Scenarios and Wargames Yuna Wong January 11 2016

Scenarios and Wargames Yuna Wong January 11, 2016 Presentation to the MORS Wargaming Community of Practice

Agenda • Scenarios and Wargaming • JIWAB and Project Cassandra • Developing Futures Scenarios Using Wargames • • Step 1: Structure the Context Step 2: Down select and Add Detail Step 3: Identify Key Actors and Their Information Step 5: Wargame

Scenarios and Wargames • Usually think of scenario as the set-up for a wargame • Scenario usually has the detail, was happened to bring events to the point in the game • Harvey De. Weerd (1973) • Typical way of doing scenarios about adding plausible backstory to a future war you want to consider • Disagreed with this approach and argued you should start from the context Harvey De. Weerd, A Contextual Approach to Scenario Construction (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1973) http: //www. rand. org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P 5084. pdf

JIWAB and Project Cassandra • Drawing on my experiences in two efforts • Joint Irregular Warfare Analytic Baseline (JIWAB) study led by Marine Corps Operations Analysis Directors (OAD) 2010 -2013 • Alternatives to computer modeling & simulation for irregular warfare (IW) • Included scenario development and wargaming • Intended to produce scenarios, capabilities analyses for IW • Project Cassandra conducted at 2016 Connections and 2016 MORS Special Meeting on Wargaming • Guided discussions vs. wargames discussion • Separate two and refine the two • Intended to let participants build game terms of reference

From Context to Wargame Step JIWAB Method Project Cassandra Method 1. Structure the Context - Generate General Morphological Analysis the Possible Worlds (GMA) Critical Uncertainties 2. Downselect and Add Detail Sampling, stakeholder voting and input, structured scenario fusion Voting and Group-Generated Backstory 3. Identify Key Actors and Their Information Interagency Conflict Assessment Framework, Analytic (ICAF-A) Brainstorming and actant analysis 4. Wargame Seminar wargame Matrix wargame Links: • http: //www. swemorph. com/ma. html

JIWAB Step 1: General Morphological Analysis Economic Conditions Oil High Economic Growth Price up; production up Improving Price up; production down Resource Distribution Big Internal Political Migration (Ideology) trends More Drought and food Welcomed unbalanced gap migration Unbalanced as at present Floods Arabization / Islamization Governance Relations of North and Negotiations in Darfur South (incl. Abyei) and The Two Areas Improved human rights, political N-S issues resolved accommodation, and transparency Military Unwelcome Continued buying off N-S mixed / partially authoritarian / migration elites resolved single party Livestock diseases / pestilence No big migrations Favorable weather Chaos / state failure Just Keeping Price down; More balanced Pace production up Price down; Deteriorat-ing production down Environmental Conditions Democratizing / Greater repression liberalizing and corruption N-S unresolved Actions of Neighbors External Intervention (Donors, NGOs, Investors) Areas of Interest or Potential Conflict Ethnic Relations Lasting peace Everybody helps stabilize Reduced engagement Center Increased competition and tension Flawed agreement Mixed roles Normalization South Violent conflict No agreement with continued discussions Neutral Increased support and engagement from outside East Continued domination by a few ethnic groups Shift in supporters West More groups empowered Support for No agreement and end dissidents / to negotiations instability Economic Collapse No major issues Not relevant Favoring the other The Three Areas Creation of national unity Polarization of support (opposite sides) Southern Border States Not relevant No hot spots Method reference: Tom Ritchey, “General Morphological Analysis, ” at http: //www. swemorph. com/ma. html

Cassandra Step 1: Critical Uncertainties Project Cassandra axes: • Known vs. unknown adversaries • Open vs. closed information access Method source: http: //www. liberatingstructures. com/30 -critical-uncertainties/

JIWAB Step 2: Counterfactual Reasoning Source: Noel Hendrickson, http: //www. au. af. mil/au/awcgate/army-usawc/csl_counterfactual_reasoning. pdf

JIWAB Step 2: Proto-Scenarios Alec Barker, https: //papers. ssrn. com/sol 3/papers. cfm? abstract_id=2513112

Cassandra Step 2: Quadrant Worksheet and Voting • Groups broke out into the four quadrants • Quadrant worksheet: • • Scale (international, etc. ) Location Timeframe Antecedent events: what had to happen from the present day to get to the conditions in your quadrant? • “Cyber Mercenaries” • Open information access and unknown adversaries • China after it transitions to a democracy • Large pool of former Chinese government hackers available for hire

JIWAB Step 3: ICAF-A Source: https: //www. state. gov/documents/organization/187786. pdf

JIWAB Step 3: ICAF-A Expert Workshops Also had a semantic wiki to organize data on actors, narratives, etc. . Wong, et. al, http: //journals. sagepub. com/doi/pdf/10. 1177/1548512916680917

Cassandra Step 3: Brainstorming • Participants brainstormed potential actors in the world • Brainstormed using post-its and 1 -2 -4 -All 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. U. S. & UK governments A future Chinese government after a transition to democracy U. S. banks Hackers for hire An unknown actor

Cassandra Step 3: Actor Analysis Worksheet Narrative Element Definition Example from Disney’s Pinocchio Actor Main protagonist Pinocchio Objective Subject’s goals To become a real boy Helper Conditions or actors who support the subject Jiminy Cricket Blocker Conditions or actors who block the subject Gideon the cat, Honest John the fox, temptation of Pleasure Island Sender Entity or conditions that provide the backdrop rules or values Blue Fairy Receiver Entity or conditions where the rules or Pinocchio and Gepetto values are manifest Also asked what means the actors had

JIWAB Step 4: Seminar Game

Cassandra Step 4: Matrix Game • Pro-con system • Participant teams played for whom they had developed narratives • Two rounds of play Game design by Phil Pournelle

Take-Aways? • Using wargaming as a way to developed scenarios • Other steps that lead up to a wargame that could help the game • • What future scenario space is possible? What points in that future do you care about? What actors are there and what do they believe? Setting participants up for playing a role • Differences • JIWAB was analytic, this step was purposely to produce IW scenarios; different experts involved in different steps • Project Cassandra was to take same group of people into a building their own game