organization, and other nontraditional intelligence operations may influence future warfare as well.
The traditional use of predictive simulations used for point optimizations in a well‐defined context, possibly supported by some sensitivity analysis, does not meet these emerging requirements. Composable simulation services provided as smart components are needed. The resulting compositions need to be applied to conduct exploratory modeling and analysis addressing the deep uncertainties of these complex environments by allowing a broad evaluation of the solution space. By combining the power of computer simulation‐based generation of data with technology of big data allows for a new application of simulation.
In summary, modeling, simulation, analysis, and visualization methods can and should enrich wargaming activities. No other methods allow the exploitation of options within a complex, nonlinear environment, such as the modern battlefield presents. Several chapters in this book provide examples of how these methods and derived tools help in the decision‐making process. Not utilizing these methods and tools to the full extent possible would be a mistake.
A Wargamer’s Perspective
Recent DoD level interest has highlighted the importance and value of wargaming as a vital and neglected element in the comprehensive understanding of operational environments, force design, and operating concepts. There is both clarity and confusion in this interest. Clarity in that it recognizes a problem and gives momentum to a solution; confusion in that it has not distinguished between the natures of computational analysis and wargaming. It has even suggested that “reinvigorating” wargaming is merely a matter of incorporating analytical techniques (methods, models, and tools – MMT) into wargame designs. However, the effort to optimize this relationship entails more than the simple incorporation of MMT into wargame design. This incorporation is not new. The struggle is to synchronize the process of sophisticated analytical methodologies with the action of the human intellect such that the potential of both are integrated and optimized by using the computational result as a substrate for human decision.
Analysis is based upon mathematical process; wargaming is based upon human judgement. Both are powerful and are compatible. But, they are not different expressions of the same thing. Computational analysis relies for its manipulation of data and its precision of results upon a methodology involving the quantification of variables and the specification of their interactions. In analysis, exact conclusions emerge from the connection of method to a specific problem. However, analysis is limited by the very tenants of its science to what is measurable. It cannot go beyond statements of trends and precision (accuracy is another matter) because it cannot substantiate what it cannot measure. Further, a particular resulting measurement does not necessarily imply a universal pattern.
Wargaming rests upon what cannot be measured. This stands in contrast to but not in opposition to the computational analytical approach. A wargame does this by embracing, assembling, and organizing many variables without an attempt to assign values or calculate interactions. These variables, which reside in the situation, the individual, and emerge in the dynamic friction of play, are impossible to measure separately or in assembly. The action of the wargame generates interactions and relationships that could not have been anticipated and relies upon the emergence of results not subject to prediction. All of this is synthesized and organized in the human imagination and no science is capable of quantifying the path, dynamic, or chance that transforms this complexity into a comprehensible and coherent whole. And yet this is what both drives a game and defines its results.
Thus, wargames explore the interlocking coherence of the whole while computational analysis produces precision in isolation. The question is: How to associate the two to mutual benefit? The problem is one of relating processed facts and human imagination. The analyst and the wargame designer must combine the two realms without losing the essential strength of either in the midst of the constant dynamic and change in game play. The answer to this dilemma involves the recognition of the distinct natures of the two approaches and the effort to forge complimentary methods. Wargaming permits judgment to be influenced in a dynamic context by emerging evidence as a precursor to decision. Analysis can aid this process by injecting “points of precision” into play, which then merge with and act as an informing substrate for decision … the universal requirement in any wargame. In other words, analytical methods can inform imagination with a precision designed to influence but not direct decision in game play.
The benefit of a wargame supported by analytical methods that provide points of departure and situational precision as the basis for decision is the production of informed and defensible insights that can shape and direct subsequent efforts in a concept or combat development sequence. There is no analytical methodology by which the outcomes of the inherently human activity of play can be transitioned into a rigid accuracy. But then war is an inherently human activity that only rarely adheres to the requirements of scientific law and rigidity in war rarely produces brilliance or success. The key to understanding the benefit of the incorporation of analytical methods into wargaming is that, while sharper and more focused insight can be expected as outcomes, one learns that knowledge does not have to be quantifiable in order to be defensible. This informed combination of the analytic science of the necessary with the wargaming art of the possible promises to provide a foundation for the objective substantiation and justification for the resources and programs required for future military success.
Conclusion
These viewpoints show that wargaming and simulation both play important roles in the development and evaluation of new concepts, tactics, techniques, and procedures in complex defense situations. The support seems to be more complementary than competitive.
As a rule, the role of the simulation focuses mainly in the quantitative sphere, reliable presentation of computable effects in a situated synthetic environment for the wargamers and provide the results in immersive form to them. The immersion can be in the form of virtual or augmented reality presentation of the battle sphere, but also in form of intuitive representation of results. The latter may also help the wargamer to evaluate alternative courses of action in their decision cycles. The role of the wargamer is more in the qualitative realm. Humans provide the creativity needed to come up with truly innovative solutions when confronted with complexity, uncertainty, and vagueness of new situations. They make the decision in multidimensional, multi‐scope, and multi‐resolution solution space. It seems to be obvious that a tighter connection will likely provide a better support. What conceptual and technical methods are useful to support this is a topic of ongoing research.
In this prologue we raise questions about what simulations can provide to enable better wargames, what wargamers need from simulationists to help them be more creative and innovative, and what is needed to generate better aligned compositions and tools. The authors of the various book chapters, which are making up this compendium, address these challenges as well as ideas how to better cope with them. There are many facets and viewpoints reflected in the contributions, providing the basis for more discussions, research, and hopefully many practical applications of solution contributions in the future.
1 An Introduction to Wargaming and Modeling and Simulation
Jeffrey Appleget
Naval Postgraduate School, Montrey, CA, USA
Introduction
Nations have long utilized simulations of combat to help understand how to better man, train, equip, and employ forces in preparation for future combat operations. These force generation, force structure, and force design decisions are often informed by simulating combat against potential adversaries in projected future scenarios, and then
