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A military exercise, training exercise, or war game is the employment of military resources in training for military operations. Military exercises are conducted to explore the effects of warfare or test tactics and strategies without actual combat. They also ensure the combat readiness of garrisoned or deployable forces prior to deployment from a home base.
While both war games and military exercises aim to simulate real conditions and scenarios for the purpose of preparing and analyzing those scenarios, the distinction between a war game and a military exercise is determined, primarily, by the involvement of actual military forces within the simulation, or lack thereof. Military exercises focus on the simulation of real, full-scale military operations in controlled hostile conditions in attempts to reproduce war time decisions and activities for training purposes or to analyze the outcome of possible war time decisions. War games, however, can be much smaller than full-scale military operations, do not typically include the use of functional military equipment, and decisions and actions are carried out by artificial players to simulate possible decisions and actions within an artificial scenario which usually represents a model of a real-world scenario. Additionally, mathematical modeling is used in the simulation of war games to provide a quantifiable method of deduction. However, it is rare that a war game is depended upon for quantitative results, and the use of war games is more often found in situations where qualitative factors of the simulated scenario are needed to be determined. [1]
The actual use of war games and the results that they can provide are limited by possibilities. War games cannot be used to achieve predictive results, as the nature of war and the scenarios that war games aim to simulate are not deterministic. Therefore, war games are primarily used to consider multiple possible outcomes of any given decision, or number of decisions, made in the simulated scenario. These possible outcomes are analyzed and compared, and cause-and-effect relationships are typically sought for the unknown factors within the simulation. It is typically the relationships between visual aspects of the simulation that aid in the assessment of the problems that are simulated within war games, like geographic locations and positionings that would be difficult to discern or analyze at full-scale and for complex environments. [2]
Military exercises involving multiple branches of the same military are known as joint exercises, while military exercises involving two or more countries are known as combined, coalition, bilateral, or multilateral exercises, depending on the nature of the relationship between the countries and the number of them involved. These exercises allow for better coordination between militaries and observation of enemy tactics, and serve as a visible show of strength and cooperation for the participating countries. [3] According to a 2021 study, joint military exercises within well-defined alliances usually deter adversaries without producing a moral hazard because of the narrow scope of the alliance, while joint military exercises outside of an alliance (which are extremely rare) usually lead to conflict escalation. [4]
Exercises in the 20th and 21st centuries have often been identified by a unique code name, such as Cobra Gold, in the same manner as military contingency operations and combat operations like Operation Phantom Fury.
Military exercises are sometimes used as cover for the build up to an actual invasion, as in the cases of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, or it can provoke opponents at peace to perceive it as such, as in the case of Able Archer 83.
A Command Post Exercise (CPX) typically focuses on the battle readiness of staffs such as a particular Unified Combatant Command or one of its components at any level. It may run in parallel with an FTX or its equivalent, or as a stand-alone event for headquarters staff only with heavy emphasis on simulated events.
Historical names for the field exercise, or the full-scale rehearsal of military maneuvers as practice for warfare in the military services of the British Commonwealth include "schemes", while those of the military services United States are known as Field Training Exercises (FTX), or, in the case of naval forces, Fleet Exercises (FLEETEX). In a field exercise or fleet exercise, the two sides in the simulated battle are typically called "red" (simulating the enemy forces) and "blue", to avoid naming a particular adversary. [5] This naming convention originates with the inventors of the table-top war-game (the "Kriegsspiel"), the Prussian Georg von Reisswitz; their army wore Prussian blue, so friendly forces were depicted by the color blue.
Several different armed forces of the same nation training together are described as having a joint exercise. Those involving forces of multiple nations are described as having a combined exercise or coalition exercise. These are called a bilateral exercise if based on security agreements between two nations, or a multilateral exercise if the agreement is between multiple nations.
Other types of exercise include the Tactical Exercise Without Troops (TEWT), also known as a sand table, map, cloth model, or computer simulation exercise. These allow commanders to manipulate models through possible scenarios in military planning. This is also called warfare simulation, or in some instances a virtual battlefield, and in the past has been described as "wargames". Such examples of modern military wargames include DARWARS, a serious game developed since 2003 by DARPA with BBN Technologies, a defense contractor which was involved in the development of packet switching, used for ARPANET, and which developed the first computer modem in 1963.
Military operations and training have included different scenarios a soldier might encounter with morals and different ethics. In one military operation soldiers are frequently asked to engage in combat, humanitarian, and stabilization roles. These increase the ambiguity of a role one may encounter and challenge of ethics. This will also lead the military personnel to have to make a difficult call in challenging circumstances. [6] Even in difficult situations and conditions, military personnel still has to follow rules and regulations such as: 1) when the right thing to do is not immediately clear; 2) when two or more important principles or values support different actions, and 3) when some harm will result, regardless of the actions taken (Defense Ethics Program, Department of National Defense, 2012). These simulations involve crude living conditions, sleep deprivations, time limit, and either lack or ambiguous amount of information.
A subset of simulated exercises is the Table Top Exercise (TTX), typically limited to senior personnel stepping through the decision-making processes they would employ in a crisis, a contingency, or general warfare.
The use of military exercises and war games can be found to date back to as early as the early 19th century, wherein it was the officers of the Prussian Army who created the contemporary, tactical form of wargames that have since been more widely used and developed by other military conglomerations throughout the world. Non-tactical forms of wargames have existed for much longer, however, in the forms of tabletop games such as chess and Go. [7]
The modern use of military exercises grew out of the military need to study warfare and to reenact old battles for learning purposes. During the age of Kabinettskriege (Cabinet wars), Frederick the Great, King of Prussia from 1740 to 1786, "put together his armies as a well-oiled clockwork mechanism whose components were robot-like warriors. No individual initiative was allowed to Frederick's soldiers; their only role was to cooperate in the creation of walls of projectiles through synchronized firepower." [8] This was in the pursuit of a more effective army, and such practices made it easier to look at war from a top-down perspective. Disciplined troops should respond predictably, allowing study to be confined to maneuvers and command.
Prussia's victory over the Second French Empire in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) is sometimes partly credited to the training of Prussian officers with the wargame Kriegsspiel , which was invented around 1811 and gained popularity with many officers in the Prussian army. These first wargames were played with dice which represented "friction", or the intrusion of less than ideal circumstances during a real war (including morale, meteorology, the fog of war, etc.).
21st century militaries still use wargames to simulate future wars and model their reaction. According to Manuel de Landa, after World War II the Command, Control and Communications (C3) was transferred from the military staff to the RAND Corporation, the first think tank. Around the mid to late 20th century, computer simulated war games were created to replace traditional war gaming methods with the goal of optimizing and speeding up the process and making it possible to analyze more complex scenarios with greater ease. In 1958, the Naval War college installed a computer war game system where their traditional war gaming activities were held. The system was called the Navy Electronic Warfare System, and cost over $10 million to install. [9] The change from traditional war gaming methods to electronic computer simulated ones meant that the value and accuracy of a war game simulation was less dependent on skill and individual experiences, and more dependent on quantitative data and complicated analysis methods. [10]
Von Neumann was employed by the RAND Corporation, and his game theory was used in wargames to model nuclear dissuasion during the Cold War. Thus, the U.S. nuclear strategy was defined using wargames, "SAM" representing the U.S. and "IVAN" representing the Soviet Union.
Early game theory included only zero-sum games, which means that when one player won, the other automatically lost. The prisoner's dilemma, which models the situation of two prisoners in which each one is given the choice to betray or not the other, gave three alternatives to the game:
This model gave the basis for the massive retaliation nuclear doctrine. The zero-sum fallacy and cooperative games would be theorized only later, while the evolution of nuclear technology and missiles made the massive retaliation nuclear strategy obsolete. [11]
Name | Host | Type | Focus | First held | Frequency |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Anatolian Eagle | Turkey | Multilateral | Aerial warfare | 2001 | No fixed schedule |
AMAN | Pakistan | Multilateral | Maritime security | 2007 | Biannual |
Balikatan | Philippines | Bilateral | Combined arms | 1991 | Annual |
BALTOPS | NATO | Multilateral | Naval warfare | 1971 | Annual |
Blue Flag | Israel | Bilateral | Aerial warfare | 2013 | No fixed schedule |
Bright Star | Egypt | Bilateral | Combined arms | 1980 | Biannual |
Cobra Gold | Thailand | Multilateral | Combined arms; military simulation; humanitarian aid and disaster relief | 1982 | Annual |
Cold Response | NATO (Norway) | Multilateral | Defense readiness | 2006 | Biannual |
Croix du Sud | France | Multilateral | Humanitarian aid and disaster relief | 2002 | Biannual |
Dynamic Manta | NATO | Multilateral | Naval warfare | 2006 | Annual |
Garuda Shield | Indonesia | Multilateral | Combined arms; command post; humanitarian aid and disaster relief | 2007 | Annual |
Green Dagger | United States | Multilateral | Infantry combat | 2019 | Annual |
Malabar | India | Multilateral | Naval warfare; maritime security | 1992 | Annual |
Maple Flag | Canada | Multilateral | Aerial combat | 1978 | Annual |
Real Thaw | Portugal | Multilateral | Aerial combat | 2009 | Annual |
Red Flag | United States | Multilateral | Aerial combat | 1975 | Triannual/bimonthly |
Red Flag – Alaska | United States | Multilateral | Aerial warfare | 2006 | Triannual/quadannual |
Resolute Dragon | Japan | Bilateral | Defense readiness; command and control | 2021 | Annual |
RIMPAC | United States | Multilateral | Naval warfare | 1971 | Biannual |
Saif Sareea | Oman | Bilateral | Combined arms | 1986 | No fixed schedule |
Talisman Saber | Australia, United States | Bilateral | Combined arms; combat readiness | 2005 | Biannual |
Varuna | India | Bilateral | Naval warfare | 1993 | Annual |
Zapad | Russia, Soviet Union | Joint | Varying focuses | 1981 | No fixed schedule |
Name | Host | Type | Focus | Held | Frequency | Significance |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fleet problem | United States | Joint | Naval warfare | 1923–1941, 2014–2021 | No fixed schedule | Bulk of U.S. Navy exercises in the interwar period until World War II |
Carolina Maneuvers | United States | Joint | Warfare strategy | 1941 | Standalone | Involved approximately 350,000 soldiers |
Louisiana Maneuvers | United States | Joint | Warfare strategy | 1941 | Standalone | Involved approximately 400,000 soldiers, including several officers who would become prominent military leaders during World War II |
Reforger | NATO (West Germany) | Multilateral | Combat readiness | 1969–1988, 1990–1993 | Annual | Display of preparedness in the event of war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact |
North China Military Exercise | China | Joint | Unknown | 1981 | Standalone | Involved over 114,000 soldiers; the largest Chinese military exercise up to that point |
Able Archer | NATO | Multilateral; command post | Combat readiness; nuclear warfare | Unknown | Annual | Able Archer 83 was mistakenly perceived by the Soviet Union to be genuine NATO war preparations |
Brasstacks | India | Joint | Combined arms | 1986–1987 | Standalone | Involved approximately 500,000 soldiers; the largest military exercise on the Indian subcontinent in history |
Millennium Challenge | United States | Simulation | Warfare strategy | 2002 | Standalone | Restarted after Blueforce (representing the U.S.) was quickly defeated by Redforce (representing Iran or Iraq), with a new rule limiting Redforce's capabilities and favoring Blueforce; caused controversy when Blueforce won |
Caucasus 2009 | Russia | Joint | Combat readiness | 2009 | Standalone | Conducted as a show of force against Georgia after the Russo-Georgian War |
Vostok 2010 | Russia | Joint | Combat readiness; command and control | 2010 | Standalone | One of the largest military exercises in Russia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union; intended to test Russian military modernization |
Vostok 2018 | Russia | Multilateral | Combat readiness; command and control | 2018 | Standalone | Included China and Mongolia, the first countries outside the former Soviet Union to join Russia's Vostok Exercises |
Union Resolve 2022 | Russia | Bilateral | Combined arms; warfare strategy | 2022 | Standalone | Considered a cover for Russian mobilization prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine |
2022 Chinese military exercises around Taiwan | China, Taiwan | Joint (not involving Taiwan) | Naval warfare; combined arms | 2022 | Standalone | Conducted as a show of force against the U.S. to deter American influence in Taiwan, shortly after U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan |
A wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a hypothetical simulation of some military operation. Wargaming may be played for recreation, to train military officers in the art of strategic thinking, or to study the nature of potential conflicts. Many wargames re-create specific historic battles, and can cover either whole wars, or any campaigns, battles, or lower-level engagements within them. Many simulate land combat, but there are wargames for naval and air combat, as well.
A simulation is an imitative representation of a process or system that could exist in the real world. In this broad sense, simulation can often be used interchangeably with model. Sometimes a clear distinction between the two terms is made, in which simulations require the use of models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or process, whereas the simulation represents the evolution of the model over time. Another way to distinguish between the terms is to define simulation as experimentation with the help of a model. This definition includes time-independent simulations. Often, computers are used to execute the simulation.
Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC02) was a major war game exercise conducted by the United States Armed Forces in mid-2002. The exercise, which ran from 24 July to 15 August and cost US$250 million, involved both live exercises and computer simulations. MC02 was meant to be a test of future military "transformation"—a transition toward new technologies that enable network-centric warfare and provide more effective command and control of current and future weaponry and tactics. The simulated combatants were the United States, referred to as "Blue", and a fictitious state in the Persian Gulf, "Red", often characterized as Iran or Iraq.
An opposing force is a military unit tasked with representing an enemy, usually for training purposes in war game scenarios. The related concept of aggressor squadron is used by some air forces. The United States maintains the Fort Irwin National Training Center with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment serving in the OPFOR role. Fort Johnson's Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) is another major training site typically reserved for light infantry units, and the OPFOR are the 1st of the 509th Airborne Infantry Regiment. The Army's Joint Maneuver Readiness Center has the 1st of the 4th Infantry Regiment as their OPFOR. Other major units include the First United States Army which consists of 16 training brigades that often also serve as OPFOR.
Harpoon is a series of realistic air and naval computer wargames based upon Larry Bond's miniatures game of the same name. Players can choose between either the Blue or Red side in simulated naval combat situations, which includes local conflicts as well as simulated Cold War confrontations between the Superpowers. Missions range from small missile boat engagements to large oceanic battles, with dozens of vessels and hundreds of aircraft. The game includes large databases containing many types of real world ships, submarines, aircraft, and land defenses.
The Next War: Modern Conflict in Europe is a board wargame published by Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI) in 1978 that simulates a hypothetical Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe.
War in the Age of Intelligent Machines (1991) is a book by Manuel DeLanda, in which he traces the history of warfare and the history of technology.
Jeux Descartes was a French publisher of roleplaying games and board games. Their most popular lines included: Eurogames, a set of serious board games, previously published by Duccio Vitale's independent company; Blue Games, small card games for larger groups; and Games for Two.
Military simulations, also known informally as war games, are simulations in which theories of warfare can be tested and refined without the need for actual hostilities. Military simulations are seen as a useful way to develop tactical, strategical and doctrinal solutions, but critics argue that the conclusions drawn from such models are inherently flawed, due to the approximate nature of the models used. Many professional analysts object to the term wargames as this is generally taken to be referring to the civilian hobby, thus the preference for the term simulation.
A grand strategy wargame or simply grand strategy game (GSG) is a wargame that places focus on grand strategy: military strategy at the level of movement and use of a nation state or empire's resources. The genre has considerable overlap with 4X games, but differs in being "asymmetrical", meaning that players are more bound to a specific setup and not among equally free factions in exploring and progressing the game and an open world.
Red Flag-Alaska is a realistic, ten-day air combat United States Air Force (USAF) training exercise held up to four times a year. It is held at Eielson Air Force Base and Elmendorf Air Force Base in the State of Alaska. Each Red Flag-Alaska exercise is a multi-service, multi-platform coordinated, combat operations exercise and corresponds to the designed operational capability of participating units. In other words, exercises often involve several units whose military mission may differ significantly from that of other participating units. Red Flag-Alaska planners take those factors into consideration when designing exercises so participants get the maximum training possible without being placed at an unfair advantage during simulated combat scenarios.
Intelligence dissemination management is a maxim of intelligence arguing that intelligence agencies advise policymakers instead of shaping policy. Due to the necessity of quick decision-making in periods of crisis, intelligence analysts may suggest possible actions, including a prediction of the consequences of each decision. Intelligence consumers and providers still struggle with the balance of what drives information flow. Dissemination is the part of the intelligence cycle that delivers products to consumers, and intelligence dissemination management refers to the process that encompasses organizing the dissemination of the finished intelligence.
A computer wargame is a wargame played on a digital device. Descended from board wargaming, it simulates military conflict at the tactical, operational or strategic level. Computer wargames are both sold commercially for recreational use and, in some cases, used for military purposes.
Internal Look is a major planning wargame exercise of US Central Command. Up to 1990 often held annually, it is now biennial. From 1983 to 1990, it was often focused on a rapid deployment of U.S. forces to the Zagros Mountains in Iran, where they would have attempted to stop an expected Soviet invasion by the Soviet Southern Strategic Direction. The Southern Strategic Direction, headquartered in Baku, would have consisted of the Transcaucasus Military District, North Caucasus Military District, Turkestan Military District and follow-on forces.
The Joint Theater Level Simulation (JTLS) is used to simulate joint, combined, and coalition civil-military operations at the operational level. Used for civil/military simulations and humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR) scenarios, JTLS is an interactive, computer-assisted simulation that models multi-sided air, ground, and naval resources with logistical Special Operation Forces (SOF) and intelligence support. The primary purpose of JTLS is to create a realistic environment in which agency staff can operate as they would within a real-world or operational situation. A training audience conducts a scenario or event to practice their ability to coordinate various staff functions.
NATO: Operational Combat in Europe in the 1970s is a board wargame published by Simulations Publications Inc. (SPI) in 1973 that simulates an invasion of Western Europe by the Warsaw Pact.
The Han Kuang Exercise is the annual military exercise of the Republic of China Armed Forces in Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu for combat readiness in the event of an attack from the People's Liberation Army of the People's Republic of China.
A wargame, generally, is a type of strategy game which realistically simulates warfare. A professional wargame, specifically, is a wargame that is used by military organizations to train officers in tactical and strategic decision-making, to test new tactics and strategies, or to predict trends in future conflicts. This is in contrast to recreational wargames, which are designed for fun and competition.
Carte Blanche was the name of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) field training exercise (FTX) held from 20 to 28 June 1955 in West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and a section of France. NATO air forces with no actual nuclear weapons rehearsed the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the defense of NATO: 335 were used during the FTX's invasion scenario. The FTX predicted that 1.7 million Germans in the Western and Soviet sectors would be killed and 3.5 million wounded in the first days of a real Soviet invasion. Nuclear weapons in FTX use yielded 15 kilotons, the same as the bomb exploded over Hiroshima during World War II.
Torgau is a board wargame published by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) in 1974 that simulates the Battle of Torgau between Prussians and Austrians in 1760 during the Seven Years' War, a costly battle for both sides. Reviews were generally favorable, although gameplay was characterized as very long, complex, and more similar to traditional miniatures wargaming than board wargames.