Simulation and Wargaming

8The Use of M&S and Wargaming to Address Wicked Problems

Phillip E. Pournelle

Commander, United States Navy, Retired, Fairfax, Virginia

The United States Department of Defense (DoD) faces significant challenges as it confronts competitors in a rapidly changing environment.¹ The rapid proliferation of new capabilities in the hands of competitors and opponents who employ them in new and innovative ways has created wicked problems that require innovative solutions.² Modeling and Simulation (M&S) tools cannot effectively provide solutions to these wicked problems on their own and in many respects the validity of answers from these tools should be viewed with suspicion.³ The proper use of an iterative cycle of research employing multiple tools will likely deliver the best results. The cycle of research employing wargames, operations analysis (including M&S), and exercises will provide the best answers to wicked problems. Each of these approaches can strengthen the other and avoid certain weaknesses. However, each of these tools requires the employment of best practices to avoid certain pathologies that can weaken the overall effort.⁴

The reason why M&S will not be effective in most cases is the problem will be dominated by the decisions humans will be making, particularly under conditions of uncertainty. Simulation simply has not solved the problem of realistically representing human decision‐making under varying conditions. Further, if the problem includes new innovations then ...