Wargaming Complex Issues: Wargaming and Its Broad Applications

Wargaming has made a resurgence in recent months as defense and security community organizations in the United States and throughout the world seek innovative ways to better cope with the complexity and uncertainty defining and shaping future tactical, operational, and strategic environments. As the concept makes a renaissance, though, it has become clear the term “wargaming” means different things to different people in different settings. It is most frequently associated with military exercises designed to test operational plans, tactics, and strategies, but the applications of wargaming as a methodology go well beyond military exercises or even the defense and security context. Wargaming principles and components can be applied to support nearly any private or public sector organization seeking to anticipate future risks, explore new and complicated environments, and test assumptions and plans. In this seminar, we will discuss the concept of wargaming and table-top exercises as a flexible and dynamic methodological tool that intersects with and complements other alternative analysis techniques to help organizations address complex issues, better understand the dimensions of the problems they face, and assess the tensions, trade-offs, and outcomes associated with decision-making. The session will explore the flexibility and durability of wargaming methodologies through a combination of theory and practice. It will begin with a wide-ranging discussion of the concept of gaming and alternative analysis techniques; the core components of successful games; and challenges associated with the design and development of successful games. The presenters will also include case studies from their own experiences of how wargaming has been used and wargaming principles applied in support of a range of objectives and organizations, including organizations that sit outside of the defence and security community. Bio Tate Nurkin is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with Forward Defense, within the Brent Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He is also the Founder of OTH Intelligence Group LLC, a defense consulting and research firm, and a Partner with One Defense, a defence technology strategic advisory and horizon scanning firm. Before establishing OTH Intelligence Group in March 2018, Tate spent 12 years at Janes where he served in a variety of roles, including from 2013 as the Executive Director of the Strategic Assessments and Futures Studies. From 2012 till his departure in 2018, he served on the Jane’s Leadership Team responsible for managing overall business operations. Tate previously worked for Joint Management Services, the Strategic Assessment Center of SAIC, and the Modeling, Simulation, Wargaming, and Analysis team of Booz Allen Hamilton primarily supporting the U.S. Defense and Intelligence Community. He holds a Masters of Science in International Affairs from the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech and a Bachelor of Arts in history and political science from Duke University. He lives in Matthews, NC. John T. Watts is a Forward Defense senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He is currently on secondment as a senior policy advisor to the Office of the Secretary of Defense – Policy. There he manages strategic evaluations of security cooperation activities including those relating to great power competition (GPC) and the counter-ISIS campaign. He has also guided thought leadership activities such as security cooperation tabletop exercises (TTX) and the modelling of UN voting patterns. At the Atlantic Council, he was foundational in the development of the Forward Defense program and created the Emergent Futures Lab to develop new insights into future threats by combining experimental approaches and non-traditional perspectives with established expertise. His work there has included research and papers on creating a trusted and resilient global 5G telecommunications network; the threat and implications of hypersonic weapons in the Indo-Pacific; the threat of disinformation to national sovereignty as well as a range of Indo-Pacific national security issues and regional relationships. He is particularly noted for his work running innovative and high-profile war-games to explore long term great-power competitive technology strategies; future Army concepts of operations; alternate cyber security challenges; as well as complex Baltic and Middle East security issues.