{"id":34668,"date":"2016-04-28T02:00:53","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T06:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=34668"},"modified":"2016-04-27T08:19:12","modified_gmt":"2016-04-27T12:19:12","slug":"wargaming-at-the-marine-corps-war-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2016\/04\/28\/wargaming-at-the-marine-corps-war-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Wargaming at the Marine Corps War College"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professor James Lacey<\/a> explains why he introduced commercial wargames into his curriculum for USMC officers at the war college:<\/p>\n

As every team plotted their strategic \u201cends,\u201d students soon realized that neither side had the resources \u2014 \u201cmeans\u201d \u2014 to do everything they wanted. Strategic decisions quickly became a matter of tradeoffs, as the competitors struggled to find the \u201cways\u201d to secure sufficient \u201cmeans\u201d to achieve their objectives (\u201cends\u201d). For the first time, students were able to examine the strategic options of the Peloponnesian War within the strictures that limited the actual participants in that struggle.<\/p>\n

Remarkably, four of the five Athenian teams actually attacked Syracuse on Sicily\u2019s east coast! As they were all aware that such a course had led to an Athenian disaster 2,500 years before, I queried them about their decision. Their replies were the same: Each had noted that the Persians were stirring, which meant there was a growing threat to Athens\u2019 supply of wheat from the Black Sea. As there was an abundance of wheat near Syracuse, each Athenian team decided to secure it as a second food source (and simultaneously deny it to Sparta and its allies) in the event the wheat from the Black Sea was lost to them. Along the way, two of the teams secured Pylos so as to raise helot revolts that would damage the Spartan breadbasket. Two of the teams also ended revolts in Corcyra, which secured that island\u2019s fleet for Athenian purposes, and had the practical effect of blockading Corinth. So, it turns out there were a number of good strategic reasons for Athens to attack Syracuse. Who knew? Certainly not any War College graduate over the past few decades.<\/p>\n

All of these courses of action were thoroughly discussed by each team, as were Spartan counter moves. For the first time in my six years at the Marine Corps War College, I was convinced that the students actually understood the range of strategies and options Thucydides wrote about. In the following days, I was stopped dozens of times by students who wanted discuss other options they might have employed, and, even better, to compare their decisions to what actually happened. A number of students told me they were still thinking about various options and decisions weeks later. I assure you that no one even spent even a car ride home thinking about my Thucydides lectures.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

At the end of each wargame, students walked away with a new appreciation of the historical circumstances of the period and the events they had read about and discussed in class. And even though all wargames are an abstract of actual events, I am sure that no student exposed to historical gaming will ever again read about the Peloponnesian War without thinking about Sicily\u2019s wheat, the crucial importance of holding the Isthmus of Corinth, or what could have been done with a bit more Persian silver in the coffers of one side or the other\u2019s treasury. Similarly, the next time one of this year\u2019s students reads about Lee and Grant in 1864, they will also be thinking about how the truly decisive actions took place out west. For, as it was during the actual conflict, in every game the students played, Grant\u2019s role was to pin down the Army of Northern Virginia, while the western armies ripped out the economic heart of the Confederacy.<\/p>\n

In fact, I was astounded at the number of students who approached me after the Civil War exercise to mention that despite having studied the Civil War before, this was the first time they realized that the war was won in the west. I could go on for another few thousand words discussing other revelations students experienced through gaming and simulations, but the key point is that these experiential learning experiences linger in students\u2019 minds for a very long time. I once asked my seminars how many of them had discussed the games and their results with their spouses. Every hand went up. I am quite sure that very few of them ever discussed one of my lectures with their spouses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor James Lacey explains why he introduced commercial wargames into his curriculum for USMC officers at the war college: As every team plotted their strategic \u201cends,\u201d students soon realized that neither side had the resources \u2014 \u201cmeans\u201d \u2014 to do everything they wanted. Strategic decisions quickly became a matter of tradeoffs, as the competitors struggled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,5,13],"tags":[732,650,514,623],"class_list":["post-34668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gaming","category-military","category-usa","tag-athens","tag-civilwar","tag-usmc","tag-wargames"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-91a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34669,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34668\/revisions\/34669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}