Seven Reflections of a Red Commander: What I’ve Learned from Playing the Adversary

The next article initially featured within the September 2024 version of Army Assessment underneath the title, “Seven Reflections of a ‘Purple Commander’ What I’ve Discovered from Taking part in the Adversary in Division of Protection Wargames,” and is republished with permission. Learn it in its authentic kind right here.

By Ian M. Sullivan

It’s the spring of 20XX, and the U.S. joint power is engaged in a serious struggle towards a peer competitor. Earlier within the battle, the enemy seized a essential piece of terrain, and the U.S. Nationwide Command Authority (NCA) ordered the joint power to take it again. This required an enormous joint power entry operation (JFEO), arguably probably the most tough of joint operations to finish. However the joint power was sport. It assembled the most important maritime assault power—each amphibious assault ships loaded with Marines and transports carrying Military formations—because the U.S. invasion of Okinawa in April 1945. It required deft planning to arrange, mass, and ultimately converge the power over the good expanse of the ocean. But the joint power, or “Blue Power,” did so and was able to strike.

Because the Blue plan unfolded, all appeared on monitor. Forces have been shifting, and joint and mixed fight energy was able to help the JFEO. Nevertheless it was presently that an outdated, usually ignored navy maxim got here into play—the enemy will get a vote. And their vote mattered.

Profiting from their very own subtle capabilities and an method to struggle that was designed with Blue in thoughts, the enemy “Purple” Power rapidly engaged parts of the invasion power at vary, properly earlier than the joint power may carry its full fight energy to bear. Focusing largely on the amphibious assault ships, which have a essential “over the seashore” functionality, the Purple antiaccess/space denial forces got here into play. Shore-based ballistic and cruise missiles—some hypersonic—air-launched techniques, and maritime strike belongings converged in an enormous, multidomain blow, which prompted essential injury to the amphibious fleet. The amphibious ships by no means made it to the invasion seashores. This left the transport ships carrying the Military formations to hold on to the goal; nonetheless, missing the over-the-beach capabilities of the amphibious ships, they wanted to land in a functioning port to unload the Military forces.

Fortunately, this entire story is notional, and it performed out not on the frontlines of a faraway struggle zone however in a simulations middle on an Military base. This world of wargaming is changing into an more and more important software for the Military and joint power as they grapple with what it means to conduct large-scale fight operations towards peer opponents in areas far faraway from the continental United States. Within the phrases of Ed McGrady, one of many Nation’s main consultants within the subject, wargaming is the “one software that permits protection professionals to interrupt out of the tales we’ve got locked ourselves into.”1 He notes that “wargames are about understanding, not data,” and concerning the tales we inform ourselves. On this case, Blue was pressured to deal with an uncomfortable story; specifically, a peer competitor can prevail if it performs its playing cards proper. Blue then needed to deal with an understanding of the implications of what transpired.

Moreover, you will need to word that none of this understanding or studying can happen if Blue doesn’t have an efficient opponent. And that’s the function that I usually get requested to play, that of “Purple commander.” Over the previous 5 years, I’ve performed in twelve separate wargames for the Military, the Navy, combatant instructions, and the joint employees; in 9 of them, I used to be the Purple commander. This implies I led the enemy effort, supported by groups of consultants from each navy and civilian intelligence businesses. The “Purple Crew” actually is the place “understanding” comes house to roost, as Purple gamers should not solely perceive the intelligence report, however we should additionally perceive learn how to mesh what we all know into an operationalized marketing campaign that successfully challenges Blue.

Purple additionally should perceive Blue, generally in addition to Blue understands itself. Purple offers Blue with a considering enemy who understands Purple’s real-world capabilities, warfighting doctrine, and nationwide safety imperatives (what we all know). Purple then operationalizes this understanding, together with an understanding of latest and near-future warfare, right into a combat within the model the adversary would undertake (making use of what we all know). Dale Rielage, a superb Purple Crew professional, argues that the “worth of wargaming hinges largely of the standard of the opposition power—the ‘Purple.’”2 To additional his level, Rielage cites Capt. William McCarty-Little, the officer who first launched wargaming to the Naval Struggle Faculty within the Eighteen Eighties, who famous that the important thing to a profitable wargame was “a dwell, vigorous enemy within the subsequent room ready feverishly to benefit from any of our errors, ever able to puncture any visionary scheme, to haul us right down to earth.”3

Taking part in Purple is a tough process, and the Purple commander treads a slim path. On the one hand, the Purple commander will need to have a wonderful working understanding of how potential adversaries combat. It’s each artwork and science. It’s not only a technical train in understanding Purple orders of battle or the capabilities of their techniques however actually is about with the ability to apply that data in what quantities to planning after which executing a marketing campaign plan and main the adversary’s struggle combat. This implies the Purple commander wants to grasp a possible enemy’s method to warfare, their doctrine, and the way they’ve employed their forces in regional contingencies and in coaching.

However on the similar time, the Purple commander performs a key function for Blue by serving to them perceive what Purple is considering. Purple commander finds a solution to maintain Blue on its toes, all of the whereas serving to them comprehend the occasions of the sport as they unfold after which working to clarify the explanations and logic that underpin Purple actions. A Purple commander who can not do that professionally, tactfully, and with good humor can utterly scuttle the sport. To actually assist this understanding stick, a Purple commander must persuade Blue that the Purple Crew is greater than a mere sparring accomplice however a broader accomplice in studying and fascinated with what may occur in a possible battle.

Wargames ought to be about Blue’s studying, not Purple’s. Nevertheless, one of many foremost advantages for Purple in these occasions is that we be taught too. The truth is, our studying may very well be extra acute as a result of we frequently get many extra “reps and units” taking part in via numerous permutations of potential regional conflicts when in comparison with our Blue counterparts. Purple gamers change into very educated and considerate on a variety of points, lots of which relate to Blue as a lot as they do Purple. We find yourself considering an amazing deal about what warfare between peer opponents would appear like. I like to inform my Purple Crew gamers that we must always be capable to shut our eyes and visualize the battle unfolding over time and area, which permits us to grasp what key occasions might want to happen over what key items of terrain and in what time frames. As a result of we combat these wars again and again, we develop a singular understanding of each Purple and Blue, their strengths and weaknesses, the vulnerabilities they current, and the alternatives they are able to exploit.

U.S. Air Power Gen. John Hyten, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers, in describing how new joint warfighting ideas carried out in a unique wargame, famous that “with out overstating the problem, it [the concept] failed miserably. An aggressive purple crew that had been finding out the US for the final 20 years simply ran rings round us. They knew precisely what we’re going to do earlier than we did it.”4 This is a bonus {that a} good Purple commander will at all times have, which makes these video games such vital studying alternatives. Nevertheless it additionally exhibits what it means to be a very good Purple commander—we should at all times attempt to additional our personal understanding of Purple, Blue, and “Inexperienced” accomplice forces; the operational atmosphere; and up to date warfare in order that we can provide Blue the combat it wants at these wargames to advance its personal understanding.

So, what are the important thing issues I’ve realized in taking part in the function of Purple commander over the previous couple of years? Effectively, there’s a nice deal greater than I may probably put into phrases right here. However there are some vital, big-picture concepts, ideas, classes, and observations that I’ve derived from my gameplay. With out additional ado, these are my seven reflections of a Purple commander.

Lesson 1: Every part Begins with Understanding the Enemy

Easy, proper? Nevertheless it’s not so simple as you’ll suppose. The Military and the joint power are huge machines, and generally the method of understanding the enemy turns into inexorable. This may imply that the mechanisms merely transfer with out reflection or thought—by no means actually internalizing an understanding of the adversary, who, as famous within the beginning vignette, at all times will get a vote. The menace should not be allowed to get misplaced on this machine. It have to be entrance and middle to the whole lot the Military does. It should drive operations and the mixing of doctrine, group, coaching, materiel, management and schooling, personnel, services, and coverage (DOTMLPF-P). Moreover, the Nationwide Protection Technique calls on the U.S. joint power to be “menace based mostly,” and focuses on its pacing, acute, and protracted threats.5 

If we don’t base what we intend to do in a battle towards a peer competitor on an understanding of that peer competitor, then we might be at an enormous drawback in a battle. We have to keep away from future “lobster traps,” and a working data of the adversary is our greatest hedge towards a failure of creativeness. This notion is on the core of U.S. Military Coaching and Doctrine Command’s newest operational atmosphere evaluation, The Operational Setting 2024-2034: Giant-Scale Fight Operations, which states plainly, “to realize victory, the U.S. Military should know the enemy.”6 We’d like consultants with a deep understanding of the adversary, however we additionally want those that will devise struggle plans after which execute them to keep up a powerful working data of Purple. This was normal Military process through the Chilly Struggle, nevertheless it grew to become a misplaced artwork within the years following. Wargaming will help restore that artwork. For instance, in its after motion report for the Unified Pacific 22 wargame, U.S. Military Pacific’s first highlighted perception was the requirement to deal with two key benefits held by the Chinese language Folks’s Liberation Military (PLA)—mass and inside strains.7 This key conclusion from Unified Pacific 22 demonstrates how wargaming can particularly assist struggle planners and operators be taught concerning the adversary after which develop an understanding of the challenges it could want to beat in an precise battle.

Lesson 2: Warfare Stays a Human Endeavor

It’s changing into quickly obvious that competitors, disaster, and battle between nice powers and peer opponents might be joint, mixed, interagency, and whole-of-nation. The Division of Protection (DOD) wargaming neighborhood has began to grasp this and does the whole lot it may to ask consultants from exterior their typical echo chamber to take part in a sport. That is vital, because it exhibits the DOD that it’s however a part of a broader nation that may be engaged in a battle. It exhibits that different entities, whether or not an intelligence company, an ally, or even perhaps a personal business entity, might need a capability to assist resolve a navy downside.

It additionally implies that though the DOD leads most wargames, navy leaders should perceive that they won’t make lots of the essential strategic calls through the run-up to a disaster or battle. I lately performed in a sport the place a senior political appointee from inside the DOD performed the NCA for a sport through which the US was engaged in a battle with a nuclear-armed, peer competitor. The Blue Crew, in responding to Purple aggression, wished to rapidly goal and destroy quite a few Purple belongings and installations. They have been nonplussed to be taught that the authorities for his or her desired strike have been withheld because the NCA thought via his resolution. Throughout the hotwash, when Blue planners introduced the delay up, the person taking part in the NCA informed them that he was being requested to take advantage of consequential resolution any U.S. president would ever should make—to provoke fight operations towards a nuclear-armed enemy who had the potential to trigger essential injury to the US. He then, tongue-in-cheek, requested them to forgive him for taking some additional time to ponder such a momentous name.

That is an excessive instance, however wargaming wants to include not solely the capabilities but additionally the decision-making processes of a variety of actors, each throughout the U.S. authorities and amongst our allies and companions. Getting consultants from throughout this spectrum to take part in wargames will change into more and more important.

Lesson 4: Warfare Will Be Multidomain, and Wargames Enable Us to Grasp Multidomain Skillsets

What makes up to date and near-future warfare so totally different when in comparison with what we’ve got skilled because the finish of the Chilly Struggle is that our key potential adversaries can match the U.S. joint power and its allies throughout all domains. They will converge capabilities, deny us the flexibility to function in sure domains, after which obtain their marketing campaign targets in the event that they play their playing cards proper. In wargames, Purple gamers typically have extra expertise and observe at using multidomain capabilities than the standard Blue gamers, usually offering a wake-up name to the Blue Crew. Our pacing menace is designing a power able to working and converging throughout domains, with capabilities and an method to struggle that denies Blue the flexibility to maneuver or function collectively throughout warfare domains.10 If dealt with properly in a wargame, Purple can prevail. Conversely, Blue should use wargames as skill to check its personal multidomain theories. Wargames provide a singular venue the place the companies can see how issues come collectively within the joint combat. Italian airpower theorist Giulio Douhet famous, “There are consultants of land, sea, and air warfare. But there are not any consultants of warfare. And warfare is a single entity, having a typical function.”11 Wargaming will help develop these consultants and notably develop the multidomain expertise, data, and understanding that the joint power would require to tackle an adversary who can also function throughout domains.12

Lesson 5: The Military Likes to Stay within the Tactical World; Nice Energy Warfare Is Gained and Misplaced on the Operational Degree

The period of counterinsurgency shifted the Military’s focus to the tactical stage. After the preliminary invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Military modified its unit of motion to the brigade stage, and many of the preventing in Iraq and Afghanistan was finished on the battalion and firm ranges. The entire Military construction of that period—how we skilled, how we considered warfare, and the way we organized—centered on the tactical combat. Wargaming towards peer opponents, nonetheless, demonstrates that such conflicts doubtless might be gained or misplaced on the operational stage, and that operational artwork is a ability set that have to be understood all through the joint power. If the tactical stage focuses on battles, engagements, and small-unit actions, it’s the operational stage that can present the essential linkages when it comes to campaigns and main operations that guarantee tactical success ultimately interprets to the strategic stage, the place theater technique and nationwide coverage reside.13 It’s the operational artwork that permits the commander to translate strategic-level targets into duties that subordinates can accomplish.14 

An instance of this may be present in Unified Pacific 23, which centered on contested logistics. The sport’s closing report notes the criticality of enhancing joint mixed command and management. For sustainment, the need to maximise operational-level, intratheater motion is then managed by U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s rising Pacific Deployment and Distribution Operations Middle, which takes in necessities from service elements after which points orders to subordinate instructions to execute. The Military’s eighth Theater Sustainment Command then evaluated greatest practices and strategies to hold out sustainment right down to the tactical formations within the combat.15 A lot of these points routinely dominate wargaming and are clearly operational moderately than tactical. This vignette demonstrates how working towards operational artwork is an important benefit of wargaming.

Lesson 6: Wargaming “Reps and Units” Guard Towards Strategic Shock and Failure of Creativeness

Purple consultants spend most of their time fascinated with our adversaries and what battle with them may entail, and most have performed Purple in lots of wargames. The following sport isn’t abstract studying for Purple—it’s simply one other permutation of a combat they’ve fought quite a few different occasions. Blue typically doesn’t get the posh to do that within the every day press of regular operations, and when the Blue Crew assembles for a wargame, it doubtless is the primary time lots of them have confronted the operationalizing of their struggle plans. Armies and troopers usually be taught greatest via expertise of battle, and wargaming is among the greatest methods to at the very least approximate a number of the challenges that may very well be confronted when a battle begins. In his glorious work on wargaming the unfought battles of the Chilly Struggle, Jim Storr notes, “Issues that may be blindingly apparent to somebody who gamed dozens of battles would possibly properly be nonsensical or, at greatest, counterintuitive to commanders who served for years however by no means fought [them].”16 Having the chance to combat the fights that might happen implies that leaders could have the chance to confront the challenges they may encounter and never be confronted with shock or undergo a failure of creativeness.

A pertinent historic instance entails Gen. Douglas MacArthur through the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1941. All through the interwar years, U.S. protection planners struggled with the notion of learn how to defend the Philippines from a possible Japanese assault. The outcome was the well-known Struggle Plan Orange (WPO), which understood, even earlier than the assault on Pearl Harbor, the difficulties that the US would have in reinforcing the Philippines throughout the expanse of the Pacific and within the face of Japanese air and maritime energy. WPO-3, the variant in impact in 1941, known as for the U.S. forces within the Philippines to withdraw to the defensible Bataan Peninsula on Luzon, the place, with pre-positioned sustainment shares in place, they might maintain so long as potential to provide forces marshaling on the U.S. West Coast and Hawaii time to defeat the Japanese Navy and relieve the defenders. Regardless of the years of labor in devising WPO—and numerous wargames supporting it—MacArthur utterly revised the plan on the eve of the particular Japanese assault. As a substitute of consolidating on the protection on favorable terrain, he would try to defeat the Japanese on the seashores of Luzon, wherever they landed. When the Japanese landed, MacArthur’s forces have been utterly out of place and out of time.17 On this case, MacArthur disregarded the “reps and units” that went into devising WPO-3 and suffered attributable to his overconfidence. Nevertheless, when leaders get the possibility to be taught from their participation in wargames, the experiential studying course of typically turns into visceral and unforgettable, and hopefully will stop future circumstances just like the Philippines in 1941.

Lesson 7: Blue Purchase-In Is What Makes Wargaming Helpful

Purple’s job in wargaming is tough, because it usually should relay uncomfortable truths to Blue. For wargaming to have worth, Blue should perceive and settle for the notion that the state of affairs Purple is presenting is legitimate. Purple teaming professional Micah Zenko writes that there are three parts of buy-in that Blue should undertake. First, Blue should settle for that there’s a potential vulnerability inside its sphere of curiosity/motion that Purple will help uncover and handle. In navy phrases, this represents capabilities, approaches to struggle, and plans that may doubtlessly defeat Blue. Second, Blue have to be keen to assemble the perfect Purple gamers it may probably discover. And third, Blue should enable Purple to be completely truthful about its findings.18 This isn’t at all times straightforward, and wargames are replete with tales about Blue discounting Purple actions based mostly on the cliché {that a} Purple motion “would by no means occur” or, even worse, that Purple “cheated.”

The story of Millenium Problem 2002, an idea improvement wargame that was designed to validate an entire new joint method to struggle, nonetheless resonates as a warning of what can occur when this buy-in doesn’t exist. A robust Purple Crew led by retired U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper created controversy by demonstrating the failings in Blue’s idea. As a substitute of accepting the failings, joint forces command management as an alternative fell line with the “this might by no means occur” faculty of thought and reset the sport, including huge constraints on Purple. This led to a public relations catastrophe that continues to be a case research of how to not use wargaming.19

Nevertheless, failing to get Blue buy-in to Zenko’s three parts have, in observe, had way more devastating results than merely broken reputations. On 27 August 1941, a gaggle of graduate college students from Japan’s Complete Struggle Analysis Institute, an establishment that introduced collectively the elite younger leaders of the Japanese navy and civilian authorities, introduced a report back to Japanese Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro on Japan’s prospects for successful a struggle towards the US and its allies. The report, which was backed by in depth analysis and wargaming, asserted that Japan would possibly prevail in just a few preliminary battles however concluded that it could be drawn right into a protracted battle the place its sources would dwindle and ultimately expire, resulting in inevitable defeat. Because of this, the Japanese performed one other wargame designed to check their conclusion, and many of the ministers who participated got here to the identical conclusion concerning a struggle with the US.20 But Japanese decision-makers—political and navy—ignored the findings.

A more healthy and extra helpful instance of Blue buy-in may be discovered with Unified Pacific. The outcomes from Unified Pacific 23, for instance, have been integrated into U.S. Military Pacific’s operational marketing campaign—Operation Pathways—and into real-world workouts, just like the joint U.S.-Australian Talisman Sabre 23. Most of the outcomes additionally have been included within the U.S. Navy’s World sport.21

Conclusion

There are lots of extra issues I’ve realized from taking part in Purple in these wargames, and so they vary throughout quite a lot of points. Easy issues, like understanding the navy implications of geography, to the very complicated, resembling what it means to interact in open battle with a nuclear-armed peer adversary or understanding how we finish wars. Taking part in in video games actually has made me a greater intelligence analyst as the sensible, experiential aspect of gaming has revealed implications and insights that intelligence reporting alone may by no means have given me. Most of all, it has pushed house for me the need to develop a powerful working relationship with Blue decision-makers, operators, and employees officers. These relationships are constructed on belief, which develops over time. When Purple can show that it’s certainly on the identical crew as Blue, a exceptional sort of studying happens, and we’re in a position to get to the kind of competency required to prevail in world wars towards peer opponents.

I’ve realized that we don’t wargame sufficient, and that we must always discover methods to include wargaming extra deeply throughout all our varied disciplines, and never simply in giant, command-sponsored, multiweek video games. Along with the time I’ve spent supporting these video games, I’m additionally an avid pastime wargamer, and I’ve realized an amazing deal from taking part in “for enjoyable.” Particularly, I generally get to play Blue, which is remarkably enjoyable and fascinating to me. When finished proper, a Purple commander can present a major power multiplier to Blue. On his first day because the Pacific commander in chief, Adm. Chester Nimitz famously met along with his employees intelligence chief, then Lt. Cmdr. Edwin Layton, and informed him,

“I would like you to be the Admiral Nagumo of my employees. I would like your each thought, each intuition as you consider Admiral Nagumo might need them. You might be to see the struggle, their operations, their goals, from the Japanese viewpoint and maintain me suggested what you might be fascinated with, what you might be doing, and what function, what technique motivates your operations. If you are able to do this, you’ll give me the sort of data wanted to win the struggle.”22

If Purple is performed properly in a wargame, the Purple commander can do what Nimitz charged of Layton however hopefully previous to a catastrophe of strategic shock and failure of creativeness of the magnitude of Pearl Harbor.

Apparently, our pacing menace has adopted this very method. The PLA has enthusiastically adopted wargaming as a way of testing its personal concepts about warfare and to assist overcome its lack of real-world fight expertise. The PLA Navy has led the best way on this regard, and it acknowledges the necessity to successfully replicate its adversary—the US—in these video games. To take action, the PLA Navy created the Blue Crew Middle (in PLA parlance, the Blue Crew are the adversaries) on the Naval Command Faculty at Nanjing. The faculty’s one-time commander, then Rear Adm. Shen Jinlong, who was later promoted and served because the PLA Navy commander, famous that the PLA Navy’s wargaming confronted a serious downside—specifically, that “Purple (China) and Blue (the US) have been like twins. Not solely have been Blue’s group, gear, and fight model the identical as Purple—they even had the identical operational considering.”23 The Blue Crew is designed to rectify this mirror imaging in order that PLA Navy wargames are extra helpful and efficient. A profile of the Blue Crew director, Gong Jia, signifies that his purpose is to grasp the minds of Blue on the marketing campaign stage (operational stage in Chinese language terminology) and above.24

In a single sport the place I performed Purple commander, the Workplace of the Secretary of Protection despatched an observer crew to evaluate if Purple was being performed successfully. As I used to be Purple commander, the observers pulled me apart to interview me and ask me questions on how the sport was going and the way I used to be taking part in Purple. One of many questions they requested me was among the many greatest questions I’d ever heard as a result of it will get to the gist of what it means to be an efficient Purple commander. They requested me, “How a lot better are you than Purple can be in an actual combat?” After fascinated with it for a minute, I mentioned our crew in all probability was higher as a result of we perceive Blue as a lot as we do Purple. I informed them in the event that they requested me to, I may instantly take over as Blue commander and primarily run their combat as a result of I had seen it and skilled it a lot in so many different video games. The observer crew appeared proud of this reply and moved on.

However the query has caught with me ever since. If Purple does its job properly, it offers Blue with the possibility to attempt new issues, to fail, to be taught, and to hopefully redefine the tales that we inform ourselves, and to plot new ideas and concepts that can result in victory in a future battle. In referring to the work finished by the joint board within the Thirties and early Forties at growing the “Rainbow” struggle plans (such because the aforementioned WPO), which included quite a lot of analysis and wargaming, Blaine Pardoe writes, “With out the abilities earned working within the darkness … the US would have struggled to try to develop this competency in its common employees.”25 This “work within the darkness” requires a succesful, educated, versatile, and adaptive Purple that can allow Blue studying.

A wargame is not going to predict the long run for Blue, but when Purple does its job appropriately, it should enable Blue to expertise what a possible combat may appear like. It turns into the work within the darkness that permits Blue to be taught, and hopefully results in the sunshine of victory within the subsequent struggle. So maybe a very powerful lesson of all will get again to the start—we’ve got to get Purple proper in order that Blue will get the chance to be taught and to get it proper on a future battlefield.

Ian M. Sullivan is the deputy chief of employees, G-2, for the U.S. Military Coaching and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). He holds a BA from Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, and an MA from Georgetown College’s BMW Middle for German and European Research in Washington, D.C., and he was a Fulbright Fellow on the Universität Potsdam in Potsdam, Germany. A profession civilian intelligence officer, Sullivan has served with the Workplace of Naval Intelligence; Headquarters, U.S. Military Europe and Seventh Military; the Workplace of the Director of Nationwide Intelligence (ODNI) on the Nationwide Counterterrorism Middle; the Central Intelligence Company; and TRADOC. He’s a member of the Protection Intelligence Senior Govt Service and was first promoted to the senior civilian ranks in 2013 as a member of the ODNI’s Senior Nationwide Intelligence Service.

The creator want to thank Maj. Gen. Jay Bartholomees, U.S. Military, and Charlie Raymond (TRADOC G-2) for his or her considerate evaluations and edits of this text.

Notes

1. Ed McGrady, “Getting the Story Proper About Wargaming,” Struggle on the Rocks, 8 November 2019,

2. Dale C. Rielage, “Struggle Gaming Should Get Purple Proper: An Knowledgeable In-Home Adversary is a Highly effective Instrument for the Fleet,” Proceedings 143, no. 1 (January 2017), 

3. Ibid.

4. Tara Copp, “‘It Failed Miserably’: After Wargaming Loss, Joint Chiefs Are Overhauling How the US Army Will Struggle,” Protection One, 26 July 2021,

5. U.S. Division of Protection, 2022 Nationwide Protection Technique (Washington, DC: U.S. Division of Protection, 2022). 

6. U.S. Military Coaching and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), The Operational Setting 2024–2034: Giant-Scale Fight Operations (Fort Eustis, VA: TRADOC, 1 August 2024), 31, 

7. U.S. Military Pacific (USARPAC), Unified Pacific Wargame Sequence 2022: Unclassified Overview (Fort Shafter, HI: USARPAC, September 2022), 4, 

8. Authorities Accounting Workplace (GAO), Protection Evaluation: Further Actions May Improve DOD’s Wargaming Efforts, GAO-23-105351 (Washington, DC: GAO, April 2023), 

9. Marc Ambinder, The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear Struggle Scare of 1982 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2018), 82–89.

10. Ian M. Sullivan, “Three Dates, Three Home windows, and All of DOTMLPF-P: How the Folks’s Liberation Military Poses an All-of-Military Problem,” Army Assessment 104, no. 1 (January-February 2024): 14–25, 

11. Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air, trans. Sheila Fischer (1921; Rome: Rivista Aeronautica, 1958).

12. Robert P. Haffa Jr. and James H. Patton Jr., “Wargames, Profitable and Dropping,” Parameters 31, no. 1 (Spring 2001): Article 9, 

13. Chad Buckel, “A New Have a look at Operational Artwork: How We View Struggle Dictates How We Struggle It,” Joint Power Quarterly 100 (1st Quarter, January 2021): 94–100, 

14. Wilson Blythe, “A Historical past of Operational Artwork,” Army Assessment 98, no. 6 (November-December 2018): 37–49, 

15. USARPAC, Unified Pacific Wargame Sequence 2023: Unclassified Overview (Fort Shafter, HI: USARPAC, September 2023), 8.

16. Jim Storr, Battlegroup! The Classes of the Unfought Battles of the Chilly Struggle (Warwick, UK: Helion, 2021), 74–75.

17. John C. McManus, Fireplace and Fortitude: The U.S. Military within the Pacific Struggle, 1941–1943 (New York: Caliber, 2019), 63–64.

18. Micah Zenko, Purple Crew: How one can Succeed by Considering Just like the Enemy (New York: Primary Books, 2015), 2–5.

19. Ibid., 52–61; Micah Zenko, “Millenium Problem: The Actual Story of a Corrupted Army Train and Its Legacy,” Struggle on the Rocks, 5 November 2015,

20. Eri Hotta, Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy (New York: Classic Books, 2014), 164–65.

21. USARPAC, Unified Pacific Wargame Sequence 2023, 11.

22. Ian W. Toll, Pacific Crucible: Struggle at Sea within the Pacific, 1941–1942 (New York: W. W. Norton, 2012), 307; Rielage, “Struggle Gaming Should Get Purple Proper.”

23. Ryan D. Martinson, “The PLA Navy’s Blue Crew Middle Video games for Struggle,” Proceedings 150, no. 5 (Could 2024), 

24. Ibid.

25. Blaine L. Pardoe, By no means Wars: The US Struggle Plans to Invade the World (London: Fonthill, 2014), 28.

Featured Picture: College students transfer items across the board on 21 December 2023 throughout a wargame based mostly on Pacific battle whereas attending the Air Struggle Faculty at Maxwell Air Power Base, Alabama. (Photograph by Billy Blankenship, U.S. Air Power)