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Wargaming Does Not Need to be ComplicatedĪ common misconception of wargaming is that it requires complex computer programs or detailed map-and-counter systems with intricate rule sets.
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When facing an in-game decision, players should ask themselves “what intelligence reporting provides clues about how the target would react?” If there is no information available, a potential intelligence gap has revealed itself. The key to developing valid analytic insights from wargaming is to try to bring intelligence information into the process. The analyst or analysts on a team can employ the technique to identify the broadest range of possible actions an adversary might take and then consider which actions are supported by evidence, which are most likely, and which might be most dangerous to the United States.įurther, wargaming can help identify intelligence gaps. Alongside these alternatives, wargaming can illuminate the indicators that would accompany an adversary’s choice of one course of action over another.Įach turn of a wargame further provides the context for a structured brainstorming session. Each turn in a wargame presents players with decision points, each of which can reveal plausible alternatives for consideration. Wargaming can help bring analysis of alternatives to the front of analysts’ minds because of its sequenced, iterative structure. If pressed, many analysts would reveal that they only consider alternative hypotheses at the end of their analytic process, contrary to best practices. Wargaming can also increase the likelihood of capturing alternative assessments. When facing a thinking opponent on the other side of a wargame, that assumption might not seem quite as valid. If an assessment depends upon an assumption that an adversary’s political leaders do not see war in their interests, analysts can put themselves in those leaders’ place in the context of a game and see if the assumption holds.
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For example, wargaming can help check key assumptions. Wargaming can also enable the use of other analytic techniques. Wargaming Can Enable Other Analytic Techniques This helps illuminate constraints on military action that more abstract techniques do not. Wargaming also captures the sequencing of military operations in time and space. In this way it helps analysts see beyond the first order effects of any adversary course of action and identify how different actions might shape the future actions of the parties to a conflict. Wargaming captures the iterative interactions between the actors in a conflict. Wargaming also embodies the nature of warfare in a way that no other technique does. Wargaming improves on red teaming by adding a thinking, reacting opponent, and repeating the process over the course of the game. In that way it is similar to the act of playing the red team in a wargame. This technique involves analysts putting themselves in the adversary’s position and asking what factors influence its decision-making process and how it responds to different stimuli. One common technique used to see the world from the adversary’s perspective is red team analysis. How is wargaming different and/or better than these techniques? Wargaming is unlike any other technique for its ability to put analysts in the adversary’s position and capture the interactive nature of warfare. Numerous structured analytic techniques have been developed to help intelligence analysts overcome their biases and improve their assessments. Wargaming Is Distinct from Other Structured Analytic Techniques
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Rather than decrying this, analysts should embrace this fact and use wargaming to improve their assessments. This is a source of frequent frustration for analysts and the cause of numerous gripes about the “unrealistic” nature of wargames. Intelligence analysts playing red must therefore guess at how the adversary might respond to unusual situations or deliberately make decisions they believe are inaccurate just to support the game’s purpose. Intelligence analysts themselves routinely play the role of adversaries in so-called “red cells.” Often, however, wargame sponsors have specific training or analytic objectives that require deviations from the most likely or most realistic “red” courses of action. Intelligence analysis provides the factual backbone of wargames, from orders-of-battle and weapons system capabilities to strategy. Intelligence is a key enabler of wargames conducted by the U.S.