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U.S. Naval Postgraduate School

Viewing assignment:

Facilitation of a war game can be a challenge. Thanks to a series of videos that are now available to the public, there are role models for how a facilitator should behave. While the videos were produced mainly to educate viewers on aspects of American culture, they serve a secondary purpose in providing examples of the interaction between participants in seminar wargaming.

Choose and watch at least one video from the following:

To see a video, click "VOD" opposite the video you have chosen. You may have to enable "pop-up windows" in your browser to see the player once you click "VOD".

These videos have been made available to the public by Annenberg Learner, a division of the Annenberg Foundation.

During viewing pay particular attention to how the moderator or facilitator treats the participants and ensures critical issues are suitably addressed.

Seminar War Games

Seminar war gaming is a special topic within OA4604 Wargaming Applications as taught in the US Naval Postgraduate School's Graduate School of Operational and Information Sciences (GSOIS).

This covers many techniques associated with war games, but is primarily intended to provide students with skills they can use in the design and construction of seminar war games, a form of wargaming that blends in many aspects of seminar-style education.

The purposes for a specific seminar war game can range from educational, through development and assessment of potential courses of action for some upcoming operation, and on to evaluations of future concepts or assessments of prototype systems and new technology. A specific seminar war game may have a combination of objectives, say to educate the participants on issues that would normally be peripheral to their main expertise while also evaluating courses of action for the commander. As with most military activities, striving for too many objectives may result in failing to achieve any. So objectives for a specific seminar war game must be carefully chosen.

Participants in the course will conduct an abbreviated seminar war game set in the fictional world of Zefra, a troubled nation in the South Pacific Ocean. This case will then be used for further study of seminar war gaming techniques.