Lists
8 Books on Professional Wargaming
Or, Everything You Ever Wanted to Read/Watch/Hear about Professional Wargaming but Couldn’t Find in One Convenient List
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
- Hunter S. Thompson
The Transition Integrity Project recently sponsored a series of political wargames. The point was to game out what would happen if Trump refused to accept defeat in November. The participants found that if he lost by a slim margin, he would try to bend the outcome enough to remain in office.
Other examples of serious wargaming have been in the news recently. Former government employees have been spilling the beans on multiple pandemic response exercises. Crimson Contagion and Global Tempest aren’t hobby games. There were pandemic wargames meant to stress-test the government’s response. These exercises produced post-mortem reports that spelled out which agency should do what and how much gear the government should buy.
Since the DoD recommitted to the practice, some pro wargamers have been on a bit of a PR push. Now professional and serious wargaming is being talked about in hobbyist circles. Two of Beyond Solitaire’s podcasts cover this overlap, and Natalia Wojtowicz recommends including civilian wargamers in her new book.
Two stories I wrote puts all this into MY wheelhouse. My ad-hoc migration wargame and my list of games for Class Wargamers. I was going to write something completely different on the topic, but then noticed there wasn’t a one-stop-shop for relevant content. So I made one.
This is far from an exhaustive list. More like whirlwind tour of pro wargaming content.
Wikipedia
To get the nomenclature down.
Wargames
A general overview of both hobby and professional wargaming.
Military Wargaming
The serious Pentagon stuff.
Wargaming (hacking)
The VERY BASIC basics on cybersecurity wargaming.
Business War Games
Stress-testing potential business strategies.
Books
Peter Perla’s Art of Wargaming
This is apparently were you should start when researching pro wargaming. I haven’t finished it, because I’m a bad kid.
The Matrix Games Handbook: Professional Applications from Education to Analysis and Wargaming
Matrix wargaming is a free-form ruleset, developed as a way to “roleplay” an organization. There are free versions of the rules online, but this is the Full Monty of matrix gaming rules, insights, variants, and whatnot.
Wargaming Experiences: Soldiers, Scientists and Civilians
The book covers the author’s insights into building wargames for NATO. Some of the wargames are VERY lightweight and are geared more for training than analysis. One is a straight-up homemade escape room. A few are seminar-style exercises. The most valuable takeaway is the author’s game design framework.
Zones of Control: Perspectives on Wargaming
A HUGE collection of articles by an array of contributors. It’s a reference book. You don’t read it front to back. But it does give insight on how different professionals approach wargaming. Also address adjacent practices like modelling, simulation, wargame design, and hobby gaming.
Successful Professional Wargames: A Practitioner’s Handbook
Exactly what it says it is. Focuses on Course of Action wargaming. Also covers basic how-tos of delivering a useful wargame scenario to whoever the consumer in question is.
The Confrontation Analysis Handbook: How to Resolve Confrontations by Eliminating Dilemmas
This is a totally different creature. CA is an offshoot of game theory. The math has been stripped out and the structure of game theory scenarios is turned into a scoreboard.
The Handbook of Cyber Wargames
Exceedingly relevant. Most of the wargames included focus on cyber security. Some are a mix of back-end security and front-end messaging exercises, and one is a straight-up PR/messaging scenario.
Business Wargaming: Securing Corporate Value
The only book on business wargaming I could find that actually spells out HOW to run a business wargame. Out of print, but there is a Kindle version.
Consumer Games
The Matrix Game Construction Kit
Right now there is a grand total of one commercial product meant for professional use and this is it. It contains the rules of Matrix gaming, plus tokens, score tracks, example scenarios, map tiles, etc.
Hegemony: The Game of Global Influence
This will be the RAND Corporation’s first consumer board game. It’s a refined, and declassified, version of an in-house wargame. I think. Other than the Zoom talk in which it was announced (see below), I can’t find any other info. This may be vaporware.
Videos
King’s Wargaming Network
Filmed talks from King’s College.
- Peter Perla, ‘The Art & Science of Wargaming to Innovate & Educate’
- Dr Yuna Wong, ‘Developing an Academic Discipline of Wargaming’
Georgetown University Wargaming Society
Zoom presentations uploaded to YouTube.
- The Intersection of Professional and Commercial Wargaming by Mark Herman
- Leveraging Commercial Games for Military Education by James Sterrett
- Wargaming Practice in NATO and Beyond by Natalia Wojtowicz
- Wargaming and Design Thinking with Yuna Wong (in which she talks about Hegemony)
Invicta
A history YouTube channel.
Graham Longley-Brown
A lone, unlisted (not sure how I found it in the first place) crash course on doing wargaming right.
From Connections 2016
Posted by “Colonel Killgore”. I have no idea if that’s a real person. Sound is terrible.
- Wargaming for Innovation — Paul Vebber
- Resolving Hidden Information in Open Adjudication Games — Ellie Bartles
- 10 Reflections on the Social Science of Wargaming — Rex Brynan
Podcasts
Beyond Solitaire
Beyond Solitaire’s YouTube channel is mostly about solo board games. The podcast covers a broader range of topics. In less than a year they’ve covered serious wargaming twice.
- Episode 06 — Caitlyn Leong on Professional Wargaming
- Episode 10 — Doug Glover and Mitch Reed on Military Wargaming
CNA Talks
The Center for Naval Analyses is one of the two big think tanks that wargame more than a little.
RAND
Like the CNA podcasts, but not.
War Studies
Audio-only stuff from King’s College.
Articles
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
Both written by King’s Wargaming Network founder Ivanka Barzashka.
War on the Rocks
- The Obstacles on the Road to Better Analytical Wargaming
- Rolling the Iron Dice: From Analytical Wargaming to the Cycle of Research
Small Wars Journal
Websites
PaxSims is the only site I know of that covers pro wargaming news. It also houses a list of Journals & Periodicals on wargaming and related topics.
And that’s all I got for now. I have way more articles, academic papers, and wargaming scenarios bookmarked. I might add them at a later date.
