Cna’s War-gaming For National Defense: Weapon Of The Week

For overmuch of what’s connected show astatine defense exhibitions, it’s a batch for illustration a museum. People tin look, but they can’t touch, and that’s what makes our limb of nan week truthful interesting.

Nestled successful nan acold area of nan normal halfway astatine this year’s Navy League Sea Air Space accumulation was a show that invited passers-by to stop, inquire questions and rotation nan dice.

How does CNA scheme warfare games?

Jeremy Sepinsky is nan lead warfare gamer astatine nan Center for Naval Analyses (CNA). He organizes and develops nan skills of their warfare crippled creation team. This group designs astir 20 games each year, each created to research circumstantial customer needs.

“The number 1 mobility we ever inquire is, what are we trying to do pinch nan game? What is nan outcome?” Sepinsky said. “How is nan crippled fitting into a research, analytic aliases acquisition portfolio? It’s not each about, ‘Hey, I’ve sewage this comeback position.’ It’s ever astir what we are trying to do astatine CNA. We creation warfare games to fresh into immoderate problem abstraction our sponsor is looking for.”

Once CNA’s wargamers find their objectives, they analyse nan crippled and see what contingencies and concerns mightiness germinate during play. Then, they group up a warfare crippled focused connected that operation, ensuring it encourages players to research “what if” scenarios.

“And we play done those ‘what if’ scenarios,” Sepinsky explained. “Our information collectors grounds what happened and why. They see contingency readying exercises that request to beryllium addressed. We constitute a study astir these findings, which helps sponsors understand what they whitethorn request to deliberation done successful nan full problem space.”

Why are warfare games important?

Sepinsky says nan warfare games alteration participants to prosecute successful realistic simulations, sparking discussions astir decision-making, operational readying and contingency scenarios.

“We dream our sponsors return nan output of nan crippled and usage it to determine wherever they request to attraction their efforts,” Sepinsky said. “This informs their decision-making.”

Sepinsky estimates he has designed much than 60 warfare games complete nan people of a decade astatine CNA. Every year, he and a squad of 12 execute arsenic galore arsenic 20 of them for their customers. He points retired that warfare games are conscionable 1 portion of immoderate eventual solution.

“I’ve been talking a batch astir analytic warfare games, but they supply an immersive acquisition acquisition arsenic well,” Sepinsky noted. “They request to beryllium emphasized from an analytic position pinch a existent analytic scheme and program. From an acquisition perspective, they request a existent curriculum. This way, they aren’t opinionated alone, and you get reinforcement learning and study done each different methods that support nan rhythm of research. This feedback loop betwixt exercises, study and warfare games helps understand nan afloat spectrum of conflict.”

Sepinsky besides emphasized that nan outcomes of their warfare games usually person semipermanent implications alternatively than contiguous impacts. They shouldn’t beryllium utilized for speedy decisions aliases awesome strategy changes. Instead, they thief place cardinal issues for deeper analysis.

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