.

Continuing our football team analogy, preparation begins with the players talking through the plays in the locker room on a chalkboard, which is akin to a Table Top Exercise. A table top exercise is a facilitated discussion of a scripted scenario in an informal, stress-free environment that is based on current applicable policies, plans, and procedures. A table top exercise is an informal, discussion-based session in which a team discusses their roles and responses during an emergency, walking through one or more example scenarios. The hypothetical situation is introduced, and the team members talk through what the response should be. A good table top exercise will employ maps and other visualizations to enable the participants to have a common understanding of the scenario and the actions of others in their organization. The key value of a table top exercise is to bring together participants from disparate organizations (e.g., Allies, Inter-Agency) to discuss how to coordinate whole of government(s) responses, identify who has jurisdictions, permissions, and authorities. The table top exercise is a wargame-like activity and the most common for many organizations which claim to conduct wargames.

Some table top exercises, such as those conducted by the Joint Staff J-8 Studies, Analysis and Gaming Division (SAGD), RAND corporation, and other organizations, will include the perspective of opposition forces (Red Team) represented by the intelligence community or professional emulation teams. But, the Red team in these cases is a minority member and does not have the full agency of action accorded to the collective Blue team.

Table top exercises are appropriate in a qualitative assessments of strengths and weaknesses. The key value of the table top exercise is to engage all stakeholders in a facilitated discussion to clarify inconsistencies and interpretations and determine if there are coherent policies and procedures. But, they are not appropriate to calculate outcomes as Red does not have full agency of actions nor is there an assessment of how effective any action would be, much less in the face of opposing actions and they do noy convey a full understanding of the risks and consequences of selected courses of action.

So, while a table top exercise is not a wargame, it is a valuable wargame-like activity which tests if a strategy is designed with coherent action known among its stakeholders and in some cases a perspective on the reaction of the opposition.

Rehearsal of Concept

Once our football team has talked through each of their actions in a play on the chalkboard and are now headed to the field to see if they can execute the plays, without opposition, essentially a rehearsal. A rehearsal is a session in which a staff or unit practices expected actions to improve performance during execution. Commanders use this tool to ensure staffs and subordinates understand the concept of operations and commander’s intent. A Rehearsal of Concept drill is a dry walk-through of a plan between a commander and their subordinates ensuring a shared understanding of the plan. Conducting a rehearsal of concept drill will enable a team to execute their elements of a concept within a game or exercise. Further the rehearsal of concept drill is likely to reveal elements of the concept or the execution plan which require additional refinement.

There are several variations of the rehearsal. The Sketch Map Rehearsals is a drill to help subordinate leaders visualize the commander’s intent and concept of operations. A Command Post Exercise is a training exercise that may be conducted in garrison or in the field. It’s the most common exercise used for training staffs, subordinate, and supporting leaders to successfully plan, coordinate, synchronize, and exercise command and control over operations during missions.

The rehearsal of concept drill, and its variants, will ensure the team has a coordinated plan which they can execute and assists in designing a strategy with and overall guiding policy and coherent action. As players demonstrate proficiency in the plan, experienced game designers and referees will introduce complications to see how brittle or robust the plan is in the face of friction. Like adding scrimmage players to a football team’s practice, game professionals will add murphy-isms, such as weather, washed out roads, accidents, injuries, missed communications, and other random (but not enemy induced) elements of friction. However valuable, a rehearsal of concept is still not a wargame. Like a football rehearsals, a rehearsal of concept lacks a thinking opponent ready and determined to undermine the concept and its components.

Wargaming

Our football coach has assessed his playbook, assigned players to their roles, had them walk through their part of the plays, then rehearsed the execution of the plays with greater challenges and scrimmages. Now his team is ready to play against opposition. In the same manner, the best practice is to subject a concept or strategy to Red Teaming and other analytic efforts, then conduct a table top exercise, then a rehearsal of concept before playing in a wargame against the thinking opponent. In our experience, attempting to play an immature concept or strategy with a team unfamiliar with the concept in a game leads to frustration and waste of resources, time, and talent.

Alternatively, a series of wargames is the acid test, a dialectic clash of opposing theories of victory against a thinking opponent. At the heart of this iterative process is a thinking opponent grappling with the mechanics of execution of competing plans or confounding your plan with a judo throw. William McCarty Little, who helped bring naval wargaming to the Naval War College in its early years, once argued that “the great secret of its power lies in the existence of the enemy, a live vigorous enemy in the next room waiting feverishly to take advantage of any of our mistakes, ever ready to puncture any visionary scheme, to haul us down to earth.” 

Fully exploring the consequences of the game and properly set the narrative of what occurred will require adjudication of the actions of the competing sides. Such adjudication will require implicit or explicit models or techniques to be defensible in and after the game. The adjudication techniques can be in the collective minds of the participants (Matrix Game), an expert or group of experts (Free Kriegspiel), or baked into the rules (Rigid Kriegspiel). A good game designer will select rules for a game, or elements of a game, based on our understanding of the phenomena the competition is occurring in and revise them in iterations of gaming and analysis, which should include other analytic techniques.

Rigor Versus Detail

When assessing the proper use of wargame-like events and various types and styles of wargames, do not mistake excessive detail for rigor.

Wargames are a shared experiential narrative that can have a powerful impact on participants, shaping the organizational learning of those who employ it. Therefore, it is crucial the game be founded in reality; using “valid knowledge of the environment.” If not, we risk conveying negative learning to a large group of people and sowing confusion potentially for years to come. It has been said: “The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out.” Wargame designers should follow the advice of Ms. Virginia “Robbin” Beall, the former lead operations analyst on the Navy staff, when she admonishes wargames must, like the Hippocratic Oath, “do no harm” and avoid conveying improper assumptions which set in the participants’ minds. For example, in one wargame, air-to-air refueling aircraft delivered the same amount of fuel to aircraft regardless of the range of the tanker from its home base. This exaggerated the effects of air power in the wargame, the minds of the participants, and the results.

A good wargame designer will design the game to address decisions the players are expected to make at the level of the role they are playing, and avoid detail for its own sake. There is no reason why the staff of a joint operational command should be involved in details of tactical units.

Conclusion

Much of what the Department of Defense calls wargaming is not actually wargaming, and that matters. These various “not-wargaming” exercises are still valuable as long as we recognize what we are doing and consciously select the appropriate tool in the strategy development process. Using an immature concept or strategy, or forcing a team who is not familiar with it, into a proper wargame is a waste of time and talent. On the other hand, a table top exercise is insufficient to test a strategy to see if it contains the elements of a good strategy, particularly the anticipations of the actions of rivals. The Department of Defense and other agencies must expect a proper level of rigor in its series of games in a Cycle of Research. Actual wargames require: A well-developed concept of operations (theory of victory); people making decisions; a fair, competitive environment; adjudication; consequences of actions; preferably in an iterative cycle of game and analysis.

When someone says they have wargamed a concept, that should mean, they have gone through this specific process and not that they only completed a simple table top exercise, or a rehearsal of concept. The widely used table top exercise is a wargame-like event, a necessary but not sufficient step in the process of acid testing a good strategy or concept. In these dangerous times the Department cannot afford to be complacent and be satisfied with a “good conversation,” but must actually grapple with the opposition in a synthetic environment, where the organization can learn without risking it all. Failing to wargame properly in advance may mean having to learn in actual combat and risk it all.

Phillip Pournelle served in the United States Navy as a Surface Warfare Officer, planner, and Operations Analyst for 26 years. He is an analyst, strategist, wargame designer, and science fiction author working at Group W. He has a master’s degree in operations analysis from the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey.

Featured Image: U.S. Marine Corps officers assigned to the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) conduct a wargaming scenario aboard Amphibious Assault Ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3), Oct. 22, 2021. (USMC photo by Cpl. Yvonna Guyette)

Wargaming

Wargaming the Future: Educating the Fleet in Multi-Dimensional Warfare

5 Comments

By LT Jack Tribolet

Educational wargaming is underutilized and possesses the potential to teach warfighters intricate modern doctrine and force capabilities. Historically, analytical wargaming has functioned as a critical tool for military leadership, offering insights into force capabilities and aiding decision-making through experiential learning. Yet, within the US Navy and Marine Corps, the potential of digital or electronic wargaming as an educational platform for junior officers and Midshipmen remains largely untapped. Traditional tabletop wargames, once favored by older generations, fail to engage the younger, digitally-raised cohort and instead cater to a niche community. Statistics speak volumes— about 80 percent of Generation Z and Millennials play video games and average around seven hours of weekly gametime—highlighting the opportunity for a new generation of wargames. This data underscores a missed opportunity in leveraging simulator-based educational wargaming for the 21st-century Navy and USMC. The capacity to craft a sophisticated, educational, and enjoyable physics-based simulator exists, and it is incumbent upon the Navy and USMC to embrace this modern technology for Professional Military Education (PME) and junior officer training.

In the Fall of 2023, the University of Southern California’s Naval ROTC program embarked on a year-long initiative to introduce Midshipmen to the complexities of the Taiwan problem set. This scenario-focused education requires a significant understanding of naval and amphibious operations and is ideal for incorporating wargames. USC’s educational program blends discussions, lectures, and essential reading materials, such as James R. Holmes’ Red Star Over the Pacific: China’s Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy (2018), which enabled the students to have an in-depth discussion with Dr. Holmes via Zoom regarding Taiwan. However, it is worth noting that this initiative provides only an introductory-level education for Midshipmen and would benefit immensely from the addition of fleet-integrated educational wargaming.

Historical instances, such as the development of War Plan Orange prior to the Second World War, demonstrate how effective analytical wargaming can be when mixed into scenario decision-making. Yet, no standardized efforts were made to prepare junior officers similarly. The Naval War College and officer training pipelines did not see the value in educating junior officers like senior officers. However, even though junior officers do not require the same analytical gaming experience as fleet commanders, they can benefit enormously from exposure to educational wargaming to introduce them to various topics. As a learning tool, wargames can train the participants in force capability and doctrine, provide terrain familiarization, and offer opportunities for decision-making development. Additionally, they challenge the participants mentally, stimulating and driving sophisticated problem-solving and decision-making. As a tool, variables can be added or subtracted to increase/decrease game complexity, allowing for infinite theoretical scenarios.

Updating the naval officer training curriculum should not be difficult. The United States Naval Academy (USNA) and Naval Service Training Command (NSTC) promulgate curriculum guiding Professional Core Competencies (PCCs) roughly every three years that govern “the foundational standards of ‘officership’ by delineating core competencies required of all officer accession programs.”1 Whispers of a new competency for basic instructional wargaming exist, but even if included in the 2024 PCCs, this will require significant time and resources to train unit Officer Instructors to run educational games proficiently. Additionally, few ROTC courses have extra time, and an already burdened weekly schedule leaves little for adding extra training on top of current requirements for Midshipmen. To the collective groan of students and instructors alike, adding wargaming to officer training will necessitate a standalone time slot in weekly schedules, rather than shoehorning wargaming into existing time. Furthermore, Officer Instructors will need professional training to standardize implementation and enable cross-unit competition.

The Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfighting at Marine Corps University (MCU), who are pioneering educational gaming for MCU students, example one potential source of training for Officer Instructors. MCU could integrate with the biannual three-week Teaching in Higher Education (TiHE) course for incoming NROTC instructors, and allow them to reach the hundreds of Sailors and Marines who commission through NROTC each year. Moreover, standardization of training and the games played across ROTC programs is paramount to enable cross-unit integration and competition. Competition in wargaming events would incentivize performance and further stimulate Midshipmen education. The Government Accountability Office recently recommended that the Navy and Marine Corps “evaluate the costs and benefits of developing standard wargaming education and qualifications for wargaming personnel.” Consequently, the services must establish wargaming as an Officer Instructor (OI) qualification to standardize and enhance training pipelines through educational gaming.2 This qualification could mimic the newly introduced Warrior Toughness program, which has gradually become part of the Fleet through accession pipelines. After rotating through ROTC the cadre returning to the Fleet could broaden wargaming initiatives at the unit level, gradually fostering a culture shift towards embracing wargaming more extensively across the services.

However, if the Navy and Marines want to capture the attention of a new generation, they must develop an educational but entertaining multi-dimensional physics-based simulator to maximize the application of 21st-century technology. Tabletop wargaming, while valuable, is not sufficient. Tabletop gaming offers an immediate but temporary avenue for educational learning at a remarkably affordable investment. Straightforward tabletop problem-solving games can be completed within a brief timeframe, ranging from twenty to thirty minutes. An illustrative example is the microgame “Call Sign,” which concentrates on carrier combat and introduces singular variables, showcasing how these games can efficiently impart knowledge and skills, but these games are insufficient to meet the needs of the ROTC curriculum and lack the potential of digital games.

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) sponsored a study on the value of video games, which concluded that “people who play video games are quicker at processing information” and that only “ten hours of video games can change the structure and organization of a person’s brain,” therefore tying informational learning to entertainment has a remarkable potential to increase retention. Most importantly, education must be balanced with entertainment, meaning accurate force capabilities and doctrine must coincide with quality graphical rendering of the action and include regular updates. Simulating forced decision-making with minimal time and minimal information provides invaluable experience for future military decision-makers. Furthermore, an in-depth military simulator would require knowledge of blue force design and doctrine, cultivate warrior skillsets, and increase tactical acumen. A competitive gaming culture amongst recruits and service members will ensure the longevity of such a program.

Effective strategy games blend a minimal initial learning curve but increase in depth and complexity while remaining re-playable due to variety. Like traditional board wargames, turn-based games necessitate a fundamental understanding of force design and doctrine. Conversely, real-time strategy (RTS) games demand swift decision-making, compelling players to act within a restricted timeframe. Modern games often integrate these two approaches, allowing players to oversee larger forces strategically in a turn-based mode while enabling detailed control over individual units during confrontations. This amalgamation of turn-based and RTS elements harnesses the educational advantages of understanding force dynamics while providing experiential learning through decision-making, offering a holistic approach to strategic gaming.

One potential commercially available wargame is Command: Modern Operations. However, this game suffers from being overly complex, detracting from the entertainment value of the equation as it requires many hours of instruction to play. Unfortunately, no commercially available modern strategic video game fits this balanced role, and most avoid contemporary conflict scenarios and instead focus on fictional Cold War scenarios. For example, naval-centric Cold Waters (2017) and land-centric WARNO (2022) display well-researched military simulators exhibiting the capabilities of Cold War-era forces. The success of Cold War-era simulators remains undeniable, as the developers of Cold Waters have showcased an upcoming impressively modeled new game, Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age. The cost of developing a modern video game ranges from $10,000 to millions. However, the DoD could drastically cut this cost by leveraging an already created modern simulator, such as WARNO, funding this successful team and providing experts to modify a pre-created simulator to reflect modern force capabilities.

An LRASM salvo attack is launched against a PLA Navy Carrier Strike Group in the wargame Command: Modern Operations. (Video via Emerging Threats Group Youtube Channel)

Furthermore, the official Navy/USMC stamp on a military simulator would draw outsized attention from the private market, serve as a potent recruitment tool, and create a competitive outlet for Midshipmen and officers. The Navy has already worked to capitalize on the popularity of video games by creating an E-Sports team, which is run by the Navy Recruiting Command. Yet, an official strategy simulator would draw further interest through military recognition by connecting to modern youth in the popular video game dimension. In the US alone, the strategy game market revenue reached $14.88 billion in 2022, exhibiting a significant market share of overall games. Ultimately, the success of a military simulator hinges on player enjoyment and support; popular strategy games such as Starcraft II maintain over a five million monthly player count despite being a decade old. In comparison, WARNO only sold 213,000 copies so far, as it lacks competitive depth.

Warsaw Pact and NATO forces compete in combined arms maneuver warfare in the wargame WARNO. (Video via VulcanHDGaming Youtube Channel)

Unfortunately, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has outpaced the US in competitive digital wargaming, recognizing its potential for education since the early 2000s. Notably, since 2017, the PLA has organized national wargaming competitions, boasting more than 20,000 participants in 2019 alone. Emphasizing the educational aspect, the PLA actively encourages military simulator usage to instruct on force design changes and to promote military affairs to the civilian population. Initially, the PLA benefitted enormously from mimicking US civilian market military simulators, but has since shifted to domestic-made strategy games, such as Mozi Joint Operations Deduction System, which enables military members to fight simulated battles with Chinese equipment. Additionally, the PLA copied popular US titles, such as Call of Duty, to create their own first-person shooter, Glorious Mission, to “improve combat skills and technological understanding” in military members.3 Wargaming has evolved into an integral part of PME for the PLA, gaining widespread popularity even amongst the civilian population. This exemplifies a dimension where the PLA initially imitated the US military, strategically leveraged the US private sector, and ultimately leapfrogged US capabilities to outperform the US military in PME.

A salvo of Soviet P-500 Bazalt anti-ship missiles (NATO reporting name: SS-N-12 Sandbox) is fired by a Slava-class cruiser against a U.S. Cold War-era surface action group in the upcoming wargame Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age. (Work-in-progress developer video via Not Sure Youtube Channel)

Damien O’Connell, the founder of the Warfighting Society, recently penned an article, “Progress and Perils: Educational Wargaming in the US Marine Corps,” on The Maneuverist blog, which delineated implementation issues for fleet-wide educational gaming. He outlines five obstacles to greater implementation of wargaming in the operating forces: “(1) confusion about what educational wargaming is and is not, (2) skepticism of its value, (3) ignorance of its successful use, (4) limited time, (5) aversion to nerd culture, and (6) ignorance of how to integrate wargames into training and education plans.”4 The Navy and USMC must not conflate educational gaming with analytical wargaming. Decision-making opportunities and force design instruction found in basic wargames will answer any confusion surrounding wargaming and its value and demonstrate its successful use to any observing critics. However, overcoming issues related to time and integration will demand a substantial initial investment and revised time requirements through curriculum standardization. Aversion to “nerd culture” stems from a historical stigma against board gaming, shared even by video gamers; this dislike can be easily solved by tapping into the voracious appetite for video games.

A secondary benefit of creating wargame literate junior officers would positively boost the ability of time-proven analytical gaming and thus improve force design and doctrine. The early introduction of wargames will create “a bigger pool of individuals who are exposed to the principles of wargaming, allowing the DOD to cast a wider net when looking for qualified individuals to build, run, and analyze games,” and in turn, increase the performance of future professional analytical wargaming.5 Furthermore, the over-reliance on civilian-run wargames has created a capability deficit among military personnel, because fewer are trained in how to run and manage wargames.6 This culture change could imitate the drastic success of the Prussian officer corps, which spawned avid wargamers such as General von Moltke—the Prussian army chief of staff—who expanded the use of wargaming under his leadership. As a result, the Prussian military dominated the European continent in the 19th century and forged a dominant military doctrine that lasted a century. Unsurprisingly, “many countries attributed the battlefield success of Moltke and the Prussians to the integration of wargaming in their army.”7

Junior officer education needn’t be limited to monotonous PowerPoint displays or exclusive to PME. Wargaming presents a straightforward remedy for a complex educational challenge and should not be dismissed as an after-school activity. If the US military aims to regain the edge against the PLA in critical thinking and education, it must create a finely tuned educational military simulation video game. Furthermore, the potential for training will exponentially grow as technology such as virtual reality becomes more readily available. The Navy and USMC must stay ahead of the educational curve, set the foundation for a future sophisticated Ender’s Game-like military simulation or Star Trek’s morality-testing unwinnable game, the Kobayashi Maru, and turn science fiction into reality. Existing tabletop games may temporarily suffice but must be formally integrated into the curriculum and eventually replaced by digital simulations. The value of multi-domain educational learning from wargaming cannot be overstated. Moreover, increased interaction with younger generations through a popular Navy-endorsed video game could help draw in technology-oriented recruits. The Navy and USMC must embrace 21st century technology and adapt it to benefit instruction for foreseeable near-peer threats. No military aviator argues against the extensive use of flight simulators in modern instruction; this attitude must be broadened to the entire Fleet.

LT Jack Tribolet flew the MH-60S Knighthawk with HSC-26 out of Norfolk. He currently serves as an Officer Instructor teaching at the University of Southern California and is the nationwide NROTC Course Coordinator for the class Seapower & Maritime Affairs.

References

1. Officer Professional Core Competencies, United States Naval Academy, Naval Service Training Command, April 2019, iv. https://www.netc.navy.mil/Portals/46/NSTC/cmd-docs/manuals/2019%20Officer%20Professional%20Core%20Competencies%20(PCC)%20Manual.pdf?ver=2020-08-06-111416-387#

2. Government Accountability Office, Defense Analysis:Additional Actions Could Enhance DOD’s Wargaming Efforts, April 24, 2023, 32. https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105351.pdf

3. Kania, Elsa B. and McCaslin, Ian Burns. Learning Warfare From the Laboratory—China’s Progression in Wargaming and Opposing Force Training. Washington DC, MD: Institute For the Study of War, September 2021, 18. Learning Warfare from the Laboratory ISW September 2021 Report.pdf (understandingwar.org)

4. Damien O’Connell, “Progress and Perils: Educational Wargaming in the US Marine Corps,” The Warfighting Society, Updated 25 December 2023. Progress and Perils: Educational Wargaming in the US Marine Corps By Damien O’Connell (themaneuverist.org)

5. Hunter, “Immerse Early, Immerse Often,” 38.

6. Kyleanne Hunter, “Immerse Early, Immerse Often: Wargaming in Precommissioning Education,” in Forging Wargamers: A Framework for Professional Military Education, ed. Sebastian J. Bae (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2022), 31.

7. Appleget, Jeff, et al. The Craft of Wargaming: A Detailed Planning Guide for Defense Planners and Analysts. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2020, 53.

Featured Image: A Soviet surface warship under attack from Harpoon missiles (Developer work-in-progress screenshot of wargame Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age, via 

Wargames

Revamping Wargaming Education for the U.S. Department of Defense

9 Comments

By Jeff Appleget, Jeff Kline, and Rob Burks

Introduction

The U.S. Department of Defense has failed to educate generations of military officers on the skills of wargaming. Wargaming creates the environment in which uniformed leaders practice decision-making against an active, thinking adversary. Wargaming is also required by the Department of Defense’s planning process to create sound and executable plans, is inherent to designing new doctrine and operational concepts, and is a vital element in the cycle of research.1

For these reasons, military leaders must have the ability to create and conduct wargames. However, the current military education process does not impart this critical knowledge.

Background

Ed McGrady, distinguished Center for Naval Analyses wargamer, opened a recent commentary on wargaming by saying, “There is a widespread misunderstanding of what wargaming is…” and we agree wholeheartedly. Too many in the Department of Defense believe wargames are computer-based combat simulations used to produce quantitative analyses, but they are not. Wargaming is about human decision-making. Joint Publication 5-0 Joint Operation Planning’s wargaming definition makes this clear: “Wargames are representations of conflict or competition in a synthetic environment, in which people make decisions and respond to the consequences of those decisions” (emphasis added).

Most defense wargaming practitioners recognize three purposes for wargames: educational, experiential, and analytic. Educational and experiential wargames are focused on the player. The primary output of these types of wargames is a better educated or experienced player. For example, success might lead to an officer who now knows how a new weapon system is employed or has experienced fighting against a threat in a different region of the world. There are usually no other ‘results’ to demonstrate the wargame’s value.

On the other hand, analytic wargames focus on producing findings and recommendations in response to a sponsor’s tasking. Therefore the product of these wargames is not player-focused but sponsor-focused. Planning wargames, as outlined in Joint Publication 5-0 (Step 4: Course of Action analysis and wargaming), are specific analytic wargames with the task of analyzing courses of action, which then inform the development of a plan. Other analytic wargaming activities include developing new concepts of operations, doctrine, Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTP) for emerging and future technologies, and front-end wargaming for experimentation and exercises to ensure that these expensive endeavors are properly focused and can achieve a high return on investment. We can learn much about new technologies and concepts through wargaming without burning a penny’s worth of fuel.

Current Status

Department of Defense wargaming is at a crossroads. It seems self-evident that the Department of Defense should own the responsibility to improve its wargaming. While Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), educational institutions, and defense contractors may have roles to play in wargame improvement, only the Department of Defense can choose to lead and embrace a comprehensive end-to-end cycle of research construct. This construct includes wargaming, computer-based combat simulations, and other quantitative and qualitative analytic techniques that, when properly leveraged, provide quality decision support to the department’s leadership. It must begin by addressing the shortcomings in wargaming education.

The 2015 call to reinvigorate wargaming has inspired the reintroduction of wargaming into some service school classrooms. Hence, a portion of uniformed field grade officers have an appreciation for, and may have actually played, wargames. However, the inability of the Department of Defense’s uniformed members to design and conduct their own wargames still has not been addressed in professional military education. Today, the Department of Defense relies on FFRDCs, educational institutions, and defense contractors to design and conduct wargames on their behalf. While these organizations produce useful wargames, the sheer number of wargames that should be executed across the department cannot all be performed by these organizations—they simply do not have the capacity, nor does the department have the budget.

However, there is a far more fundamental problem on the department’s reliance on these organizations. This reliance is, in effect, outsourcing the intellectual underpinnings of the nation’s defense strategy, officer professional development, and the department’s acquisition process.

Wargaming should become an integral part of the military officer corps’ professional education. The skills required to design and conduct wargames go hand-in-hand with the skills required to plan and execute military operations. 

The lack of wargaming skills and experience in our field grade and senior officers should be a warning to the department’s leadership. Wargaming was once the primary venue for the exchange of ideas, debates on tactics and doctrine, the sharing of lessons learned from previous operations and experiences, and the operational and doctrinal education of junior officers.2 Now it has largely disappeared from officers’ professional development. The 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps’ Commandant’s Planning Guidance states this concern very succinctly:

“In the context of training, wargaming needs to be used more broadly to fill what is arguably our greatest deficiency in the training and education of leaders: practice in decision-making against a thinking enemy. Again, this requirement is inherent in the nature of war. In modern military organizations, it is, along with the fear of violent death, precisely the element of real war that is hardest to replicate under peacetime conditions. Wargaming historically was invented to fill this gap, and we need to make far more aggressive use of it at all levels of training and education to give leaders the necessary ‘reps and sets’ in realistic combat decision-making.”

Phil Pournelle, Senior Operations Analyst and Game Designer at Group W, points out a 2018 National Defense Strategy Commission finding that the military struggles to “link objectives to operational concepts to capabilities to programs.” Linking of objectives to operational concepts to capabilities is basic military planning. Yet our combatant commands and joint task forces struggle to conduct the planning wargames that Joint Publication 5-0 requires.

According to Joint Publication 5-0, each course of action should be wargamed against the enemy’s most likely and most dangerous course of action for a given plan. Assuming a modest number of three friendly courses of action to analyze, that is a requirement for six wargames per plan. And every plan that has sat on a digital shelf for more than a year needs to be dusted off and wargamed again, as the facts and assumptions that underpinned the plan’s development 12-plus months ago have undoubtedly changed, often significantly.

Unfortunately, due to time, staff capability, and capacity constraints, at best there may be one wargame conducted per combatant commander’s plan: the commander’s favorite Course of Action against the enemy’s most likely Course of Action. Insufficient time is allotted to conduct the wargame, resulting in poor design, less thorough execution, and results that fail to illuminate the plan’s operational risks or propose contingencies. This lack of time inspires the quick application of seminar games that devolve into BOGGSATS – a Bunch of Guys and Gals Sitting Around a Table.

As recent commentary from Peter Perla, author of the seminal book The Art of Wargaming, and Phil Pournelle3 have pointed out, wargaming should also be an integral part of analysis, experimentation, exercises, and the broader cycle of research. Far too often this is not the case. Instead, the department relies on analysis methods such as cost-benefit analysis, capabilities-based assessments, and analysis of alternatives that provide technical rationales for procurement decisions. However, in the Department of Defense, these analyses must be tempered with a thinking adversary in mind. Our potential adversaries in the future are concurrently developing new doctrine and concepts, fielding new technologies and force structures, and procuring new systems that increase our risk or limit our military options. Wargaming is necessary to gain an appreciation for our competitors’ capabilities, options, and objectives.

Wargaming has always been an integral part of the Army’s analysis to support their department’s acquisition of new technology and weapons systems. Army analytic organizations, such as the Center for Army Analysis and the Training and Doctrine Command’s Analysis Center, integrated wargaming with their computer-based combat simulations to provide comprehensive qualitative and quantitative analysis to support key acquisition programs several decades ago. Both tools are still used together, productively, today.

This approach’s benefit is two-fold. First, the warfighters brought into the wargame’s concepts of operations (CONOPS) that employs units equipped with new technologies provide input into the analysis process and gain a better appreciation for the quantitative analysis products that the combat simulations could provide. Second, the analysts gain a better understanding of how a new force would fight differently and use that knowledge to inform the instantiation of the schemes of maneuver required by their combat simulations, which in turn improves their quantitative analysis products. To do this properly, operations research analysts must create the wargaming environment, conduct the wargames, and determine how to best integrate the wargame’s qualitative output into the computer-based combat simulations so that the study produces both qualitative and quantitative analysis.

Unfortunately, some of the department’s more senior analysts that cut their analytical teeth using computer-based combat simulations believe that wargames provide little or no analytic value. This view completely misses the fact that counterinsurgency, hybrid warfare, the gray zone of conflict, and competition short of war are not well addressed by the millions of dollars the department invests in the maintenance, staffing, and running of kinetic-focused combat simulations and the organizations that support them.

In a recent Naval War College Review article, Capt. Robert Rubel (ret.), professor emeritus of the U.S. Naval War College and former chair of its Wargaming Department, stated, “Two-sided gaming should be a widespread and essential part of the professional education process from pre-commissioning through senior service colleges and even flag level courses.” He went on to describe several virtues of wargaming:

  • “A routine diet of two-sided gaming can generate and hone the ability to reason competitively.”
  • “Making two-sided gaming the default PME vehicle will help to re-create a sandbox in which innovative reflexes can be developed.”
  • “Repeated struggling in competitive situations is more likely to produce new ideas and insights, especially if such experience is widespread in the officer corps.”

Rubel also goes on to caution: “Two-sided gaming is not easy. The design of such games must take care to channel competitive instincts properly.”

In summary, the Department of Defense’s need for increased capacity to conduct quality wargaming starts by educating its officer corps on how to design, conduct, and assess analytical, educational, and experiential wargames.

The Way Ahead

We propose jumpstarting wargaming education in the Department of Defense with a two-pronged approach. First, the Department of Defense needs wargame designers at an apprentice level. Any officer who is a candidate to serve on a general or flag staff (most field grade line officers) should complete a basic analytic wargaming course to enable them to bring value to a wargaming design team. We do not advocate for a specialty track for wargamers. Instead, all military leaders should be wargamers (such as the Navy’s flag ranks at the onset of WWII). The Army and Marine Corps do a decent job of introducing their young officers to some of the building blocks of wargaming. While sand table discussions, table-top exercises, and rehearsal of concept drills incorporate several of the elements of wargaming, they are typically missing the conflict or competition that a thinking adversary produces. These events provide a wargaming-like basis from which to build. A logical place for such a course is in the command and general staff college level of Joint Professional Military Education. 

Second, there needs to be an executive-level wargaming course for senior leaders. Senior officers who supervise and consume the results of wargaming today, such as primary staff officers on Combatant Command or other flag officer commanded staffs, need to understand what wargames are, how they are different from computer-based combat simulations, what to expect from well-designed wargames, and the level of resource investment required from them and their staff to obtain quality wargaming results. They also need to realize that their younger charges must couple their wargaming education with playing and designing wargames to become proficient wargamers. They must give their subordinates enough time to game. Moreover, senior leaders should lead by example, participating in and encouraging wargaming activities in their commands.

Over time, the wargaming apprentices, through playing, designing, and conducting wargames, will mature in their wargaming skills and take on wargaming leadership roles. Note that the goal is not to identify a pipeline to create wargaming masters. Such masters are rare individuals, and some may emerge from the ranks of military wargamers produced. But, just as most officers will never achieve flag rank, most uniformed wargamers will never become wargaming masters. The FFRDCs, educational institutions, and Department of Defense contractors have wargaming masters, and their expertise will still be needed to support the department. However, many good wargames can be designed without requiring the supervision of a wargaming master.

Since 2009, the Naval Postgraduate School’s Operations Research Department has offered an 11-week Wargaming Applications course to its resident students that focuses on the design, conduct, and analysis of wargames for Department of Defense, allied, and partner sponsors.4 The faculty designed the course recognizing that the Naval Postgraduate School’s Operations Research graduates – our military’s newest Operations Research analysts–needed to be able to design, conduct, and analyze a wargame. Acquiring these skills enables them to participate in, lead, and eventually supervise the end-to-end campaign analysis that incorporates wargaming, computer simulations, and other qualitative and quantitative analytic tools as future analytic assignments will require. The course organizers did not fully recognize the added benefit of this education until some of the Operations Research graduates started serving at Combatant Commands. These graduates, now staff officers, reached back to the Naval Postgraduate School to report how useful their wargaming design skills were in helping the Combatant Command staffs design and conduct useful planning wargames. They asked if the Wargaming Applications instructors could come to their location and teach a cadre of the Combatant Command personnel the same basic wargaming design skills they had internalized at the Naval Postgraduate School.

In response, NPS developed the week-long Mobile Education Team Basic Analytic Wargaming Course around the same philosophy as our resident wargaming course: learn by doing. The objectives for this course were two-fold.

First, it builds a cadre of personnel who can initiate, design, develop, conduct, and analyze a wargame. Unified Combatant Commands have leveraged this opportunity by having personnel from their operational planning teams and staff sections attend the course and work in teams to learn how to design, develop, and execute a wargame.

Second, since the sponsoring organization chooses the wargaming topic used in the course’s practical exercises, the organization can have the core foundation of a wargame created and demonstrated that can then be further built out and used by the organization to meet other organizational wargaming requirements. NPS has conducted over 20 week-long Mobile Education Team Basic Analytic Wargaming Courses around the world, including five at Combatant Commands. Today, NPS conducts 6-8 Mobile Education Team events annually, and demand remains high.

The philosophy in teaching wargaming is that it requires a hands-on, learn-by-doing approach. Both the resident and Mobile Education Team courses are over 70 percent practical exercises, where the students are applying the techniques that we illustrate in the lectures. In both courses, a Department of Defense, ally, or partner sponsor provides the wargaming topic that serves as the impetus behind the practical exercises. Student groups design, conduct, and then analyze wargames for their sponsors as the course’s graduation exercise. Since 2009, the Naval Postgraduate School resident student wargaming teams have conducted over 70 wargames for 35 Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Joint, International, and Industry sponsors. NPS views the wargaming course graduates as wargaming apprentices. They have enough knowledge and experience to make useful, often significant, contributions to any wargaming effort required in the department. Several recent graduates have actually led wargaming design initiatives at their respective organizations soon after graduation.

Conclusion

If the Department of Defense is serious about improving its wargaming capability, it needs to invest in its people through wargaming education. That education needs to be practical and applied at the company and field grade level, preferably as part of their Joint Professional Military Education or graduate school opportunities. If it is a priority to emphasize wargaming’s role in Department of Defense decision-making, simply “doing more wargames” is insufficient. Preparing warfighters to employ wargaming to the full extent of their purposes must be a necessary element.

Colonel (Retired) Jeff Appleget, Ph.D., spent 20 of his 30 years in the U.S. Army as an Operations Research/Systems analyst where he participated in and supervised acquisition and analysis studies using wargaming and computer-based combat simulations. Since 2009, Jeff has been a Senior Lecturer in the Operations Research Department at the Naval Postgraduate School where he teaches wargaming and combat modeling courses. Jeff has mentored over 70 wargames that have been created, conducted, and analyzed by NPS resident Operations Research and Defense Analysis student teams for DoD, Defense partner and allied nation sponsors, and the defense industry. He has led 20 NPS Mobile Education Teams to teach his week-long Basic Analytic Wargaming course in DoD and around the world, to include STRATCOM, CENTCOM, AFRICOM, MARFORPAC, Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (two courses), NATO Special Operations Forces, the Australian Defence Force (four courses), the Canadian Air Force, the Indonesian Navy, the Taiwan Armed Forces, and a Tri-lateral course for the Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish Defence Research Agencies. He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Naval Postgraduate School, an M.S. in Operations Research and Statistics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a B.S. from the United States Military Academy. His major awards include the 2016 Richard W. Hamming Faculty Award for Interdisciplinary Achievement, the 2011 Army Modeling and Simulation Team Award (Analysis), 2003 Dr. Wilbur B. Payne Memorial Award for Excellence in Analysis, 2003 Simulation and Modeling for Acquisition, Requirements, and Training (SMART) Award, 2001 SMART Award, 1993 Instructor of the Year (At Large), Department of Mathematical Sciences,  U.S. Air Force Academy, 1991 Dr. Wilbur B. Payne Memorial Award for Excellence in Analysis, and 1990 Concepts Analysis Agency Director’s Award for Excellence. Along with Dr. Rob Burks, Jeff directs the activities of the NPS Naval Warfare Studies Institute Wargaming Center.

Colonel (Retired) Robert E. Burks, Jr., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Defense Analysis of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) and with Jeff Appleget, directs the activities of the NPS Naval Warfare Studies Institute Wargaming Center. He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Air Force Institute of Technology, an M.S. in Operations Research from the Florida Institute of Technology. Rob is a retired Army Colonel with more than thirty years of military experience in leadership, advanced analytics, decision modeling, and logistics operations. He spent 17 years in the U.S. Army as an Operations Research/Systems analyst and has led multiple analytical study teams responsible for Army Transformation and organizational restructuring and design efforts using wargaming and computer-based combat simulations. Since 2015, Rob has taught multiple educational, historical, and analytical wargaming courses at NPS. He has taught the NPS week-long Basic Analytic Wargaming Course 14 times to the Department of Defense and other organizations around the world, to include CENTCOM, AFRICOM, MARFORPAC, Marine Corps Warfighting Lab (two courses), NATO Special Operations Forces, the Australian Defence Force (four courses), and the Taiwan Armed Forces.

Captain Jeffrey E. Kline (ret.) served 26 years as a naval officer, including two sea commands. Jeff is currently a Professor of Practice in the Naval Postgraduate School Operations Research department. He directs the NPS Naval Warfare Studies Institute. He teaches campaign analysis, systems analysis, and executive programs in strategic planning and risk assessment. Jeff supports applied analytical research in maritime operations and security, tactical analysis, and future force composition studies. He has served on the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations’ Fleet Design Advisory Board and several Naval Study Board Committees of the National Academies. His faculty awards include the Superior Civilian Service Medal, 2019 J. Steinhardt Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Operations Research, 2011 Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS) Award for Teaching of OR Practice, 2009 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Homeland Security Award, 2007 Hamming Award for interdisciplinary research, 2007 Wayne E. Meyers Award for Excellence in Systems Engineering Research, and the 2005 Northrop Grumman Award for Excellence in Systems Engineering. He is a member of the Military Operations Research Society and the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from the University of Missouri, a Master of Science in Operations Research from the Naval Postgraduate School, and a Master of Science in National Security Studies from the National Defense University’s National War College.

References

1. Peter Perla et. al, “Rolling the Iron Dice: From Analytical Wargaming to the Cycle of Research” October 21, 2019; https://warontherocks.com/2019/10/rolling-the-iron-dice-from-analytical-wargaming-to-the-cycle-of-research/

2. Matthew B. Caffrey, Jr., “On Wargaming” (2019). The Newport Papers. 43. https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/newport-papers/43

3. Phil Pournelle, “Can the Cycle of Research Save American Military Strategy?” October 18, 2019, WOTR, https://warontherocks.com/2019/10/can-the-cycle-of-research-save-american-military-strategy/

4. Jeffrey Appleget, Robert Burks and Frederick Cameron, “The Craft of Wargaming: A Detailed Planning Guide for Defense Planners and Analysts,” Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 2020.

Featured Image: EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska (Oct. 22, 2020) – A U.S. Army M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) launches ordnance during RED FLAG-Alaska 21-1 at Fort Greely, Alaska, Oct. 22, 2020 (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Beaux Hebert)