Hedgemony: A Game of Strategic Choices

Linick, Michael E.; Yurchak, John; Spirtas, Michael; Dalzell, Stephen; Wong, Yuna Huh; Crane, Yvonne K.

doi:10.7249/tl301

“…Dr. Lacey created an expansive global wargame campaign by linking together several titles from the Next War series to challenge students with simultaneous crises in eastern Europe, Taiwan, and the Korean Peninsula. 100 In 2021, another MCWAR professor, Colonel Brian W. Cole, leveraged Rand's Hedgemony wargame in his Joint warfare course. Hedgemony examines long-term strategic planning, force planning, management, and posture.…”

Section: A Promising Renaissancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…99 Direct observation, as applied in this context, can provide insight into those who learn through concrete experience or active experimentation learning styles and have the benefit of providing players an uninterrupted setting in which to play the wargame. 100 Furthermore, assuming that the student observation checklist is appropriately crafted, the data gathered through direct observation can indicate real changes in behavior or thinking based on the game context. 101 However, these changes in player behavior may be artificial and not readily translatable to actual practice.…”

Section: Educational Wargamingmentioning

confidence: 99%

PROMISE UNFULFILLED: A Brief History of Educational Wargaming in the Marine Corps

Bae¹,

Brown²

2021

JAMS

0

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This article offers a comprehensive historical overview of educational wargaming in the U.S. Marine Corps and how it can evolve in the future. The tradition of leveraging wargames for educational and training purposes is deeply rooted in the Marine Corps. From humble beginnings at the Naval War College to Service-wide wargaming initiatives like TACWAR, the Marine Corps has always sought to develop the intellectual edge of its Marines through wargames. Yet, in successive decades, the Marine Corps has consistently struggled to maintain its wargaming efforts. This article concludes with recommendations on how to develop, expand, and evolve educational wargaming in the Marine Corps.

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“…Dr. Lacey created an expansive global wargame campaign by linking together several titles from the Next War series to challenge students with simultaneous crises in eastern Europe, Taiwan, and the Korean Peninsula. 100 In 2021, another MCWAR professor, Colonel Brian W. Cole, leveraged Rand's Hedgemony wargame in his Joint warfare course. Hedgemony examines long-term strategic planning, force planning, management, and posture.…”

Section: A Promising Renaissancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…99 Direct observation, as applied in this context, can provide insight into those who learn through concrete experience or active experimentation learning styles and have the benefit of providing players an uninterrupted setting in which to play the wargame. 100 Furthermore, assuming that the student observation checklist is appropriately crafted, the data gathered through direct observation can indicate real changes in behavior or thinking based on the game context. 101 However, these changes in player behavior may be artificial and not readily translatable to actual practice.…”

Section: Educational Wargamingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Untitled

2021

JAMS

0

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Established in 2008, MCU Press is an open access publisher that recognizes the importance of an open dialogue between scholars, policy makers, analysts, and military leaders and of crossing civilian-military boundaries to advance knowledge and solve problems. To that end, MCUP launched the Journal of Advanced Military Studies (JAMS) to provide a forum for interdisciplinary discussion of national security and international relations issues and how they have an impact on the Department of Defense, the Department of the Navy, and the U.S. Marine Corps directly and indirectly. JAMS is published biannually, with occasional special issues that highlight key topics of interest.

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The Methodological Machinery of Wargaming: A Path toward Discovering Wargaming’s Epistemological Foundations

Banks

2023

International Studies Review

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This paper proposes a comprehensive research program for determining the epistemological foundations of analytic wargaming. Wargaming has been used in military, government, and private sectors for decades, with tens of millions of dollars spent annually on it. In light of the changing strategic circumstances of the twenty-first century, it has only become more popular. However, the epistemological foundations of the method are poorly understood. Many professional wargamers contend that wargaming is an “art” and thus unable to be systemically evaluated. Recent work by a small coterie of international relations scholars has contended that wargaming can be reconciled with social science, typically by evaluating wargaming according to experimental standards. However, this solution strips wargames of most of their unique features and cannot explain why some of the most prominent wargames in history produced meaningful results. In this paper, I argue that in the attempt to better understand wargaming’s epistemology, scholars should begin by recognizing the prominent features of wargames and research each of these to determine if and how wargames produce rigorous knowledge. In making this argument, I identify five distinct “methodological machineries” of wargaming—the recurring processes through which wargames may produce knowledge—that distinguish wargaming from other social science methods: (i) they are representative, (ii) they feature consequential decisions made by human players, (iii) they are adjudicated, (iv) they are immersive, and (v) they are bespoke designs. I show how each of these machineries offers potential opportunities and dangers in the production of knowledge through the method of wargaming. In outlining these distinct features, I offer a clear and viable research program for epistemologists of wargaming.

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Hedgemony: A Game of Strategic Choices

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

PROMISE UNFULFILLED: A Brief History of Educational Wargaming in the Marine Corps

PROMISE UNFULFILLED: A Brief History of Educational Wargaming in the Marine Corps

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The Methodological Machinery of Wargaming: A Path toward Discovering Wargaming’s Epistemological Foundations

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