War-Gaming Network-Centric Warfare

The familiar techniques of war gaming will be insufficient for scenarios involving network-centric warfare. NCW, as it is known—with its focus on speed, downstream effects, and information flow—will require of gamers more than simply additional computational power or communications bandwidth, although these will certainly be needed. Gamers will need a new framework in which to apply these tools. In 1886, Lieutenant William McCarty Little introduced war gaming to the Naval War College. The concept found immediate acceptance; faculty and students recognized that the war game was well suited to analyzing the characteristics of naval warfare of the time. Gaming has since been applied to all manner of warfare, in a variety of ways. As warfare has become more sophisticated, multidimensional, and joint, the challenges of gaming it have increased. Even the application of computer technology has not been effective for all purposes, especially in games that involve large forces. We are now facing, in network-centric warfare, a new form of conflict that will challenge gamers even more severely. In this article we will attempt to develop a framework to help us identify techniques necessary for gaming network-centric warfare. A characteristic of warfare that has made it amenable in the past to simulation through gaming is its inherently structured nature. Troops operate in formations; so do ships and aircraft. Groupings of units or formations generally operate according to Captain Rubel is a naval aviator who flew A-7s and F/A-18s from 1973 to 1991. He made seven carrier deployments and participated in operations in support of U.S. policy in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the 1974 Cyprus crisis, the 1980 Iranian hostage crisis, the TWA Flight 847 crisis, and DESERT SHIELD. He commanded Fighter Attack Squadron (VFA) 131 and served as the inspector general of U.S. Southern Command. He attended the Spanish Naval War College and the U.S. Naval War College, where he also served on the faculty. He has a bachelor of science degree in psychology from the University of Illinois, a master of science in management from Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island, and a master of arts in national security and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College. He is currently the deputy dean of the College’s Center for Naval Warfare Studies.