Why the army plays war games. Why is it normal to lose.

A general of the Marine Corps said this week that officers and troops cannot hesitate to Wargaming, difficult exercises in critical thinking.

They can’t be afraid of losing either, he said.

“Why didn’t everyone develop today, right now?” Brig. General Matthew Tracy, the general command of the body’s education command, asked the Symposium of the sea, the air and the space on Tuesday, a large annual event for the initiates of the military and the defense industry.

“We know it’s the best way to learn,” said Tracy.

“We know they have to get repetitions.”

Some military leaders could prevent from making Wargaming more common because they fear losing before their other navies, including junior troops. It will take daring leadership to help overcome fears of embarrassment, he said.

“We have to descend behind the weapon and show that it is normal to fail.” This is the key to leadership.

What is Wargaming?

Thoughts of military war games could recall images of superior military officers grouped around a table with figurines representing maneuver units. It is not wrong. Such games are always important for Wargaming.

But nowadays, war games have also come to boxes, on computers and even in the form of single flash cards. Some are also played in the field with red and blue teams and aggressor squadrons.

They are for all ranks, but not as common as possible as some would like to see. Managers like Tracy don’t just want to see colonels sweat through these mental gymnastics. They also want to see the trigger fires at the lowest tactical levels involved.

At the symposium, a young marine officer demonstrated the last wargame on a computer while the cadets near the Naval Academy played an almost human -sized version of a game that looked like the classical board game “Battleship”.

Other games included increasingly complex elements than troops to consider, such as the economic and diplomatic concerns of friendly and enemy nations, or how civilians in another country could react to the presence of American troops.

“When you have time to think, it gives you muscle memory about things to consider,” said Lori Reynolds, Lieutenant-General of the retired navy. She previously directed the Cyber ​​Command of the Service and also participated in the Tuesday event.

According to Reynolds, Wargaming “improves your ability to understand tactics and opposing capacities”.

The tests force the players to constantly verify their hypotheses on what is happening on the battlefield, she said, which makes it an ideal environment for failure for failure.

“It is important that we lose when it is normal to lose,” she said. Better at the table than in combat.

In the midst of the efforts of the body to modernize for a great power fight in the Pacific after decades of war in the Middle East, the verification of ancient hypotheses is even more important.

“When you think of the efforts to design the force of the navy body, we are going to be in a more distributed layout than ever,” said Reynolds, referring to the body initiative to reduce pillars like chariots and units of elite shooters to build a force for combat on the island chains of the Pacific.

The geography of the Pacific – with its remote islands and its various degrees of infrastructure availability – has turned their wheels in recent years to discern what logistical support could look like such a war.

Wargaming has previously forced planners to face uncomfortable realities on the Pacific War. For the basis, this could help troops fight against other emerging problems, such as drone war and progress in electronic war.

“The ability to teach at the lowest levels, not only what the ability of these emerging technologies can do, but how to use it correctly,” makes Wargaming more critical, said Reynolds, especially for the most junior ranks.

The notoriously rigid marine body is known to promote decentralized command structures to promote decision -making in the most junior ranks.

The idea is that when it is far from high -ranking leadership in combat, even the most junior troops enlisted can understand what is happening and make good decisions to effectively lead their small teams.

More difficult wargaming

“Wargaming efforts of each year should exceed the latter in complexity, challenge and efficiency,” Tracy told Business Insider in an email after the symposium.

Part of the complexity it plans for thorny games could take the form of AI assisted games.

Including AI in Wargaming scenarios, “you can look at many more potential results, and you can watch them much faster,” said Steven Wills, who moderated the Tuesday event and who is a scientific researcher at the Center for Naval Analysis.

“Being able to examine a wider set of problems is that we can think and work faster than the bad guys and are ahead of their decision -making.” A good awakening, he explained, explains the unforeseen consequences of decision-making, triggering chains of more complex events.

But that does not give a participant a roadmap to win.

“This allows you to play through many different results so that when you think of a real fight, you have an idea of ​​what the results could or could be,” said Wills.

“It’s about trying to make you think about the problem.”

But thinking about these problems will take a level of vulnerability from marine leaders, said Tracy.

“The creation of a Wargaming culture begins at the highest level, where managers give an example by participating directly, by making themselves vulnerable and demonstrating a desire to lose to learn,” he told Bi.

If you still win, you are not challenged, said Reynolds. “It is normal to fail in a safe place that teaches growth.”

“He teaches the importance of being a learning organization,” she said. “You don’t learn if you are constantly winning.”