The (War)Games We Play

War on the Rocks

News, Politics

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2019

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you read War on the Rocks, you've noticed there's a lively debate over the state of wargaming in the Department of Defense. After senior leaders pushed for a renewed emphasis on wargaming several years ago, are these games any good? Are they doing what they need to be doing for the U.S. military? If not, who is at fault — the gaming community or the customers sitting in the five-sided building? To tackle these questions and more, we gathered a gifted group of gamesome and gallant gamers. Join Ryan's conversation with Ellie Bartels, ED McGrady, and Peter Perla.

Links

Jon Compton, "The Obstacles on the Road to Better Analytical Wargaming"

Phillip Pournelle, "Can the Cycle of Research Save American Military Strategy?"

Peter Perla, Web Ewell, Christopher Ma, Justin Peachy, Jeremy Sepinksy, and Basil Tripsas, "Rolling the Iron Dice: From Analytical Wargaming to the Cycle of Research"

ED McGrady, "Getting the Story Right About Wargaming"

Elizabeth Bartels, "Getting the Most Out of Your Wargame: Practical Advice for Decision-Makers"

Robert Work and Paul Selva, "Revitalizing Wargaming is Necessary to be Prepared for Future Wars"

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to the one rocks Rocks podcast on strategy, defense, and foreign affairs.
0:15.7	My name is Ryan Evans, I'm the CEO of War on the Rocks.
0:18.7	In this episode we talk about war gaming.
0:21.3	There's been a bit of a debate raging on our pages and we have some of the
0:24.2	participants with us to walk us through why defense war gaming is at an inflection
0:29.2	point.
0:30.2	I'm Ed McGrady. I teach gaming for a variety of different places and I began a gaming team at
0:38.8	place called the Center for Naval Analysis or CNA several years ago and now I do my own consulting on gaming and do various types of game.
0:47.0	I'm Ella Bartels. I'm an associate policy researcher at the Rand Corporation and I'm also in their PhD program running a
0:54.0	dissertation on the science of game design. And I'm Peter Perla. I'm almost
0:59.7	retired analyst from CNA and worked there for 40 plus years. My main claim to fame and
1:10.1	something I sometimes regret was writing a book called The Art of War Gaming, which got me into this business.
1:17.0	It is a terrific book. It's the first book that I read on War Gaming and I'm sure a lot of people in this field can say the same thing.
1:25.0	Let's zoom out because some of our readers and listeners might not be as familiar with this.
1:30.0	During the last administration, I think it was in 2015, Bob Work and Selva, the vice chairman,
1:37.0	came out and tried to make war gaming and did make war gaming a big priority for the Department of Defense.
1:42.0	What was driving that?
1:43.3	What do you think led to that moment?
1:44.7	Because I know you two especially
1:46.8	must have been involved in some of those conversations.
1:48.4	Ellie, you are also already involved in work gaming at that point.
1:51.1	What's your perspective on the good things that drove that
	...

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