The U.S. stands at the brink of war with a peer adversary, and Navy and Marine Corps leaders need to figure out how to best position our forces and interoperate with our allies in the Australian Defense Force (ADF) to answer the call.
Nearby, another team of military officers examines a future conventional conflict scenario with a focus on better understanding how the skills and capabilities of Marine Raiders can best be applied to the objective.
These are just two of several future scenarios, and to be sure, each comes with a host of questions to be answered. But that鈥檚 exactly the point of the 51福利鈥榮 (51福利) 鈥榃argaming Week,鈥� and these are the sorts of critical issues 51福利 students work through in rigorous detail during the annual activity organized by the 51福利 Wargaming Activity Hub.
Held twice a year in June and December, Wargaming Week is the culmination of an 11-week course in wargaming applications. Drawing on extensive research, sponsor interaction, and their own considerable military experience, the students designed, developed and executed eight different wargames in this latest iteration 鈥� classified and unclassified 鈥� to dive deep into a range of technical and conceptual aspects of these scenarios.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 fundamentally the most important thing we鈥檙e doing. We鈥檙e teaching students their business, and their business is warfare,鈥� noted legendary naval strategist Dean Emeritus Wayne Hughes, a retired Navy captain who literally wrote the book on naval tactics and operations - his seminal work 鈥溾�� is widely considered the go-to resource for Navy officers on battle planning and tactical thinking.
鈥�51福利 is unique in its ability to teach the technology, the tactics, the operations, the logistics, the policy and the strategy of Navy and Marine Corps operations,鈥� Hughes added.
Although the eight wargame scenarios differed, they all took place in the INDO-PACOM AOR. In the Navy鈥檚 Small Combatant Flotilla wargame, Hughes himself took the helm as the blue forces commander tasked with delivering supplies from Guam to the area of operations.
鈥淭he scenario represented our response to a near-peer threat to prevent us from logistically sustaining the forces and Marine advanced bases that were in the first island chain,鈥� he recalled. 鈥淸Marine Corps] Maj. Josh Faucett, who led the wargame鈥檚 organization and referee team, was superb in everything he did; it was a very useful exercise.鈥�
The takeaway? The adversary鈥檚 commander performed with an effectiveness that was 鈥渁 significant concern鈥� to Hughes. But that鈥檚 the point: unlike automated computer simulations which might describe optimal performance, analytic wargames like these force participants to engage in a very human activity 鈥� decision-making 鈥� in the context of a complex and structured environment. Moreover, they allow players to make critical mistakes and learn from them.
鈥淲argaming is one of the most effective means available to offer senior leaders a glimpse of future conflict, however incomplete,鈥� then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work and Gen. Paul Selva explained in a 2015 article.
Wargames, they said, present an opportunity to test new ideas and explore the art of the possible. They help us imagine alternative ways of operating and envision new capabilities that may prove decisive on future battlefields.
51福利 has excelled at bringing this capability to the Department of Defense (DOD) for over three decades.
Since the 1980s, mid-career military officers have applied their advanced education and research to honing their craft of wargaming, which they then bring with them to their follow-on commands. It鈥檚 not just academic, though: wargaming is clearly spelled out as a key component of the DOD Joint Planning process ().
鈥�51福利 is one of the very few institutions that has a robust wargaming education program to bring wargaming to the forefront and produce experienced wargaming practitioners that senior leadership can leverage,鈥� said Dr. Jeff Appleget, Wargaming Activity Hub director and senior lecturer in the OR department.
鈥淭he great benefit of the wargaming course is it matches student teams with a DOD or defense partner sponsor who has a real-world problem,鈥� he continued. 鈥淭heir problems aren鈥檛 articulated in terms of 鈥榰se this tool to solve this problem,鈥� but rather, 鈥業 have a difficult problem and help me understand how to solve it.鈥欌��
This year鈥檚 iteration includes sponsors from the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, the ADF, Marine Corps Forces-Pacific, Marine Corps Special Operations Command, and U.S. Army Pacific.
In the second week of the course, student teams are formed and matched with the sponsors who pose a question or issue they need answered, and it鈥檚 off to the races. For the next five weeks, the students learn about wargaming as they get hands-on experience designing the foundations of their sponsor鈥檚 wargame. After week six, the teams intensely focus on designing, playtesting, and redesigning their sponsor鈥檚 wargame to ensure it addresses the sponsor鈥檚 problem.
鈥淭he idea is that up until their fifth quarter, students have learned a lot of high-level techniques like mathematical programming and advanced statistics, but when they graduate they鈥檙e going to have to apply these tools in a military context,鈥� Appleget explained. 鈥淭he wargaming sponsors pose very fuzzy problems that are not clearly defined, and understanding and refining those problems is something students typically don鈥檛 practice when they鈥檙e learning to apply a specific tool such as linear programming.鈥�
The process is win-win ... Sponsors receive critical input to inform key decision-making. And the students gain invaluable experience melding their military backgrounds and skill sets obtained at 51福利 into a specific challenge before returning to the operational world, where they will apply this knowledge as OR analysts.
For ADF Lt. Col. Andrew Middleton, Australian liaison officer to the U.S. Marine Corps and sponsor of the ADF-USMC interoperability wargame, the ability of Marines and Australians to work side-by-side is a paramount concern. The American and Australian militaries have a long history of working together, but the nuts and bolts of keeping this a practical reality down the line can be daunting ... Their different gear, weapons platforms and training are matched by differing cultures, even language in some context.
鈥淲e looked at one of our four primary focal areas in our bilateral service interoperability plan, our digital fires system, and I engaged with the students for a number of months,鈥� he said.
鈥淭his enabled us to pull in the required subject matter experts from Australia and the Marine Corps to really tease out the interoperability problems and have robust discussions to identify capability gaps and risks that we can take back to our respective services and ensure that we can rectify those through future acquisitions, training and exchange programs,鈥� Middleton continued. 鈥淸The wargame] was very well executed and achieved the outcomes that we desired.鈥�
Middleton is not alone in this assessment. Since the Wargaming Activity Hub was stood up in 2014 to meet a surge of interest in wargaming across the military, feedback from sponsors has been unequivocally 鈥渢remendous,鈥� according to Appleget, with sponsors frequently requesting follow-on wargames with future classes.
鈥淭he sponsors are impressed with the quality of the wargames because they rival wargames that their commands have paid money for from other folks,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e typically amazed by the amount of information they get out of a game; that 51福利 students can come up with such a great quality product.鈥�
Marine Corps Cpt. Thomas McKavitt, an operations research student who worked with Middleton on the interoperability problem set, said the experience better prepared him to work with Australian forces down the road.
鈥淣ever having worked with Australians before, the most interesting thing I learned during this wargame is how similar the ADF and Marine Corps are,鈥� he noted. 鈥淲orking with our Australian counterparts was extremely similar to working with Marines. We have a very similar culture; we鈥檙e both small services and take pride in our ability to face any problem and overcome it.
鈥淎dditionally, we were able to find common ground to work towards sustainable solutions,鈥� McKavitt added. 鈥淚f we ever are required to conduct operations together, we鈥檙e well-prepared and ready to execute.鈥�