There is a robust history of using exercises, wargaming, and simulations to inform capability gaps, decision-making, doctrine development, and overall strategies. From the success of the fleet problems of the US Navy in the interwar years to less successful strategic bombing principles developed during the same era, the effectiveness of such wargaming and exercises often comes down to assumptions, realism, openness to new ideas, and buy in from the larger organization on the need to improve and change. In today's landscape, many of these events either are white celled to prevent escalation to nuclear exchange or effectively end once nuclear hostilities commence. While exercises such as GLOBAL THUNDER do have learning elements to them, their effectiveness at modernizing nuclear doctrine in the evolving international arena with multiple actors could be up for debate. What models exist that could enhance nuclear-focused exercises, wargames, and simulations across the nuclear enterprise for tomorrow's challenges while still focusing on keeping operational deterrent forces on-alert to face today's threats? What organizational culture elements would have to also be addressed to enable organizational learning and development vice the safeness of the way we have always done things? References: Playing War by John Lillard, Rhetoric and Reality of Air Warfare by Tami Davis Biddle, Strategy in the Missile Age by Bernard Brodie (385-386)
- Keith, Andrew J., "Alignment: National Security Objectives in Cold War Computer Simulations," SAASS thesis, 2025, 117 pgs.
- Keith addresses this by exploring the RAND Strategy Assessment System (RSAS), a highly sophisticated automated political-military wargame developed in the 1980s to analyze nuclear forces, strategic balance, and escalation control. RSAS utilized rule-based artificial intelligence—represented by automated decision-makers known as "Sams" (United States) and "Ivans" (Soviets)—to simulate global nuclear warfare, crisis decision-making, and deterrence. However, Keith highlights that while such models hold vast potential to enhance nuclear-focused wargames, their historical implementations faltered because the AI's complex behavioral rules became too opaque for government users and military staff to interpret or control, ultimately leading to their abandonment as practical decision-making tools.