Perla: Design, Development and Play of Navy Wargames

Peter Perla, wargamer extraordinaire, wrote this paper for CNA in 1985 as a broad overview of wargame design and development. I meant to write this up shortly after discussing several other CNA papers in the past, but it took me a while to get to it. That's a shame, because this is a great introduction to wargame design. Much of the content remains relevant today, nearly 25 years later. While the focus is on Navy wargames, the principles expressed pertain to a much wider variety of games. Perla went on to write The Art of Wargaming, which is one of the premier works on the subject, covering both the history and practice of wargaming. I highly recommend the book, but this CNA paper is free and will do in a pinch: Design, Development, and Play of Navy Wargames

Gaming economic warfare

Wiggins at Opposed Systems Design posted a link to a Politico story on an attempt to game economic great power conflict at the Warfare Analysis Laboratory. This is a fascinating concept, and I hope it's something that gets developed further.

“This was an example of the changing nature of conflict,” said Paul Bracken, a professor and expert in private equity at the Yale School of Management who attended the sessions. “The purpose of the game is not really to predict the future, but to discover the issues you need to be thinking about.”

Several participants said the event had been in the planning stages well before the stock market crash of September, but the real-world market calamity was on the minds of many in the room. “It loomed large over what everybody was doing,” said Bracken.

Bracken is precisely the person you would want at this sort of event. I've mentioned Bracken before here. It's not clear if he had any role in the design of the game, but it wouldn't surprise me if he did. Details are (as usual in this sort of story) sketchy but intriguing.

The event was unclassified but has not been made public before. It is regarded as so sensitive that several people who participated declined to discuss the details with POLITICO. Said Steven Halliwell, managing director of a hedge fund called River Capital Management, “I’m not prepared to talk about this. I’m sorry, but I can’t talk to you.”

Officials at UBS also declined to comment.

Participants described the event as a series of simulated global calamities, including the collapse of North Korea, Russian manipulation of natural gas prices, and increasing tension between China and Taiwan. “They wanted to see who makes loans to help out, what does each team do to get the other countries involved, and who decides to simply let the North Koreans collapse,” said a participant.

There were five teams: The United States, Russia, China, East Asia and “all others.” They were overseen by a “White Cell” group that functioned as referees, who decided the impact of the moves made by each team as they struggled for economic dominance.

At the end of the two days, the Chinese team emerged as the victors of the overall game – largely because the Russian and American teams had made so many moves against each other that they damaged their own standing to the benefit of the Chinese.

Bracken says he left the event with two important insights – first, that the United States needs an integrated approach to managing financial and what the Pentagon calls “kinetic” – or shooting – wars. For example he says, the U.S. Navy is involved in blockading Iran, and the U.S. is also conducting economic war against Iran in the form of sanctions. But he argues there isn’t enough coordination between the two efforts.

And second, Bracken says, the event left him questioning one prevailing assumption about economic warfare, that the Chinese would never dump dollars on the global market to attack the US economy because it would harm their own holdings at the same time. Bracken said the Chinese have a middle option between dumping and holding US dollars – they could sell dollars in increments, ratcheting up economic uncertainty in the United States without wiping out their own savings. “There’s a graduated spectrum of options here,” Bracken said.

It is rare to find such a perfect example of the right way to frame the benefits derived from a game in a press report. The result that 'China won' is next to meaningless, but Bracken's comments have some real value.


On an only tenuously related note, here is a clip from Bloggingheads.tv that touches on Nassim Taleb's ideas about uncertainty, previously discussed here and here, as applied to the financial crisis:




This isn't directly relevant to gaming, but it does reinforce Bracken's point about the economic game not being about predicting the future, but rather about identifying issues to think about. Gaming in general is a very poor predictive tool, all the more so when applied to something as ridiculously complex as the global economy.

Disclosure: I work for Bloggingheads.tv on an irregular basis.

Reacting to the Past at Barnard College

(via PaxSims) Barnard College runs an interesting program called "Reacting to the Past," a set of classroom roleplaying exercises based on historical situations:

“Reacting to the Past” (RTTP) consists of elaborate games, set in the past, in which students are assigned roles informed by classic texts in the history ideas. Class sessions are run entirely by students; instructors advise and guide students and grade their oral and written work. It seeks to draw students into the past, promote engagement with big ideas, and improve intellectual and academic skills. Pioneered by Barnard College in 1996, the project is supported by a consortium of colleges and universities.

All of the games are set in the past, and thus might be regarded as history, but each game also explores multiple additional disciplines. Part of the intellectual appeal of RTTP is that it transcends disciplinary structures. In addition to games in the published series, the consortium seeks to expand the curriculum by supporting faculty workshops and collaboration on new game designs that explore a variety of historical moments in the humanities and sciences.

Neat stuff. There are some upcoming faculty conferences in different regions for those interested in using or contributing to the program (Paxsims has more about that). What struck me after watching the sample video at the RTTP site was that it was difficult to see what the structure of the exercises really was. Is this a roleplaying debating society, or are there some underlying game elements that aren't shown? Based on the accompanying web pages, it seems that there are some other aspects to the game that I just wasn't able to pick up on. This reminds me of some of the games designed by Megagame Makers (discussed in another post a while back), and I wonder if some of them (particularly the Washington Naval Conference one) could be transferred to this RTTP framework without much trouble. Perhaps that wouldn't be sweeping enough in scope for the RTTP program. I also wonder if the good folks at ChoMUN and MUNUC are aware of this... and vice versa....

More on risk, uncertainty, and Nassim Taleb

To follow up on my previous post on Nassim Taleb and his work, there is a critical distinction that is often overlooked between risk and uncertainty.* Risk is quantifiable. Whether or not it has been properly measured, it refers to something that is measurable. Uncertainty is not quantifiable. Risk can be "bought down" or hedged in ways that uncertainty cannot. A standard example of risk is the sort of game you find at a casino, like roulette, where the odds are clearly known. The state of affairs that will result from a war (the outcome or outcomes), on the other hand, is uncertain, relying on too many variables, complex interactions, and unknown unknowns to be meaningfully quantified. The outcomes of risks have known probability distributions. Not so with uncertainties. Here's an example of these concepts in action, in the context of baseball.

This conceptualization of risk and uncertainty is sometimes mapped onto the "known unknown" vs. "unknown unknown" divide, with known unknowns characterized as risks and unknown unknowns as uncertainties. But the distinction between known unknowns and unknown unknowns is based on the knowledge of the observer, while the distinction between risk and uncertainty is in some respect a difference in "knowability." There are plenty of "known uncertainties" in the "known unknown" category, where we are perfectly capable of identifying something we don't know which nonetheless has a probability distribution we do not or cannot know.

Part of Taleb's argument with regards to the financial crisis could be framed in these terms. Financial managers thought they had transformed some types of uncertainty into risk that could be reliably estimated through new statistical techniques. But they were operating with assumptions about the underlying probability distribution of events that were unwarranted, meaning that all they had managed to do was conceal significant uncertainties (unquantifiable indeterminacies) that ultimately came back to bite them. (See this Wired Magazine article for a fascinating description of how this came about.) The more generalized form of this argument is that we tend to operate as though we are facing risks, rather than uncertainties, in part as a result of our psychological biases. (Taleb discussed a variant of this a bit in the podcast I referred to in the earlier post.)

This may all seem rather esoteric, but in a world where there is a fresh appreciation for the limits of statistical knowledge there needs to be a way to act under uncertainty. The elemental caution reflected in Taleb's advice on operating in what he would call the "fourth quadrant" and what I would call conditions dominated by uncertainty is as reasonable a response as any to decision-making in this type of environment. When faced with less-structured problems, dominated by uncertainties and unknown unknowns, highly structured analytic tools are frequently neither appropriate nor helpful. Gaming can be one of the least-structured analytic approaches, which limits its outputs but allows it to constructively address issues characterized by deep uncertainty.


* These definitions do not conform to popular usage of either term, but they are generally used in this way in policy analysis and represent a helpful way to characterize different types of indeterminacy. Risk in this case is not limited to costs or negative events, but instead applies to probabilistic outcomes both positive and negative.

The uncertain world of Nassim Taleb

A trader for 20 years, Nassim Taleb became fascinated by decision research as a result of watching his colleagues and the financial industry in general. Two books (so far) have resulted from this fascination: The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness. I haven't had the chance to read either just yet, but I recently found this podcast of an interview with Taleb, in which he covers some of the same ground he goes over in his books. He is not an eloquent speaker and is occasionally hard to follow, but I enjoyed this conversation greatly. Russ Roberts struck me as a skilled interviewer, though I'm not sure how accessible some parts of the discussion will be to those without some economics-related background (give it a listen anyway... it's thought-provoking and worthwhile).

Taleb's work is an example of the recent trend of books about decision-making research which are aimed at a (relatively) broad audience. Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, is the best example of this phenomenon I can think of offhand. In addition to demonstrating a heightened sensitivity to the role played by psychological decision-making biases, Taleb is particularly concerned with the use of statistics and related tools for decision-making purposes for which they are ill-suited, in his opinion. He has a point. About 55 minutes into the podcast, he and Roberts talk a bit about Taleb's distinction between what he calls "ludic" and "non-ludic" (also referred to as "ecologic") environments. Ludic decision-making environments are those where the "rules" are known, with no ambiguity, such as in a standard board game. Non-ludic environments are those where the rules are unknown and/or don't apply. Instead of a lack of ambiguity, non-ludic environments are characterized by "real world uncertainty." One of Taleb's basic concerns is that people seem to approach many non-ludic situations as thought they were operating in a ludic environment, using decision-making tools (such as certain applications of statistics, but also including innate psychological decision-making biases and heuristics) with a ludic basis and which do not necessarily provide the right kind of decision support for a non-ludic environment. Another way of saying this might be that people too often ignore the existence of unknown unknowns, to their peril.

This article by Taleb (found via Mapping Strategy, which has some intriguing thoughts on the subject as well) enumerates more of his ideas, focusing on his case against the misuse of statistics rather than the decision-making biases he spends most of the podcast talking about. It's interesting stuff. Our limited ability to plan for and consider the future based solely on backwards-looking models suggests that other methods are necessary. Mapping Strategy sees this as an endorsement of alternative tools like scenario planning, and I see a role for gaming to play in trying to understand our messy, non-ludic, ecologic world.

Red Team Journal and hypergame analysis

The current incarnation of Red Team Journal looks like a very promising site and I hope they start to post more often. They don't deal directly with gaming, but many of the concepts they discuss with respect to red teaming and alternate analysis are directly applicable to the study of gaming.

As an example, hypergame analysis (an extension of game theory developed by Peter Bennett) is a way of thinking about conflicts where the two sides perceive themselves as playing different games (in the game theoretic sense*). The perceived rules, outcomes, and decisions may vary significantly between the participants. Some actors may correctly perceive (completely or incompletely) that their opponents perceive the conflict very differently, while others may (incorrectly) believe that both sides share the same basic framework. Fourth generation warfare is marked by this kind of split perspective, in contrast to more traditional forms of warfare where both sides largely shared the same basic assumptions and perception of the conflict. Representing that kind of split perspective in a game (not in the game theoretic sense) is a challenge, as discussed previously here. Hypergame analysis might provide some insight into how to structure this kind of exercise, and I hope that RTJ returns to the subject at some point.

* Once again, the terminological issue of gaming vs. game theory rears its ugly head.

Some semi-relevant links

A few links that are slightly off topic for this blog, but only slightly....

• A school with a game-based curriculum is opening in NYC next fall. It's currently looking for teachers and students:

  Quest supports a dynamic curriculum that uses the underlying design principles of games to create highly immersive, game-like learning experiences for students. Games and other forms of digital media also model the complexity and promise of "systems." Understanding and accounting for this complexity is a fundamental literacy of the 21st century.

• The U.S. Institute for Peace is developing what it calls the Open Simulation Platform (OSP), which would be an open source online simulation development tool, hopefully streamlining and simplifying the process of simulation generation and execution to allow more trainers and educators to make use of this type of tool: (via Wiggins)

  The problem describing the OSP is that it is different things to different audiences. To students it is an online world. (Albeit right now it is a very simple text and static image based world.) To instructors/facilitators it is an online library to select a simulation and tools to run a simulation. To simulation authors it is a guide (someday we hope a wizened guide) to help one construct meaningful training simulations. And finally, to a community we hope that it becomes an improved marketplace of ideas: a place where people can really debate their beliefs in more meaningful ways. When proving one’s point about something comes down to creating a realistic and sophisticated simulation that demonstrates that point, we will have arrived on that level.

• The Economist recently ran a story about Alternate Reality Games (ARGs). These events generally blend online and real-world elements, usually involing both puzzles and narrative. Their (commercial) origins were as alternative advertising for films and the like, but they are being applied to a variety of other purposes. As is often the case with The Economist, it's a pretty good introduction to the subject:
  

  It was back in 2001 that the first commercial ARG, “The Beast”, a promotional campaign for Steven Spielberg’s film “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence”, began blurring the line between reality and fiction. Instead of formally announcing the start of a game, ARGs merely leave clues for potential players to follow: a subtle image on a poster, perhaps, or a cryptic message on a website. Fans must piece together the narrative—that’s the “alternate reality”—on their own. ARGs are characterised by their reliance on technology and teamwork, and are often shrouded in mystery until they end, weeks or even months later. Only then is the full story (and the product being promoted) revealed.

  Having started off as marketing tools for films and video games—as with “The Beast”, or “I Love Bees”, an ARG created to promote “Halo 2”, a video-game, in 2004—ARGs are now entering the mainstream. Consider “The Lost Ring”, commissioned by McDonald’s for the 2008 Olympics. Designed by Jane McGonigal, an ARG pioneer who used to work at 42 Entertainment, the game brought together players across six continents to uncover a story of amnesiac athletes and to recreate a supposedly lost (but actually fictional) ancient Olympic sport. “Most people’s experience of the Olympics is vicarious,” says Ms McGonigal. “I wanted to give people a more social and active way to experience them.” This ARG, linked to a global sporting event, sponsored by a multinational company and run in seven languages, shows how far ARGs have come.