The Wargaming Network (WN) is a research group within the School of Security Studies that aims to advance the theory and application of wargaming as a method of inquiry and as a method of learning and teaching. The WN builds on a rich history of King’s wargaming activities and serves as a hub for the growing community of King’s students and staff studying, researching and applying wargames and simulations. It seeks to engage and convene world-class wargaming scholars, practitioners and emerging talent.

In line with King’s 2029 Vision, the WN seeks to:

Educate to inspire and improve by advancing and democratising wargaming education,
Research to inform and innovate by developing wargaming as an academic discipline, and
Serve to shape and transform by applying wargaming to generate and deliver big ideas in service to society.
The WN engages in 5 types of activities. It convenes public lectures and workshops; enables King’s faculty, staff and post-graduate student research; trains rapporteurs and analysts for analytical wargaming; supports the testing and execution of wargames for King’s faculty, staff and partners; and organises networking events.

King's College London Wargaming Network

Recorded March 5th 2021.

Is there a normative prohibition on the use of nuclear weapons? Recent scholarship has cast doubt on the existence of a norm of nuclear non-use among the American people. But the public does not make decisions about using nuclear weapons. In this lecture, based on research published in International Security and subsequent work, Reid Pauly will investigate the reluctance of American policymakers to use nuclear weapons in historical political-military wargames. He will also discuss the methodological advantages—and challenges—of using wargames as a source of data for political scientists.
 
Pauly, Reid B. C., “Would U.S. Leaders Push the Button? Wargames and the Sources of Nuclear Restraint,” International Security, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Fall 2018): 151-192.
Erik Lin-Greenberg, Reid B.C. Pauly, and Jacquelyn Schneider, “Wargaming for Political Science Research,” SSRN working paper, August 2020.
 
About the Speaker:Reid Pauly is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Brown University and the Dean's Assistant Professor of Nuclear Security and Policy at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. Pauly earned his Ph.D. from MIT and has held fellowships at the Belfer Center (Harvard Kennedy School) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (Stanford University). His work has been published in International Security, The Non-proliferation Review, and edited volumes. He is currently working on a book manuscript entitled “The Assurance Dilemma in Coercive International Politics.”
 
David Banks, Academic Director of the King's Wargaming Network, will chair the lecture.
 
The event is part of the King's Wargaming Network Public Lecture Series. The 2020/21 lectures feature speakers who have made important new contributions to developing wargaming theory and applications. It includes the Question and Answer session.

Wargames and the Sources of Nuclear Restraint

Recorded March 2020.

The Wargaming Network is pleased to announce the third lecture in our 2020-2021 public lectures series on wargaming. The theme for this year is advancing wargaming as an academic discipline and will feature speakers who have made important new contributions to developing wargaming theory and applications.
 
In the movie WarGames, a 1980s teenager hacks into a U.S. nuclear control program, almost starting a nuclear war. This movie has become a common illustration for the dangers of increasingly digitized nuclear arsenals and reflects what many scholars and practitioners see as the most perilous implication of the rise of cyberattacks--instability to states' nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3). Research conducted during the Cold War suggested that even the threat of serious vulnerabilities to states' NC3 could incentivize preemptive launches of nuclear weapons. Despite this widespread concern about the destabilizing effects of NC3 vulnerabilities, there is almost no empirical research to support these conclusions.
 
In order to test these theories, this paper uses an experimentally-designed war game to explore the role that vulnerabilities and exploits within a hypothetical NC3 architecture play in decisions to use nuclear weapons. The game, which uses 4-6 players to simulate a national security cabinet, includes three treatment scenarios and one control scenario with no vulnerabilities or exploits. Players are randomized into the scenario groups and games are played over the course of a year in seven different locations with a sample of elite players from the U.S. and other nations. Together, a longitudinal analysis of these games examines the role that culture, cognitive biases, and expertise play in the likelihood of thermonuclear cyber war with significant implications for both cyber strategy and nuclear modernization.
 
 
About the Speakers:
 
Jacquelyn Schneider is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a non resident fellow at the Naval War College's Cyber and Innovation Policy Institute. Her research focuses on the intersection of technology, national security, and political psychology with a special interest in cybersecurity, unmanned technologies, and Northeast Asia. Her work has appeared in Security Studies, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Strategic Studies Quarterly, Simulations & Gaming, Journal of Cybersecurity, The Washington Quarterly and Journal of Strategic Studies Before beginning her academic career, she spent six years as an Air Force officer in South Korea and Japan and is currently a reservist. She has a BA from Columbia University, MA from Arizona State University, and PhD from George Washington University.
 
Ivanka Barzashka, Managing Director of the King's Wargaming Network, chairs the lecture.
 
The event is part of the King's Wargaming Network Public Lecture Series. The 2020/21 lectures feature speakers who have made important new contributions to developing wargaming theory and applications.

Cyber and Nuclear Stability in Wargaming

Podcast of lecture.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rxF99Py0qU

This lecture will focus on the enhancement of evaluation usefulness as a possible avenue to increase impact, built around Ralf Beerens’ PhD research which seeks to improve the usefulness of disaster response evaluations with respect to their contribution to disaster risk management. 

The dynamic disaster response environment in which his research took place, and the challenges it both poses and faces, resembles that of wargames. Overall, this research shows that to gain maximum benefit from disaster response evaluations, the outcomes must be systematic, rigorous, evidence-based and actionable. This is also challenging as this creates a dilemma around the so called ‘rigor-relevance gap’ which refers to the hurdle of simultaneously delivering practitioner relevance and scholarly rigour.

There will be a mixture of scholarly rigour and practitioner relevance by introducing and discussing various approaches, concepts, processes and models such as the research design strategy, design science and evaluation descriptions. This is combined with insights into the Dutch Crisis Management system and practical experiences (with evaluation) as well as key research findings that can be transferred to wargames. This lecture will propose some ways forward and open a conversation regarding how to manage both the process and the products of an evaluation and possible scientific and practical contributions, in order to optimise its usefulness for a range of purposes and users. In general the session is aimed at enhancing our understanding of the role(s) of evaluation in dynamic and complex environments such as disaster risk management and the transfer of these insights to wargames, keeping in mind that it is not the evaluation itself that leads to improvement; it is the use of the evaluation that can lead to improvement. Evaluation should be seen as a means to an end.

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Dr. Ralf Beerens is a senior researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Public Safety (NIPV) and is also a senior lecturer for the Institute’s Master in Crisis and Public Order Management (MCPM). In September 2021 he received his Ph.D. from Lund University, Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety, where he remains affiliated as a visiting research fellow. In this research he focused on disaster response (exercise) evaluation. He remains particularly interested in the evaluation of the operational performance of (international) emergency response organisations, teams or modules during exercises and crises, which also reflects his professional experience as an evaluator.

Dr. David Banks, Academic Director of the King's Wargaming Network, will chair the lecture.

The event is part of the King's Wargaming Network Public Lecture Series. The 2021/22 lectures feature speakers who have made important new contributions to evaluating and assessing the impact of wargaming on individuals and organisations.

2021 - 2022 Wargaming Public Lecture Series- Improving Disaster Response Evaluations

Podcast of the lecture.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJxFs5e-iXQ

Natalia Wojtowicz will showcase different methods of evaluating effectiveness of wargames, compiled from academic, industrial and governmental sector. A comparison of common and distinct factors will be analyzed to connect the effects with structure of the wargame. The question of objectivity of results will be explored based on recent experiments on adjudication. This presentation will be focused on identifying next steps in measuring and evaluating wargames.

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Natalia Wojtowicz is a lecturer at the Hague University of Applied Sciences in the Safety and Security Management Programme. She teaches about wargaming, game design, and digital skills. Her research includes effectiveness of wargaming, new methods and experimental implementation. Previously she worked at the NATO Civil-Military Cooperation Center of Excellence, leading the Wargaming, Modelling and Simulation project focused on introducing civilian population into training and education. Later she designed 14 new wargames implemented across NATO. Currently she is researching adjudication in wargaming and testing an upcoming game about uprising in Belarus. You can follow her at @Wojtowicz_N

Dr. David Banks, Academic Director of the King's Wargaming Network, will chair the lecture.

The event is part of the King's Wargaming Network Public Lecture Series. The 2021/22 lectures feature speakers who have made important new contributions to evaluating and assessing the impact of wargaming on individuals and organizations.

2021 - 2022 Wargaming Public Lecture Series- Evaluating Effectiveness In Wargames

Wargames offer a promising avenue for analyzing the quality of plans or decisions as well as for developing and assessing player or team capabilities. Within a military education context, wargames can reproduce authentic, complex environments that facilitate application and integration of critical 21st century learning skills like creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving. At the same time, these dynamic environments pose a challenge for traditional measurement approaches, evidenced by numerous critiques of simulation-based learning, games-based learning, and wargaming assessment practices. Purposeful integration of assessment into wargaming design is essential to demonstrating the value of wargaming for individuals and institutions. This lecture will highlight key principles of sound and meaningful assessment within wargaming contexts, synthesizing literature from measurement and gaming disciplines. The discussion will also integrate lessons from a case study that examined assessment challenges and practices of a U.S. military education program that is rapidly expanding these activities in its curriculum. The findings highlighted key mechanisms and opportunities to “bake assessment in” to wargame design and facilitation. The presentation seeks to offer a guide for practitioners who are seeking to implement valid and meaningful assessment of learning that can be adapted to their own wargaming practices.

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Kate Kuehn is the Director of Institutional Research, Assessment, and Planning at Marine Corps University (MCU). In addition to managing the University’s institutional effectiveness process, she supports the evaluation of all MCU professional military education programs and directorates. Kate has spent 12 years working on evaluation and assessment of military education programs, providing advice on the design of learning assessments at the classroom, program, and institutional level. She is a member of the Military Education Assessment Advisory Group and has frequently served on military accreditation teams. Her research focuses on assessment and performance evaluation in complex contexts. More specifically, she is currently focused on assessment in team-based simulated learning environments. Kate has an MA from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a BA from the College of William and Mary. She is a doctoral candidate at George Mason University’s College of Education and Human Development with specializations in education research methodology and educational psychology. Her dissertation proposes an assessment framework for collaborative, ill-structured games, and examines its application to educational wargaming practice.

Dr. David Banks, Academic Director of the King's Wargaming Network, will chair the lecture.

The event is part of the King's Wargaming Network Public Lecture Series. The 2021/22 lectures feature speakers who have made important new contributions to evaluating and assessing the impact of wargaming on individuals and organizations.

2021 - 2022 Wargaming Public Lecture Series- Valid And Meaningful Assessment Of Wargames

Date of Recording: 07/12/2018

Description:

Dr Peter Perla, 'The Art and Science of Wargaming to Innovate and Educate in an Era of Strategic Competition'

What can we know about pressing security challenges through wargaming? How do we know?

To mark the establishment of a new Wargaming Network, the School of Security Studies is launching a public lecture series on wargaming. The lectures will examine fundamental challenges for adapting wargaming theory and practice to usefully address contemporary security problems facing the UK and its NATO allies.

The UK and its NATO allies have revived their interest in wargaming as a tool for strategic, operational and technological innovation in a new strategic environment marked by the return of major power competition. While the value of wargaming as a method for learning and teaching is well-accepted, its value as a rigorous academic method of inquiry is still largely contested.

Dr Perla will re-examine the fundamental theoretical debate of whether wargaming should be considered an art or a science in the context of the changed security environment. The aim of the talk is to bring wargaming theory and practice to a new multi-disciplinary epistemological ground that would enable its useful contribution to advancing knowledge, informing policy and furthering education.

Event: The Art and Science of Wargaming (KCL Wargaming Network Inaugural Lecture)

Date of Recording: 16/01/2019

Description:

While a renaissance in wargaming is currently underway across the political, military, educational, and commercial sectors, there is no academic discipline dedicated to the study and practice of wargaming. While wargame design, research and execution is advancing, a lack of integration limits the impact of these innovative activities. And although the body of scholarly work on wargaming is growing, it has yet to be drawn together to develop best-practice guidance for research and teaching.

In this public lecture, Dr Yuna Wong (RAND) discusses how we can build an integrated, globally-recognised academic field in which knowledge about wargaming may be produced, preserved, and transmitted. She addresses the questions: Why do we need an academic discipline of wargaming? What concrete steps can we take in the short and medium terms to establish such a discipline? What obstacles might we face in this endeavour?
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For more news and information on upcoming events, please visit our website at kcl.ac.uk/warstudies or follow us on Twitter @warstudies.

Event: Developing an Academic Discipline of Wargaming

Date of Recording: 02/04/2019

Description:

Air Marshal Edward Stringer, the Director General of Joint Force Development and the Defence Academy, will kickstart the week with a public lecture, part of the WN’s inaugural wargaming lecture series. He will discuss the need for a reinvigorated wargaming effort in the UK and among NATO allies to support robust analysis and innovation in the context of the new strategic challenges facing the alliance. In this lecture he will discuss three sets of questions:

1. What new analytical requirements does the changing security environment present to the UK and its allies? What is the value of wargaming as part of the broader analytical toolkit in meeting these requirements? 

2. What has the UK done to reinvigorate wargaming as a tool for strategic and operational analysis? 

3. How should the current practice of wargaming adapt to meet the new policy requirements? What could the policy, professional wargaming and academic communities do to further the utility of wargaming?

Professor Wyn Bowen, head of the School of Security Studies, will deliver welcome remarks. Ivanka Barzashka, founder and co-director of the Wargaming Network, will chair the lecture.

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For more news and information on upcoming events, please visit our website at kcl.ac.uk/warstudies

Event: Advancing the UK’s Analytical Tools to Address Strategic Competition and Modern Deterrence

The new strategic environment brings with it many new challenges: a renewal of major power rivalry, long-term strategic competition, the emergence of one and possibly more nuclear-armed regional challengers, and the possibility of regional conventional wars under the nuclear shadow, among many others. To meet these challenges, the U.S. National Defense Strategy of 2018 calls for efforts to “out-think, out-maneuver, out-partner, and out-innovate” potential adversaries, all as part of a more “competitive mindset” for the United States and its allies and partners.

What can wargaming contribute to out-competing potential adversaries? How can it become more effective in developing theories of victory and success? Roberts will explore these questions from his perspective as analyst and former senior policymaker.

About the Speakers

Dr Brad Roberts is director of the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. From April 2009 to March 2013 he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy. In this role, he served as policy director of the Obama administration’s Nuclear Posture Review and Ballistic Missile Defense Review. From September 2013 through December 2014, Dr. Roberts was a consulting professor and William Perry Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Prior to joining the Obama administration, Dr. Roberts was a member of the research staff at the Institute for Defense Analyses and an adjunct professor at George Washington University.

Ivanka Barzashka, Director of the King's Wargaming Network, chaired the lecture.

The event, which was recorded in April 2020, is part of the King's Wargaming Network Public Lecture Series. The 2019/20 lectures examine how experts are building the future of wargaming to advance analytical wargaming and to develop wargaming education.

Event: The Future of Wargaming - innovating to out-think and out-compete

Recorded June 2020.
 
This webinar features Matthew B. Caffrey Jr., who provides wargame support to the United States Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Material Command, Air Staff and NATO.

We now know we live in a world where a novel illness can take lives, livelihoods and liberties worldwide with rapid speed. At the same time, the character of war is evolving in novel and dangerous ways that are not fully known.

Wargaming can help decision makers better understand and address new challenges in a complex and uncertain environment, but reaping these benefits requires the right organisational structures and processes.

For almost 40 years, Matthew B. Caffrey Jr. has been building organisations to help adapt wargaming to meet evolving threats and opportunities.

During the lecture, he will addressed the following questions:
How have wargaming structures adapted in the past to respond to changes in the strategic environment?

What institutional adaptations are currently underway in the United States and NATO?

What more can and should be done to increase the utility of wargaming to address the full set of threats facing NATO allies?
Ivanka Barzashka, Director of the King's Wargaming Network, chaired the lecture.

About the speaker:

Matthew B. Caffrey Jr. provides wargame support to the United States Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Material Command, Air Staff and to NATO.

In 1993 he helped found the Connections interdisciplinary wargaming conference. Since then Connections has grown to be held in six nations, including Connections UK, at King's College London from 2013-2019.

He authored On Wargaming, how wargames have shaped our past and can shape our futures, published by the US Naval War College Press in 2019.

A retired Colonel, US Air Force Reserve, he served with the US Air Staff’s Checkmate Division and at the major command, wing, group and squadron levels. His civilian positions include Professor of Wargaming and Campaign Planning at the US Air Force Command and Staff College and Research Assistant for Wargaming at the USAF’s School for Advanced Airpower Studies.

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The event is part of the King's Wargaming Network Public Lecture Series. The 2019/20 lectures feature speakers who are building the future of wargaming to usefully address contemporary security problems facing the UK and its NATO allies.

Event: Wargaming in a Post-Pandemic World: Adapting Institutions to Out-Think and Out-Partner

Recorded December 2020.

Exploring the Different Logics of Scientific Inquiry in Wargaming

Gaming has often been positioned as an art, in contrast to quantitative analysis which is framed as scientific. Framing gaming as an art makes it too easy to divorce game design from foundational research practices. It also rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means for inquiry to be "scientific". Ellie Bartels, the co-director of the RAND Center for Gaming, will explore different logics of scientific inquiry, and how gaming can support research within each. She will also discuss how these considerations shape an approach to game design that promotes traceability and transparency to generate credible findings.

About the Speakers:

Elizabeth (Ellie) Bartels is the Co-Director of the RAND Center for Gaming and an associate policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. She is a specialist in national security policy analysis gaming. Other research includes work on defense planning, force development, and measures short of armed conflict (including long-term competition, gray zone, hybrid warfare, and irregular warfare). Prior to joining RAND, Bartels was a senior associate at Caerus Associates and a research analyst at the National Defense University’s gaming center. Her PhD is from the Pardee RAND Graduate School, where her work focused on how to apply social scientific practices to the design of games for policy analysis.

Ivanka Barzashka, Managing Director of the King's Wargaming Network, chaired the lecture.

The event is part of the King's Wargaming Network Public Lecture Series. The 2020/21 lectures feature speakers who have made important new contributions to developing wargaming theory and applications.

Event: Epistemology Of Wargaming

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