Wargaming

Basics

• The application of the Social Technology of Strategy Games / Gaming to War, and in particular Strategy, Doctrine, and Decision Making about it
• Not too relevant to OSE, HOWEVER the social technology can be used in a similar way to “stress test” plans/doctrine
• There are however several fundimental limits to the process, and similar to how a “Clean Slidedeck and a White Guy with a British Accent” can sell policies leading to atrocities etc, one needs to be VERY careful poor statistics/weight values etc don’t “rig” a game towards a bad result

Internal Links

• Von Braun Syndrome / The Oppenheimer Issue
• Strategy Testing Interactive Games / Planspiel

External Links

• The Wikipedia Page on Wargames
• A Video by the YouTube Channel “People Make Games” Titled “The Games Behind Your Government’s Next War” ( ‘’’~1 Hour, 12 Minute Watch’’’ )
  • It goes over the History, Applications, Ethical Concerns, and Actual Utility of Wargames (as well as non-war applications)
• A Video by the YouTube Channel Perun Titled “I Wargamed with NATO - Inside the Cross Domain Command Wargame (2025) ( ‘’’~1 Hour Watch’’’ )
  • Mentions a NATO wargame, How it was done, why it was done, and some ways it could have potentially been done better
  • 12:30 is where most of it starts (if you know about the backround already)
  • It notably involved Multi Domain Operations/CDCC, aka also had Soft Power , Cyber, Information, and the Civilian Sector “Grey Cell”
    • Also had a “Pre-Kinetic Phase” , the “Kinetic Fighting Phase” , “Post-Conflict Element” (supposedly in regard to refugees/idps/reconstruction?)
  • 50:24 is where they mention potential improvements/tweaks
  • 1:00:00 is on the topic of “Train Hard, Fight Easy” / One of the main advantages is not “loosing” when you loose/it costing trivial amounts of money/time so you should crank io the difficulty/try things out as much as possible