Unlocking the Potential of War Games: A Look Beyond the Black Box

Abstract

War games are currently enjoying a revival of interest and popularity within the American defense community. Strategists, analysts, and policy-makers alike are turning more and more to gaming as a medium for education, planning and discovery. This paper examines war gaming as a tool for strategic planning and offers a perspective different (yet complementary) to that of operations research: the war game is viewed as a source of synthetic history, to be studied and interpreted by historical-type methods. Keywords: War games, Strategy, Strategic planning, U.S. Defense policy.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 29, 1988
Accession Number
ADA194558

Entities

People

  • Arthur S. Mobley Jr.

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Arms Control
  • Contingency Operations (Military)
  • Education
  • Game Theory
  • Human Behavior
  • International Relations
  • Mathematical Models
  • Military Operations
  • Military Science
  • Models
  • National Security
  • Naval Operations
  • Operations Research
  • Schools
  • Security
  • War Colleges
  • War Games

Readers

  • Game Theory.
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.
  • Systems Analysis and Design