HomeOffice of Sponsored ProgramsResearchArticle Display


Reconceptualizing Wargaming for Competitive Statecraft, Future Operations, and Converging Capabilities

  • Published
  • By JSOU, PACAF, & 16AF
  • PACAF

 

The terms wargaming, simulations, and practica all describe operational exercises designed to provide decision support to various courses of action, but they are often used by different audiences across the military, interagency, and academia. As the global security environment shifts from traditional kinetic battlespaces to multi-domain competition, the Joint Force must fundamentally evolve how it conceptualizes and executes wargaming. Modern conflict requires wargames that can simulate competitive statecraft—encompassing non-kinetic operations, activities, and investments (OAIs)—and model how these activities generate strategic influence. 

 

Crucially, this requires wargaming architectures that can simulate "converging capabilities" (such as cyber, space, and electronic warfare) operating in tandem. To train future leaders to effectively compete in the information environment, the Air Force must determine how to design, simulate, and measure Desired Learning Objectives (DLOs) that capture the complex, non-physical, and non-linear effects of these converged capabilities.

To guide rigorous research into modernizing wargaming for competitive statecraft, projects should address the following core questions:

  • As the operational environment evolves, how should the military, including the Air Force and the Special Operations Enterprise (SOE), conceptualize wargaming going forward, and should they redefine these activities to more broadly encompass competitive statecraft?
  • In what ways, from both a conceptual and modeling/simulation standpoint, can the Joint Force include Desired Learning Objectives (DLOs) that exercise converging capabilities to effectively compete with our adversaries in the information environment?
  • How should the military organize, equip, and streamline its wargaming efforts—specifically, should there be a single office responsible for the Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E) of wargames, or should each Major Command (MAJCOM) maintain its own wargaming branch?
  • How can the Air Force, 16AF, and SOF leverage improved technologies (such as synthetic training environments, AI-driven simulations, and data analytics) to enhance gaming realism and better integrate traditional military wargaming with interagency and academic partners?