War Gaming Introductory Course

The War Gaming Introductory Course (a.k.a. “War Gaming 101”) provides new U.S. Naval War College Wargaming Department (WGD) faculty and other DoD professionals an introduction to the WGD procedures used to plan, execute, and analyze operational-level wargames, contributing to the creation of knowledge and/or decision making experience primarily for:

• U.S. Navy Fleet Commanders
• U.S. Navy headquarters senior leaders (OPNAV staff)
• Other DoD and USG leaders

Course Objectives:

• Introduce the Game Project Management Process as used at the USNWC WGD to create and analyze war games
• Introduce the epistemological basis of war gaming as an applied-research methodology used to explore complex systems, contributing to the creation of knowledge of value to senior leaders
• Introduce war gaming reference materials
• Introduce new war gaming colleagues to their other war gaming colleagues and WGD organizational structure

Method: Lecture presentations by WGD faculty with expertise in aspects of the WGD’s game project management process.

Learning Outcomes: Increase new faculty and others’ awareness of:

• the WGD process used to create and analyze war games
• key war gaming references to facilitate self-study
• experienced senior WGD points of contact as a post-course resource for new WGD faculty and other course attendees