WARGAMES AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

Abstract

Wargames have a long history of use as tools for training and educating decision makers and illuminating the strategic problems of war and warfare. Recent calls for re-invigoration of wargaming culture in the Department of Defense suggest some value in a return to first principles, asking and answering the question what use wargames have. This discussion verifies the commonly-helped notions that wargames are useful for training, education, and exploratory analysis or hypothesis generation. It also argues the common belief that wargames are unsuitable for the purpose of hypothesis testing is false.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 06, 2017
Accession Number
AD1038115

Entities

People

  • Eric M. Murphy

Organizations

  • Air War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Department Of Defense
  • Education
  • Game Theory
  • Human Behavior
  • Mathematical Analysis
  • Military Education
  • Military Science
  • Military Training
  • Psychology
  • Reasoning
  • Students
  • Test And Evaluation
  • United States
  • War Colleges
  • War Games
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Game Theory.
  • Regression Analysis.
  • Strategic Security Studies