Wargames

by Martin van Creveld

  The absence of a proper theoretical framework did not stop wargamers from pushing, or trying to push, ahead. At the time, many universities were setting up departments of international relations and strategic studies. All wanted to demonstrate their sophistication by holding games. Presumably all also learnt that wargames can provide participants, male ones in particular, with shots of adrenalin no other method of study can match. Indeed one of the most surprising things about BOGSATs is precisely the way people tend to forget that they are just exercises in imagination and get caught up in them.126 Soon the number being held skyrocketed into the dozens, perhaps hundreds, each year. As people moved around from one institution to another, much of the work done by the government, the universities, and the think tanks got mixed up. Goldhammer was heard complaining that he had created Frankenstein’s monster.127 Like so many of their predecessors from the time of Reisswitz on, the games had two basic objectives. One was training, i.e. attracting the participants’ attention to all sorts of problems they might not have anticipated and giving them a certain hands-on experience in coping with them. The other was planning, i.e. creating scenarios, allowing them to evolve, and watching where they led in the hope of drawing some lessons for the future. Precision being unobtainable, this was known as heuristic planning or developing options. It was hoped that, when the time came, the options could be submitted to policymakers, who would thus be spared the need to reinvent the wheel.128

  In the US, the earliest political-military games were held in 1954–5. In 1961 the Joint Chiefs of Staff set up permanent facilities for the purpose. Allegedly the reason for this was President Kennedy’s claim, following the Bay of Pigs fiasco, that senior American military did not understand the political implications of their recommendations.129 Most players were medium-level officials, but senior policymakers sometimes took an interest. As so often in the Pentagon, scenarios tended to be set a few months or years in the future – neither so close as to make preparations impossible nor so far off as to make participants, who were always looking forward to their next election campaign or promotion, lose interest. They dealt with events that the designers thought might take place in reality. When a crisis did not exist it had to be invented. Now it was a question of the Soviet Union making aggressive moves in the Middle East, now of a Soviet preemptive attack on China. Now India and Pakistan went to war, now a Castro-type regime was going to be established in Venezuela, and now an uprising was threatening the Shah of Iran.130 As if to prove how difficult predicting the future was and remains, the last-named scenario did take place, but only after such a long time that few if any of the players remained on the scene. By contrast, neither the building of the Berlin Wall nor the possibility that the Soviets might put missiles in Cuba were gamed – the latter because it was considered too implausible.131

  All this had more to do with art, especially the art of stage-management, than with science. Absent detailed rules, players had to rely on pretense. Whatever the precise scenario, the principal questions tended to be broadly similar. Suppose things developed in such and such a way, how should the US react and what would the consequences of its actions be? What were the possibilities? What were the risks? Was the US prepared for the contingency in question, and if not, what should be done? Some games treated the US and other countries as if they were billiard balls impacting on each other. Others tried to simulate not just interactions among the various countries but the anticipated behavior of various pressure groups within them. Some games factored in the possibility of rushing American troops to the scene of action, a kind of simulation which would generally lead to the conclusion that so and so many men, with such and such equipment, could arrive there within so and so many days. Occasionally it was a question of “horizontal escalation,” i.e. the possibility of opening another front. From that point it was a short step to setting up an additional series of lower-level games which would recommend that the process be speeded up by purchasing so and so many additional ships and/or aircraft and setting up such and such additional units and bases.132 Sometimes the question of how to use the troops once they had arrived was also gamed, but this was by no means always the case.

  An important characteristic of political-military games was that, unlike many of their more mathematically oriented predecessors, most of them did not have detailed rules as to what constituted victory. One objective was to make participants think more like their “Red” opponents, which of course might come in handy in case a real conflict developed. Another was to find out what might happen and where things might lead. Since the question as to who “won” did not matter much, individual games tended to end either when the umpire felt enough was enough or when time ran out (most games lasted between a few hours and three days: the more senior any policymakers, the less time they had to devote to gaming).133 Probably some participants were disappointed by the inconclusive outcomes. Certainly those outcomes were among the factors that enabled critics to question the value of the games. The criticism is understandable but not entirely fair. In “reality,” a good many “crises” do in fact melt away of their own accord; others are overshadowed as new ones arise.

  Given that future historians are almost certain to point to the Vietnam War as the turning point that first showed the limits of US power, probably the most important political-military games of all were those held in 1964. The intention was to consider the issues surrounding America’s commitment to the ongoing conflict in Southeast Asia, which, following the murder of the Vietnamese head of state Ngo Dinh Diem in November 1963, was entering a critical state. The first series, called Sigma I, were held in April 1964. Blue players included McGeorge Bundy, White House adviser on national security; John McCone, Director of Central Intelligence; General Earl Wheeler, army chief of staff; General Curtis Lemay, commander of the Strategic Air Command; and John McNaughton, Assistant Secretary of State. However, apart from CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence Ray Cline, there seems to have been no senior official on the Red side. The games concluded that a US bombing offensive against North Vietnam could not be kept secret, as some rather preposterously suggested it should be. They also indicated that such a campaign, if launched without appropriate political justification, would lead to massive protests both outside and inside the US (which did in fact happen), and that it might cause the Soviet Union “to change the ground rules of the Cold War” by means of aggressive action in Latin America (which did not).134 Compared to what had taken place in Tokyo in the fall of 1941, arguably wargames that got two out of three important propositions right were a smashing success.

  In September of the same year, a month after the Tonkin Gulf Resolution by which the US officially declared war on North Vietnam, a second round known as Sigma II was held.135 By that time Wheeler had been promoted to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That apart, the list of participants was augmented by Assistant Secretary of State William Bundy, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Horacio Rivero, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance. Though Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara did not participate in person he did keep a close watch. Except perhaps for a few medieval tournaments, probably in the whole of history no higher-ranking group of men had ever played a wargame of any kind, albeit that most of the real work was done by subordinates and that the senior animals (to translate a German expression) themselves only dropped in after work. Red was played by some less high-ranking East Asia experts from the State Department, the intelligence community, and the universities. Probably this asymmetric setup had two unintended, if almost certainly inevitable, consequences. First, since the “Reds” were not red at all but American, culturally induced misunderstandings and friction were much less pronounced than they would have been in the real world. Second, paradoxically the fact that the Red players were vastly outranked may have given them a certain freedom of action which their Blue opponents, carrying heavy responsibilities, did not enjoy. During the post-game discussion they themselves said as much. Perhaps an apt analogy
would be small mammals running about and eating the eggs of much larger dinosaurs.

  The scenario, which was set in March 1965, was as follows. The number of North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam had increased sharply. Chinese advisers were busily helping North Vietnam strengthen its anti-aircraft defenses. The political situation inside South Vietnam was shaky, the Vietcong had shelled Saigon, growing numbers of American troops were being committed to Vietnam, and some of them were getting involved in the fighting and being killed. Over much of the world the war was causing both officials and public opinion to take an anti-American stance. In so far as, by March 1965, much of this had actually taken place, the scenario proved almost uncannily prophetic. But prophecy is not enough: what the games signally failed to do was to suggest a solution to the problem. On one side stood the military men who wanted a powerful bombing campaign and even mentioned the use of nuclear weapons in case they would be needed to stop a Chinese invasion. On the other were the civilians.136 They worried lest bombing would lead to escalation – not for nothing has Vietnam been called “the War after Korea.” They may also have been influenced by some fashionable theories concerning the use of armed force, not for fighting the enemy and defeating him but for signaling, exercising pressure, and threatening.

  In the event, the controllers ruled out the use both of nuclear weapons and of large numbers of Chinese troops, judgments that proved to be well founded. Within this framework the Blue civilian players, forming the majority, prevailed. An incremental strategy was adopted, especially in respect to the air campaign over North Vietnam. It quickly turned out that Red, far from being intimidated, would match every Blue move. Even as bombing destroyed much of its industry, transportation network, and central fuel reserve it continued to send troops south. It also intensified its attacks both on South Vietnam and on the US forces operating in that country, inflicted a growing number of casualties, and in general pursued the war. By the time the games ended they pointed to the conclusion that the outcome would not be a North Vietnamese defeat but a growing American involvement attended by serious foreign and domestic political problems. Again the games might be called a smashing success, except that it made no difference. For years and even decades afterwards, the incremental approach adopted both in the games and in reality enabled critics to argue that, had they had their way, the US, and especially its air force, could have “won” the war as early as 1965.137 The debate is unlikely to be resolved. However, one point stands out. Neither in Afghanistan in 2001 nor in Iraq in 2003 did “shock and awe,” delivered from the air with the aid of weapons far superior to those available in the 1960s, prevent a vicious guerrilla war from breaking out and continuing for years on end.

  Of the countless political−military games played during this period, the most elaborate as well as the best-known ones were the series of so-called Global War Games held between 1979 and the end of the Cold War. Not accidentally the organization in charge, i.e. the US Navy, was perhaps the one with the broadest responsibilities, geographically speaking, in history. Supported by a dedicated intelligence department to help create a credible Soviet opponent, at first the games had a specifically navy focus.138 Carrier task forces were always being sent here, there, and everywhere; unlike their Japanese predecessors, Control sometimes allowed some of them to be lost (though critics charged that this did not happen nearly often enough).139 Soon, however, “[they] evolved, by obvious necessity, into a much broader military and political forum.”140 The overall objective was “to gain insights into how naval campaigns might be conducted on a global scale in the event of conflict between the United States (Blue) and the Soviet Union (Red).” Hoped-for specific insights included the question as to which operations should be given priority, logistic problems, the effectiveness and consequences of various strategic maneuvers, the impact of political and economic forces, the thresholds where nuclear escalation might occur, and problems of command and control. At first sixty people participated. Later, as the focus shifted to bring in additional countries, as many as six hundred did. They included officers from all the services, government officials, and representatives of academia and industry. Organizing all this represented quite a logistic challenge in itself.

  As one might expect, in every scenario it was always Red which took the initiative. It attacked now here, now there; in response, the Blue players were expected to see what they could and would do. The 1979 scenario postulated Iraq, supported by the Soviet Union, invading Saudi Arabia in 1985 (in fact Iraq invaded not Saudi Arabia but Iran, not in 1985 but in 1980, and without Soviet military aid). Other scenarios also tended to be positioned a few years in the future. As the 1979 game developed, US forces were sent to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean to assist the Saudis. The Soviets on their part took the offensive in the Mediterranean, turning it into a Red lake. However, this success was to some extent balanced by the fighting on the “Central Front” where NATO halted the Soviet advance and even mounted some counterattacks. Subsequent scenarios involved fighting, in addition to the all-important “Central Front,” in places as far apart as Norway, the Black Sea straits, the Middle East, Iran (both of which came under Red attack), and the Far East (China against Vietnam, North Korea against South Korea, the US and Japan against the Soviet Union). Fierce “battles” also took place in the Atlantic where Red air and naval forces did their best to prevent Blue from reinforcing NATO forces fighting in Central Europe.

  Most of the simulated conflicts were over in a matter of days, which meant that the role played by economic factors was limited. Several involved the threatened and even actual use of nuclear weapons in various outlying areas (outlying, that is, as seen from the White House and the Kremlin, not by the unfortunate people who lived in the areas in question). The point where a large number of strategic warheads were exploded in the territory of the principal belligerents, the US SIOP (Strategic Integrated Operations Plan) and its Soviet equivalent were activated, and the world came to a spectacular end, was never reached. In most games the use, threatened or real, of nuclear weapons was initiated by Blue in the belief that Red’s conventional superiority and military successes left it no choice. However, in some cases it was Red, its offensive having been blunted, which introduced them. Most players were extremely reluctant to cross the nuclear threshold. Once they had done so, though, nuclear weapons tended to overshadow everything else. This had the effect of turning the later stages of the games into exercises in escalation control. Either some kind of political settlement was reached, or else they were brought to an end without a clear conclusion.

  Early games tended to open with an outright Red offensive aimed at bringing about a fundamental change in the balance of power in Central Europe in particular. In some games the invader got as far as the Channel coast. Subsequent ones were more sophisticated in this respect. They postulated the unintended escalation of what started as some fairly marginal clash and due largely to the fact that neither side wanted to blink first. One reason for the switch was that Red began to be played by intelligence officers on the basis of their estimates of actual Soviet intentions rather than worst-case scenarios. The change had the effect of increasing the role of political negotiations, threat and counter-threat, at the expense of “actual” warfighting. It also caused scenarios to stretch out over periods of two months and more. This caused the role of nuclear weapons to decline but increased that of economic factors: questions such as industrial mobilization, how long it would take, and what its results would be had to be considered. Bringing in economics meant that the database on which players could draw and which they used to determine what they needed and what they could get had to be vastly expanded. This change in turn encouraged, and was encouraged by, the growing use of computers, which might point out, for example, that by day so and so of the simulated conflict Blue or Red was beginning to run out of resources.

  As has been said, one should never underestimate the willingness of the state to act out even its most shocking fantas
ies.141 Thank goodness, hardly any of these scenarios were translated into reality. Afghanistan in 1979 apart, the Soviet Union never invaded any other country, let alone initiated and pursued a war on the “Central Front.” In fact, to the extent that the games dealt with finding answers to Soviet “adventurism,” by the time they were initiated the peak of that adventurism, as displayed in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, and Angola during the 1970s, was already in the past. Nevertheless, the basic factors governing the Cold War were simulated quite well. This included (after the first few games) its tendency to flash up in the periphery rather than in the “Central” theater; the need to keep the sea-lanes open; as well as the overriding importance of nuclear weapons and the need to contain them at almost literally any cost. In fact one very important reason why, in most games, wars broke out in the periphery was precisely because most of the countries in question did not have nuclear weapons. A less expected, but equally important, insight was that players on each side rarely if ever understood the political intent of the military moves that the others directed at them.142 As a result, moves meant to pass a signal or message normally led to totally unexpected consequences. Better proof that man is indeed the animal that invents stories to explain itself to itself (and that each story is different and may have little if anything to do with “reality”) is hard to find.