1. Scenarios and Wargames
Yuna Wong
January 11, 2016
Presentation to the MORS Wargaming Community of Practice

2. Agenda Scenarios and Wargaming JIWAB and Project Cassandra
Developing Futures Scenarios Using Wargames
Step 1: Structure the Context
Step 2: Down select and Add Detail
Step 3: Identify Key Actors and Their Information
Step 5: Wargame

3. Scenarios and Wargames
Usually think of scenario as the set-up for a wargame
Scenario usually has the detail, was has happened to bring events to the point in the game
Harvey DeWeerd (1973)
Typical way of doing scenarios about adding plausible backstory to a future war you want to consider
Disagreed with this approach and argued you should start from the context
Harvey DeWeerd, A Contextual Approach to Scenario Construction (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1973)

4. JIWAB and Project Cassandra
Drawing on my experiences in two efforts
Joint Irregular Warfare Analytic Baseline (JIWAB) study led by Marine Corps Operations Analysis Directors (OAD)
Alternatives to computer modeling & simulation for irregular warfare (IW)
Included scenario development and wargaming
Intended to produce scenarios, capabilities analyses for IW
Project Cassandra conducted at 2016 Connections and 2016 MORS Special Meeting on Wargaming
Guided discussions vs. wargames discussion
Separate two and refine the two
Intended to let participants build game terms of reference

5. From Context to Wargame
Step
JIWAB Method
Project Cassandra Method
1. Structure the Context - Generate the Possible Worlds
General Morphological Analysis (GMA)
Critical Uncertainties
2. Downselect and Add Detail
Sampling, stakeholder voting and input, structured scenario fusion
Voting and Group-Generated Backstory
3. Identify Key Actors and Their Information
Interagency Conflict Assessment Framework, Analytic (ICAF-A)
Brainstorming and actant analysis
4. Wargame
Seminar wargame
Matrix wargame
Links:

6. JIWAB Step 1: General Morphological Analysis
Economic Conditions
Oil
Resource Distribution
Environmental Conditions
Big Internal Migration
Political (Ideology) trends
Governance
Relations of North and South (incl. Abyei)
Negotiations in Darfur and The Two Areas
Actions of Neighbors
External Intervention (Donors, NGOs, Investors)
Areas of Interest or Potential Conflict
Ethnic Relations
High Economic Growth
Price up; production up
More unbalanced
Drought and food gap
Welcomed migration
Arabization / Islamization
Improved human rights, political accommodation, and transparency
N-S issues resolved
Lasting peace
Everybody helps stabilize
Reduced engagement
Center
Increased competition and tension
Improving
Price up; production down
Unbalanced as at present
Floods
Unwelcome migration
Military authoritarian / single party
Continued buying off elites
N-S mixed / partially resolved
Flawed agreement
Mixed roles
Normalization
South
Violent conflict
Just Keeping Pace
Price down; production up
More balanced
Livestock diseases / pestilence
No big migrations
Democratizing / liberalizing
Greater repression and corruption
N-S unresolved
No agreement with continued discussions
Neutral
Increased support and engagement from outside
East
Continued domination by a few ethnic groups
Deteriorat-ing
Price down; production down
Favorable weather
Chaos / state failure
No agreement and end to negotiations
Support for dissidents / instability
Shift in supporters
West
More groups empowered
Economic Collapse
No major issues
Not relevant
Favoring the other
The Three Areas
Creation of national unity
Polarization of support (opposite sides)
Southern Border States
No hot spots
Method reference: Tom Ritchey, “General Morphological Analysis,” at

7. Cassandra Step 1: Critical Uncertainties
Project Cassandra axes:
Known vs. unknown adversaries
Open vs. closed information access
Method source:

8. JIWAB Step 2: Counterfactual Reasoning
Source: Noel Hendrickson,

9. JIWAB Step 2: Proto-Scenarios
Alec Barker,

10. Cassandra Step 2: Quadrant Worksheet and Voting
Groups broke out into the four quadrants
Quadrant worksheet:
Scale (international, national, etc.)
Location
Timeframe
Antecedent events: what had to happen from the present day to get to the conditions in your quadrant?
“Cyber Mercenaries”
Open information access and unknown adversaries
China after it transitions to a democracy
Large pool of former Chinese government hackers available for hire

11. JIWAB Step 3: ICAF-A
Source:

12. JIWAB Step 3: ICAF-A Expert Workshops
Also had a semantic wiki to organize data on actors, narratives, etc..
Wong, et. al,

13. Cassandra Step 3: Brainstorming
Participants brainstormed potential actors in the world
Brainstormed using post-its and All
U.S. & UK governments
A future Chinese government after a transition to democracy
U.S. banks
Hackers for hire
An unknown actor

14. Cassandra Step 3: Actor Analysis Worksheet
Narrative Element
Definition
Example from Disney’s Pinocchio
Actor
Main protagonist
Pinocchio
Objective
Subject’s goals
To become a real boy
Helper
Conditions or actors who support the subject
Jiminy Cricket
Blocker
Conditions or actors who block the subject
Gideon the cat, Honest John the fox, temptation of Pleasure Island
Sender
Entity or conditions that provide the backdrop rules or values
Blue Fairy
Receiver
Entity or conditions where the rules or values are manifest
Pinocchio and Gepetto
Also asked what means the actors had

15. JIWAB Step 4: Seminar Game

16. Cassandra Step 4: Matrix Game
Pro-con system
Participant teams played for whom they had developed narratives
Two rounds of play
Game design by Phil Pournelle

17. Take-Aways? Using wargaming as a way to developed scenarios
Other steps that lead up to a wargame that could help the game
What future scenario space is possible?
What points in that future do you care about?
What actors are there and what do they believe?
Setting participants up for playing a role
Differences
JIWAB was analytic, this step was purposely to produce IW scenarios; different experts involved in different steps
Project Cassandra was to take same group of people into a building their own game