![Valiant Shield - US Kitty Hawk kicks off operations](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Valiant_Shield_-_US_Kitty_Hawk_kicks_off_operations.jpg)
A military exercise or war game is the employment of military resources in training for
military operation
A military operation is the coordinated military actions of a state, or a non-state actor, in response to a developing situation. These actions are designed as a military plan to resolve the situation in the state or actor's favor. Operations ma ...
s, either exploring the effects of
war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
fare or testing strategies without actual
combat. This also serves the purpose of ensuring the
combat readiness
readiness is a condition of the armed forces and their constituent units and formations, warships, aircraft, weapon systems or other military technology and equipment to perform during combat military operations, or functions consistent with th ...
of garrisoned or deployable forces prior to deployment from a home base. While both war games and military exercises aim to simulate real conditions and scenarios for the purpose of preparing and analyzing those scenarios, the distinction between a war game and a military exercise is determined, primarily, by the involvement of actual military forces within the simulation, or lack thereof. Military exercises focus on the simulation of real, full-scale military operations in controlled hostile conditions in attempts to reproduce war time decisions and activities for training purposes or to analyze the outcome of possible war time decisions. War games, however, can be much smaller than full-scale military operations, do not typically include the use of functional military equipment, and decisions and actions are carried out by artificial players to simulate possible decisions and actions within an artificial scenario which usually represents a model of a real-world scenario. Additionally, mathematical modeling is used in the simulation of war games to provide a quantifiable method of deduction. However, it is rare that a war game is depended upon for quantitative results, and the use of war games is more often found in situations where qualitative factors of the simulated scenario are needed to be determined.
The actual use of war games and the results that they can provide are limited by possibilities. War games cannot be used to achieve predictive results, as the nature of war and the scenarios that war games aim to simulate are not deterministic. Therefore, war games are primarily used to consider multiple possible outcomes of any given decision, or number of decisions, made in the simulated scenario. These possible outcomes are analyzed and compared, and cause-and-effect relationships are typically sought for the unknown factors within the simulation. It is typically the relationships between visual aspects of the simulation that aid in the assessment of the problems that are simulated within war games, like geographic locations and positionings that would be difficult to discern or analyze at full-scale and for complex environments.
War games involving two or more countries allows for better coordination between militaries, observation of enemy's tactics, and is a visible show of strength for the participating countries. According to a 2021 study, joint military exercises within well-defined alliances usually deter adversaries without producing a moral hazard because of the narrow scope of the alliance, while joint military exercises outside of an alliance (which are extremely rare) usually lead to conflict escalation.
Exercises in the 20th and 21st centuries have often been identified by a unique
codename
A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in industrial c ...
, such as
Cobra Gold
Cobra Gold refers to multi-national Indo-Pacific military exercises held in Thailand. They are among the largest annual exercises of their kind.
Overview
Cobra Gold was first held in 1982 and has improved coordination between the armed force ...
, in the same manner as military contingency operations and combat operations like
Operation Phantom Fury
The Second Battle of Fallujah, codenamed Operation al-Fajr ( ar, الفجر, ) and Operation Phantom Fury, was an American-led offensive of the Iraq War that lasted roughly 6 weeks, starting 7th November, 2004. Marking the highest point of the ...
.
Military exercises are sometimes used as cover for build up to an actual invasion such as in the cases of the
Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia
The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia refers to the events of 20–21 August 1968, when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Rep ...
and the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. ...
, or it can provoke opponents at peace to perceive it as such in the case of
Able Archer 83
Able Archer 83 was the annual NATO Able Archer exercise conducted in November 1983. The purpose for the command post exercise, like previous years, was to simulate a period of conflict escalation, culminating in the US military attaining a simul ...
.
Types
Command Post
A Command Post Exercise (CPX) typically focuses on the battle readiness of staffs such as a particular
Unified Combatant Command
A unified combatant command (CCMD), also referred to as a combatant command, is a joint military command of the United States Department of Defense that is composed of units from two or more service branches of the United States Armed Forces, an ...
or one of its components at any level. It may run in parallel with an FTX or its equivalent, or as a stand-alone event for headquarters staff only with heavy emphasis on simulated events.
Field
Historical names for the field exercise, or the full-scale rehearsal of military maneuvers as practice for warfare in the military services of the British Commonwealth include "schemes," while those of the military services United States are known as
Field Training Exercises (FTX), or, in the case of naval forces, Fleet Exercises (FLEETEX).
In a field exercise or fleet exercise, the two sides in the simulated battle are typically called "red" (simulating the
enemy forces) and "blue", to avoid naming a particular adversary. This naming convention originates with the inventors of the table-top war-game (the "
Kriegsspiel
''Kriegsspiel'' is a genre of wargaming developed by the Prussian Army in the 19th century to teach battlefield tactics to officers. The word ''Kriegsspiel'' literally means "wargame" in German, but in the context of the English language it ref ...
"), the Prussian
Georg von Reisswitz
Georg Heinrich Rudolf Johann von Reisswitz (1794–1827) was a Prussian army officer. Reisswitz is regarded by many as the father of wargaming, as he developed the first wargaming system to be widely used as a serious tool for training and researc ...
; their army wore
Prussian blue
Prussian blue (also known as Berlin blue, Brandenburg blue or, in painting, Parisian or Paris blue) is a dark blue pigment produced by oxidation of ferrous ferrocyanide salts. It has the chemical formula Fe CN)">Cyanide.html" ;"title="e(Cyani ...
, so friendly forces were depicted by the color blue.
Multiple forces
Several different armed forces of the same nation training together are described as having a joint exercise.
Those involving forces of multiple nations are described as having a combined exercise or coalition exercise, also called a bilateral exercise if based on security agreements between two nations, or a multilateral exercise if multiple nations.
Simulation
Other types of exercise include the TEWT (Tactical Exercise Without Troops), also known as a
sand table
A sand table uses constrained sand for modelling or educational purposes. The original version of a sand table may be the abax used by early Greek students. In the modern era, one common use for a sand table is to make terrain models for milit ...
, map or cloth model exercise. This type of exercise (in recent years assisted by
computer simulation) allows commanders to manipulate
models through possible scenarios in military planning. This is also called warfare simulation, or in some instances a
virtual battlefield and in the past has been described as "wargames." Such examples of modern military wargames include
DARWARS {{nofootnotes, date=June 2016
DARWARS was a research program at DARPA intended to accelerate the development and deployment of military training systems. These were envisioned as low-cost, mobile, web-centric, simulation-based, “lightweight” sy ...
, a
serious game
A serious game or applied game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The "serious" adjective is generally prepended to refer to video games used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, he ...
developed since 2003 by the US
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Originally known as the Ad ...
agency with
BBN Technologies
Raytheon BBN (originally Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc.) is an American research and development company, based next to Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.
In 1966, the Franklin Institute awarded the firm the Frank P. Brown ...
, a
defense contractor
The arms industry, also known as the arms trade, is a global industry which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology. It consists of a commercial industry involved in the research and development, engineering, production, and se ...
which was involved in the development of
packet switching
In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping data into '' packets'' that are transmitted over a digital network. Packets are made of a header and a payload. Data in the header is used by networking hardware to direct the p ...
, used for
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...
, and which developed the first
computer modem
A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by Modulation#Digital modulati ...
in 1963.
Military's operations and training have included different scenarios a soldier might encounter with morals and different ethics. In one military operation soldiers are frequently asked to engage in combat, humanitarian, and stabilization roles. These increase the ambiguity of a role one may encounter and challenge of ethics. This will also lead the military personnel to have to make a difficult call in challenging circumstances. Even in difficult situations and conditions, military personnel still has to follow rules and regulations such as: 1) when the right thing to do is not immediately clear; 2) when two or more important principles or values support different actions, and 3) when some harm will result, regardless of the actions taken (Defense Ethics Program, Department of National Defense, 2012). These simulations involve crude living conditions, sleep deprivations, time limit, and either lack or ambiguous amount of information.
A subset of simulated exercises is the Table Top Exercise (TTX), typically limited to senior personnel stepping through the decision-making processes they would employ in a crisis, a contingency, or general warfare.
History
![Warsteed 1987](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Warsteed_1987.png)
The use of military exercises and war games can be found to date back to as early as the early 19th century, wherein it was the officers of the Prussian Army who created the contemporary, tactical form of wargames that have since been more widely used and developed by other military conglomerations throughout the world. Non-tactical forms of wargames have existed for much longer, however, in the forms of tabletop games such as chess and Go.
The modern use of military exercises grew out of the
military
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
need to study
war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
fare and to 'reenact' old battles for learning purposes. During the age of ''
Kabinettskriege
Cabinet wars, derived from the German expression ''Kabinettskriege'' (, singular ''Kabinettskrieg''), were the type of wars which affected Europe during the period of absolute monarchies, from the 1648 Peace of Westphalia to the 1789 French Revolu ...
'' (Cabinet wars),
Frederick the Great
Frederick II (german: Friedrich II.; 24 January 171217 August 1786) was King in Prussia from 1740 until 1772, and King of Prussia from 1772 until his death in 1786. His most significant accomplishments include his military successes in the S ...
,
King of Prussia
The monarchs of Prussia were members of the House of Hohenzollern who were the hereditary rulers of the former German state of Prussia from its founding in 1525 as the Duchy of Prussia. The Duchy had evolved out of the Teutonic Order, a Roman C ...
from 1740 to 1786, "put together his armies as a well-oiled clockwork mechanism whose components were
robot
A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may ...
-like warriors. No individual initiative was allowed to Frederick's soldiers; their only role was to cooperate in the creation of walls of projectiles through synchronized firepower."
This was in the pursuit of a more effective army, and such practices made it easier to look at war from a top-down perspective. Disciplined troops should respond predictably, allowing study to be confined to maneuvers and
command
Command may refer to:
Computing
* Command (computing), a statement in a computer language
* COMMAND.COM, the default operating system shell and command-line interpreter for DOS
* Command key, a modifier key on Apple Macintosh computer keyboards
* ...
.
![ReForGer 86 in Nurnberg, West Germany 1986](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/ReForGer_86_in_Nurnberg%2C_West_Germany_1986.jpg)
The stunning
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...
n victory over the
Second French Empire
The Second French Empire (; officially the French Empire, ), was the 18-year Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 14 January 1852 to 27 October 1870, between the Second and the Third Republic of France.
Historians in the 1930 ...
in the
Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) is sometimes partly credited to the training of Prussian officers with the game
Kriegspiel, which was invented around 1811 and gained popularity with many officers in the Prussian army. These first wargames were played with
dice which represented "friction", or the intrusion of less than ideal circumstances during a real war (including
morale
Morale, also known as esprit de corps (), is the capacity of a group's members to maintain belief in an institution or goal, particularly in the face of opposition or hardship. Morale is often referenced by authority figures as a generic value ...
,
meteorology
Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did no ...
, the
fog of war
The fog of war (german: links=no, Nebel des Krieges) is the uncertainty in situational awareness experienced by participants in military operations. The term seeks to capture the uncertainty regarding one's own capability, adversary capability, ...
, etc.).
21st century militaries still use wargames to simulate future wars and
model
A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure.
Models c ...
their reaction. According to
Manuel de Landa
Manuel DeLanda (born 1952) is a Mexican- American writer, artist and philosopher who has lived in New York since 1975. He is a lecturer in architecture at the Princeton University School of Architecture and the University of Pennsylvania School ...
, after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
the
Command, Control and Communications
Command and control (abbr. C2) is a "set of organizational and technical attributes and processes ... hatemploys human, physical, and information resources to solve problems and accomplish missions" to achieve the goals of an organization or en ...
(C
3) was transferred from the military staff to the
RAND Corporation, the first
think tank
A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmenta ...
. Around the mid to late 20th century, computer simulated war games were created to replace traditional war gaming methods with the goal of optimizing and speeding up the process and making it possible to analyze more complex scenarios with greater ease. In 1958, the Naval War college installed a computer war game system where their traditional war gaming activities were held. The system was called the Navy Electronic Warfare System, and cost over $10 million to install. The change from traditional war gaming methods to electronic computer simulated ones meant that the value and accuracy of a war game simulation was less dependent on skill and individual experiences, and more dependent on quantitative data and complicated analysis methods.
Von Neumann Von Neumann may refer to:
* John von Neumann (1903–1957), a Hungarian American mathematician
* Von Neumann family
* Von Neumann (surname), a German surname
* Von Neumann (crater), a lunar impact crater
See also
* Von Neumann algebra
* Von Ne ...
was employed by the RAND Corporation, and his
game theory was used in wargames to model
nuclear dissuasion during the
Cold War. Thus, the US
nuclear strategy was defined using wargames, "SAM" representing the US and "IVAN" the Soviet Union.
Early game theory included only
zero-sum games
Zero-sum game is a mathematical representation in game theory and economic theory of a situation which involves two sides, where the result is an advantage for one side and an equivalent loss for the other. In other words, player one's gain is ...
, which means that when one player won, the other automatically lost. The
Prisoner's dilemma
The Prisoner's Dilemma is an example of a game analyzed in game theory. It is also a thought experiment that challenges two completely rational agents to a dilemma: cooperate with their partner for mutual reward, or betray their partner ("def ...
, which models the situation of two prisoners in which each one is given the choice to betray or not the other, gave three alternatives to the game:
*Neither prisoners betrays the other, and both are given short-term sentences
*One prisoner betrays the other, and is freed, while the other gets a long sentence
*Both prisoners betray each other, and both are given mid-sized sentences
This modelization gave the basis for the
massive retaliation
Massive retaliation, also known as a massive response or massive deterrence, is a military doctrine and nuclear strategy in which a state commits itself to retaliate in much greater force in the event of an attack.
Strategy
In the event of a ...
nuclear doctrine. The
zero-sum fallacy and
cooperative games would be theorized only later, while the evolution of
nuclear technology and
missiles
In military terminology, a missile is a guided airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight usually by a jet engine or rocket motor. Missiles are thus also called guided missiles or guided rockets (when a previously unguided rocket i ...
made the massive retaliation nuclear strategy obsolete.
List of military exercises
Current and recurring
*
Green dagger (US-UK-Netherlands-UAE-Canada)
*
Balikatan
Exercise Balikatan is the most prominent annual military exercise between the Philippines and the United States. The Tagalog word ''balikatan'' means "''shoulder-to-shoulder''". The exercises have been the cornerstone of Philippines–United ...
(Philippines-US)
*
Croix du Sud (France-Australia-New Zealand-US and others)
*
Malabar (India-US)
*
Garuda Shield
Garuda Shield is a two-week joint-exercise between the United States Army and Indonesian Army. The purposes of this joint-exercise is to enhance and enrich the jungle warfare ability of both U.S. Army and Indonesian Army. This joint-exercise took ...
(Indonesia-US and others, annual)
*
Talisman Saber (Australia-US)
*
Varuna
Varuna (; sa, वरुण, , Malay: ''Baruna'') is a Vedic deity associated initially with the sky, later also with the seas as well as Ṛta (justice) and Satya (truth). He is found in the oldest layer of Vedic literature of Hinduism, such ...
(India-France)
*
Cobra Gold
Cobra Gold refers to multi-national Indo-Pacific military exercises held in Thailand. They are among the largest annual exercises of their kind.
Overview
Cobra Gold was first held in 1982 and has improved coordination between the armed force ...
(Thailand - US and 25 others)
*
Exercise RIMPAC
RIMPAC, the Rim of the Pacific Exercise, is the world's largest international maritime warfare exercise. RIMPAC is held biennially during June and July of even-numbered years from Honolulu, Hawaii, with the exception of 2020 where it was held ...
(Australia, Canada,the US and others)
*
Kernel Blitz
Kernel may refer to:
Computing
* Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems
* Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution
* Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming
* Kernel method, in machine learnin ...
(
USN
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...
,
USMC
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through co ...
, biannual, amphibious warfare)
*
Green Griffin (NATO, annual)
NATO's factsheet on military exercises
/ref>
* Dynamic Manta
Dynamic Manta is an annual military exercise held by NATO that "aimed at testing submarine warfare and anti-submarine warfare capabilities. It provides a framework for naval forces to maintain high readiness and ability to operate together." (NATO, annual, ASW focus)
* Locked Shields (NATO, annual, cyber warfare)
* Saber Guardian (NATO, annual)
* Baltops
BALTOPS (Baltic Operations) is an annual military exercise, held and sponsored by the Commander, United States Naval Forces Europe, since 1971, in the Baltic Sea and the regions surrounding it.
The purpose of BALTOPS is to train gunnery, replenis ...
(NATO, annual)
* Dynamic Mongoose (NATO, annual)
* Vostok 2018
Vostok 2018 (russian: Восток 2018, lit=East 2018) was a large-scale Russian military exercise, held from 11 to 17 September 2018, throughout Siberia and the Russian Far East in the Eastern Military District. The exercise involved units ...
(usually only Russia, but China and Mongolia have participated; about every four years; Russia's eastern exercise)
* Zapad Exercises (Belarus and Russia, about every four years, Russia's western exercise)
* Caucasus 2020 (usually only Russia, about every four years, Russia's southern exercise)
* Center 2019 (Russia, about every four years, Russia's central exercise)
* Ocean Shield (Russia, annual, naval exercise in the Baltics and Arctic)
* Cold Response (Partnership for Peace
The Partnership for Peace (PfP; french: Partenariat pour la paix) is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) program aimed at creating trust between the member states of NATO and other states mostly in Europe, including post-Soviet state ...
)
Former, significant
* Able Archer 83
Able Archer 83 was the annual NATO Able Archer exercise conducted in November 1983. The purpose for the command post exercise, like previous years, was to simulate a period of conflict escalation, culminating in the US military attaining a simul ...
(NATO)
* Exercise Reforger
Exercise is a body activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and wellness.
It is performed for various reasons, to aid growth and improve strength, develop muscles and the cardiovascular system, hone athletic s ...
* Operation Brasstacks
Operation Brasstacks was a major combined arms military exercise of the Indian Armed Forces in Rajasthan state of India, that took place from November 1986 to January 1987 near Pakistan border.
As part of a series of exercises to simulate th ...
(India, 1986–1987)
* Millennium Challenge (2002)
*Fleet problem The Fleet Problems are a series of naval exercises of the United States Navy conducted in the interwar period, and later resurrected by Pacific Fleet around 2014.
The first twenty-one Fleet Problems — labeled with roman numerals as Fleet Proble ...
(1923-1940)
* North China Military Exercise (China, 1981)
* Resolute Dragon (Japan and the US, 2021)
* List of NATO exercises
See also
*Aggressor squadron
An aggressor squadron or adversary squadron (in the US Navy and USMC) is a squadron that is trained to act as an opposing force in military wargames. Aggressor squadrons use enemy tactics, techniques, and procedures to give a realistic simula ...
*Maneuver warfare
Maneuver warfare, or manoeuvre warfare, is a military strategy which seeks to shatter the enemy's overall
cohesion and will to fight.
Background
Maneuver warfare, the use of initiative, originality and the unexpected, combined with a rut ...
*Flanking maneuver
In military tactics, a flanking maneuver is a movement of an armed force around an enemy force's side, or flank, to achieve an advantageous position over it. Flanking is useful because a force's fighting strength is typically concentrated i ...
*Live fire exercise
A live-fire exercise (LFX) is a military exercise in which live ammunition and ordnance (as opposed to blanks or dummies) is expended. The term can also be found in non-military usage.
Armed services
Armed services usually use live-fire exercis ...
*Pincer movement
The pincer movement, or double envelopment, is a military maneuver in which forces simultaneously attack both flanks (sides) of an enemy formation. This classic maneuver holds an important foothold throughout the history of warfare.
The pin ...
*Simulation
A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or process, whereas the s ...
References
External links
Complete 911 Timeline:
Center for Cooperative Research—Military exercises up to 9/11
{{Authority control