Wargames have long been touted as a key avenue to imagine and prepare for the contours of future competition and conflict, but there is general agreement among professional wargaming stakeholders that aspects of game design, execution, and analysis are ripe for technological disruption. The professional wargame construction process has not maintained pace with technological advancements in the commercial gaming world. The disparity between professional wargames and the commercial games market, however, is understandable. Wargames serve different purposes to commercial games. Professional wargames support analytic and experiential military goals—they help the military develop new insights or educate and train its critical workforce. As a result of these differences, elements of the professional wargame construction process may not lend themselves to technological solutions, or when they do, those solutions may be fundamentally different than those in the commercial marketplace. Additionally, due to the nature and goals of some wargames, questions remain on how feasible technology disruption is within wargaming writ large.  

Drawing on more than three dozen interviews and conversations with members of the professional wargaming community on the strengths and weaknesses associated with current technology-based wargame offerings, a technology survey with War on the Rocks that elicited over 700 respondents of self-identified wargaming professionals, and a detailed assessment of the wargame construction process, this article outlines the areas where technology is best suited to enhance wargame design, construction, and analysis. Perhaps more importantly, and somewhat counterintuitively for two authors working in industry at a technology company, this article also identifies areas where technological skepticism among some wargame designers is warranted.  

Keywords
ANALYTICS,POLICY,TECHNOLOGY,TRAINING

Additional Keywords
wargaming, wargames