Wargaming Deception

Abstract

This paper aims to address the questions of how existing wargames can be utilized to study deception and how wargames can help analyze decision-makers’ vulnerability to deception. To do so, this paper 1) adds a deception-focused analytical framework to a recent Japanese pol-mil tabletop simulation on cross-strait (China-Taiwan) crises and 2) uses the framework to see how deception functions and what effect(s) it generates in a particular cognitive war through a post wargame report. Example questions for data capture are also raised. This paper’s approach may be only a stop-gap measure and initial experiment. This paper concludes that many existing wargame designs can be amended to analyze deception rather easily in a post-game analysis without making the players preoccupied with guarding against deception during the game, but that there should be more deception-focused wargames that contribute to data capture for post-game analysis as well as training policy-makers against deception. This would help policymakers prepare for future cognitive wars in which AI or more autonomous technologies will likely be employed.