There is good news and there is bad news.
The good news is I believe we’ve seen in the last 12-18 months an increased discussion of the importance of wargames and wargaming – the actual stuff, not what you do on your computer – in our small nautical talking circle.
The bad news is I believe the term and process of wargaming is being misused.
Wargames are a tool. They are the most human of tools as the rules, variables, weighting of variables, and even the friction/fog is all the subjective creation of those designing and running the wargame.
Specifically and narrowly run wargames are the best as you can use them to flesh out concepts, requirements, and even expected capabilities along a spectrum of performance. You go in knowing its limitations and utility and accept the results accordingly.
The larger and more open the wargame, the wider the window as to its accuracy. The variables are many, the unknowns stronger, and the ease of manipulation or initiating error greater.
Small and large, the manipulation and initiating errors are where you have to be careful. If so desired, wargames can be designed or run in a manner to enable a desired outcome. This can be done by having inviolable planning assumptions or excessively weighted variables … or just people who unknowingly can’t mitigate their inherent biases.
Wargames are good for testing and exploring but they can not predict the future. They cannot give you a crisp, clear understanding of what war WILL require of you … or even if you are gaming the right opponent.
From 1990 to 2003 one of the most wargamed conflicts of the post-Cold War period, with the possible exception of Korea, was Iraq. Do we need to review how successful that was? Do we need to review – from riverine to insurgency – how many things were simply ignored or not even considered? Do we need to review Phase IV operations?
No, of course we don’t.
What we do need is to remember this lesson before we say something like this as reported by Joseph Trevithick and Tyler Rogoway over at The Drive;
“In wargaming scenarios against peer nations [such as Russia or China], the Mk VIs were deemed not really needed (given their small size and limited missile firepower),” (U.S. Marine Corps Major General Tracy) King added,
We are, at least we like to tell ourselves we still are, a global navy with global requirements. As someone writing about the growing threat from the People’s Republic of China since 2004, I fully appreciate our late but needed focus on the challenge west of Wake – but that is not the only challenge.
The arguments to not – again – throw away our small boats – are worth a series of blog posts all their own, but history shows us from Korea to Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan and other vacation spots, that the war we want to plan for is not the war history will give us.
We need a diverse tool box that is not only ready for the South China Sea, but the Niger River. Not just the North Cape, but the Gulf of Paria. From Odesa to Isla de la Juventud.
Your wargame will demonstrate one future requirement; my wargame can produce one with another.
We will both be wrong in hindsight.
Hedge.
