Wargaming as a Methodology: The International Crisis Wargame and Experimental Wargaming

Abstract

Background. Wargaming has a long history as a tool for understanding the complexity of conflict. Although wargames have shown their relevance across topics and time, the immersive nature of wargames and the guild-like communities that surround them have often resisted the social scientific advances that occurred alongside the evolution of warfare. However, recent work raises new possibilities for integrating wargaming practices and social scientific methods. Purpose. Develop the experimental wargaming method and practice. Prioritizing the focus on iteration, control, and generalizability within experimental design can provide new opportunities for wargames to answer broader questions about decision-making, crisis behaviors, and patterns of outcomes. Method. The International Crisis Wargame developed in 2018 demonstrates the viability of experimental wargaming, and models the process of theorizing, designing, developing, and executing these wargames. It also identifies what makes games more or less experimental and details how experimental design influenced choices in the game. Conclusion. Experimental wargames are a promising new tool for both the social science and the wargaming communities. A proposed new research agenda for experimental design within wargames would support this nascent method

Unpacking Strategic Behavior in Cyberspace: A Schema-Driven Approach

“…al. [70] argue, the benefits of wargaming is a function of the fundamental research goals with a distinction made between experimental and observational wargames. Experimental wargames prioritize internal validity and emphasizes the randomization of samples, the difference between control and treatment groups, multiple iterations, and an abstraction of the game environment [75].…”

Wargaming for International Relations research

“…Additionally, the survey attempts to capture how group dynamics may have influenced the completion of the Response Plans. (Schechter et al, 2021: 10)…”

“…Scholar-generated wargames are best used to answer questions about human decision-making, either regarding rare events or topics where real-world data are difficult to obtain. Accordingly, existing research using scholar-generated games tends to answer questions about emerging technology and nuclear weapons (Jensen and Valeriano, 2019; Lin-Greenberg, 2020; Reddie et al, 2018; Schechter et al, 2021; Schneider, 2017; Schneider et al, 2021). However, wargames can also be useful for studying a range of IR topics, including group dynamics in foreign policy decision-making, the strength of norms in policymaking, the role of treaty commitments in decisions on the use of force, the development and utility of economic sanctions, perceptions of the comparative effectiveness of deterrence strategies, and the fidelity of crisis signaling.…”

“…Experimentally designed games may require more iterations than observational games in order to assess whether experimental manipulations lead to trends in decision-making. Researchers are increasingly fielding dozens to hundreds of experimental game iterations (Jensen and Valeriano, 2019; Reddie et al, 2018; Schechter et al, 2021; Schneider et al, 2021) to identify trends across games and help ensure findings are not the result of chance.…”

“…How might this work in practice? To demonstrate the wargame design process, we walk through how researchers designed and fielded the International Crisis Wargame Series (Schechter et al, 2021). The researchers began with a research question: “How do cyber operations affect nuclear stability?” Specifically, they wanted to assess whether cyber vulnerabilities and exploits within a rival’s nuclear command, control, and communication networks (the primary independent variables) affected decisions on the use of force (the dependent variable).…”