Women and the world of wargaming: Weapons and Warfare

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

HELLO, AND WELCOME TO WEAPONS AND WARFARE FOR STRAIGHT ARROW NEWS I’M RYAN ROBERTSON. AND THIS WEEK, WE THINK WE HAVE SOMETHING SPECIAL FOR YOU, A CONVERSATION ABOUT WARGAMING. 

FOR VIEWERS OF A CERTAIN AGE, NO DOUBT ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS THAT COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU HEAR THAT TERM IS THE 1983 CLASSIC WAR GAMES, STARING MATTHEW BRODERICK AND ALLY SHEEDY. WHILE THE TECHNOLOGY OF THAT PARTICULAR FILM IS RATHER DATED, THE IDEA PLAYING OUT POTENTIAL REAL-WORLD CONFLICTS IS SOMETHING THAT STILL HAPPENS TODAY.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THAT AND SOME OF THE CHALLENGES FACING WOMEN IN THE WARGAMING SPACE TODAY, I SAT DOWN WITH  DR. YUNA WONG, THE FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF THE WOMEN’S WARGAMING NETWORK.

[TRANSITION]

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

ALL RIGHT, DR. YUNA WONG, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR JOINING US TODAY. REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR TIME. YOU ARE VERY ACTIVE IN THE WARGAMING COMMUNITY, AS IT WERE. SO IF YOU CAN KIND OF JUST GIVE OUR AUDIENCE KIND OF A READER’S DIGEST VERSION OF WHAT YOU DO ON A DAILY BASIS WHEN IT COMES TO WARGAMING.

[DR. YUNA HUH WONG]

“Sure, and I think the first thing I should explain is when most people hear wargaming, they think about hobby wargaming. And what I’m going to be talking about today is professional wargaming. So what does that mean? It’s done for the military. It’s done for the government. And that’s the bulk of the professional wargaming society is very defense-oriented.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

SO WHEN WE’RE TALKING ABOUT WAR GAMING FOR THE DOD OR THE PENTAGON, MEAN, WE’RE THINKING, HEY, IF THINGS KICK OFF BECAUSE OF TAIWAN, HERE’S WHAT THAT MIGHT LOOK LIKE. OR, YOU KNOW, IF THINGS KICK OFF IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE U S GETS DRAWN INTO A WIDER REGIONAL CONFLICT, HERE’S WHAT THAT MIGHT LOOK LIKE. SO THAT WAY THE GENERALS AND, KNOW, THE FOLKS AT THE PENTAGON CAN HAVE AN IDEA OF, OF HOW THINGS MIGHT GO. IS THAT KIND OF ACCURATE?

[DR. YUNA HUH WONG]

“Yes, so the US Department of Defense, usually called DOD, uses it for a number of purposes and was introduced to wargaming shortly after the US Civil War. So there is quite a long history of it. And then, for example, in term US, like what I do. So I was previously at Rand Corporation where I was briefly. co-director for the Center for Gaming. And one of the projects I did while at Rand was the war game called Hegemony. So in 2016, the Pentagon came to Rand and said they wanted a war game to think about the US national defense strategy. They wanted a war game that covered or included live at participants representing China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and terrorists. They wanted a working prototype in a matter of weeks. And this was when the Pentagon was pivoting from the counter insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan to great power competition. That’s why the focus of the game were state adversaries. And they wanted an environment where they could look at potential candidates for the National Defense Strategy. And so we did that, we created that game. The strategy writing teams with different proposed strategies came and they played out their strategy in hegemony. And the finalists for the National Defense Strategy came back and was wargamed again. And those games were classified, but then RAND did publish its first commercially available board game, Hegemony. And it’s available on the RAND website. And that, those were inputs to the 2018 US National Defense Strategy. So that was an example of a strategy game. And through the Women’s Orgaming Network, we are working to offer RAND updates to that. So I no longer work at RAND Corporation.but it’s to offer updates. And so that is one piece of my Wargaming career.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

WHEN WE’RE TALKING ABOUT, YOU KNOW, FINDING THE NATIONAL DEFENSE STRATEGY, IT, YOU KNOW, THE, THE POWERS THAT BE THE, THE PLAYERS, I GUESS, IN THE WAR GAME, THEY ALL THINK OF, YOU KNOW, THIS IS HOW I WOULD DO IT. AND THEN LET’S GO PUT IT INTO ACTION. THEN WHICHEVER STRATEGY TURNS OUT TO BE, YOU KNOW, THE BEST BECOMES THE NATIONAL DEFENSE STRATEGIES. THAT HOW I UNDERSTOOD THAT.

[DR. YUNA HUH WONG]

“Well, there were all sort of inputs. So there are many inputs into the final national defense strategy. You can’t always tell sometimes the direct line between a war game and insights people might gain from the war game and a decision. Although people who were part of the sponsor in the Pentagon have said it was very helpful for the eventual strategy. Sometimes I hesitate to over, you know, we don’t want to over, you know, it’s not so much a strict contest. The idea of the games was that people would try to play out their strategy. And sometimes you would have a strategy that sounded great on paper and then you try to implement it. And we thought our job was to make it difficult for the United States to implement their strategy. So okay, you’re going to focus on your strategy says you’re going to do this. So means you’re going to focus on this. Well, what if like these other things that you have said are not your priority happen? Like, how much pain are you willing to take? What are the potential consequences that you didn’t think of when you’re trying to implement your strategy, especially the way your allies and partners might perceive it? So Thomas Schelling who was an early pioneer in nuclear crisis games at Brand Corporation. And he won the Nobel Prize in economics for game theory. And I had the great privilege of taking his class in game theory before he, some years before he won the Nobel Prize. But when he was talking about war games, he was saying one of the things no one, no matter how intelligent can do is to make a list of the things that would not have occurred to them. So.we thought it was really success if someone tried a strategy writing team tried to play out their strategy in a simulated world with regional experts and something came up that no one had thought of before.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

YOU MENTIONED IT JUST A LITTLE BIT AGO, THE WOMEN’S WARGAMING NETWORK, WHICH YOU ARE, YOU KNOW, FOUNDING ONE OF THE FOUNDING MEMBERS, YOU KNOW, THE LEADER OF THE NETWORK. IT’S A NONPROFIT GROUP THAT’S DESIGNED TO GET YOUNG GIRLS INTO THIS FIELD BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, MISOGYNY HAS REIGNED SUPREME UP UNTIL NOW. IS THAT IS THAT ACCURATE?

[DR. YUNA HUH WONG]

“I think it’s very fair to say it’s been a very male dominated field. And then I do have to add not just young girls, also, I mean, eyes bigger than our stomach, but we hope to support women throughout their careers. So I also feel a lot for maybe women who are defense professionals and very experienced defense professionals, but also to help them gain an understanding of war gaming. because it’s such a common tool in the defense industry that even them having a better idea of its uses, its limitations, the way people actually literally game war games. So I’ve done briefings to the Pentagon before entitled, to Lie with War Games. So the ways people try to use war games. So I always say there’s that quote from famous quote from Klausowitz that says, is an extension of politics. And then you could also say like war games can be an extension of organizational politics within the Pentagon.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

THAT’S GREAT TO YOU KNOW, I DIDN’T REALLY THINK ABOUT THAT OF IT’S IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT PLAYING IT, BUT THERE’S THERE’S WOMEN ON THE HILL WHO NEED TO KNOW WHAT IT IS SO THAT THEY CAN JUST, YOU KNOW, DO THEIR JOBS OR, YOU KNOW, IT’S LIKE INSIDER BASEBALL, RIGHT? IT’S IF YOU KNOW WHAT THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT, THEN YOU CAN BE A PART OF THE CONVERSATION. BUT IF YOU DON’T IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THE RULES OF THE GAME ARE, THEN YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CHALLENGES RIGHT NOW TO ENTRY FOR BOTH YOUNG WOMEN AND, YOU KNOW, WOMEN OF ALL AGES?

[DR. YUNA HUH WONG]

“Sure, absolutely. That’s a great question. So until about a decade ago, war gaming had kind of declined quite a bit. So if you look at the historic record from say the 1940s through the 60s and late 60s, it looked like the US defense community had a much more robust war gaming just community that people were just more familiar with it. They were more sophisticated in the use of it. They used it more extensively. And so it had really atrophied by the time that then Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense, excuse me, Bob work in about 2014, 2015, tried to reinvigorate for gaming. And I also did get to be on a panel recently where he was moderating and so he was openly wondering if he had had an effect and we’re saying yes. So the community has revived a bit. since then compared to the historic record, not so much. So one of the barriers was there was just not a lot of resources being put into war gaming. There were of course, places like Naval War College and others that have sort of continued and right in Naval War College has a place in history during the inner war years between World War I and World War II. So the Naval War College War Games are credited with doing things like helping the US Navy understand and develop carrier battle tactics in absence of a real war. And you have some historians who say Germany, right? So the Prussians invented modern wargaming. So Germany is also is said by some historians to have used a number of tools including wargaming like observations, exercises, war games to help in the interwar years develop things like Blitzkrieg and U-boat doctrine. at a time when they were not technically allowed to have either tanks or submarines because of the Treaty of Versailles. Another barrier for women especially has been, think in the past generation, so defense war gamers have usually come from people who had spent their adolescence with complex hobby games, hex encounter hobby games, right, those board games, which not a lot of women just spend their that way. And also oftentimes people come in through military planning and like combat arms were closed to women and you didn’t have a lot of women who are military planners who would also understand sort of operations. And also sometimes you would get them from the portal science community into special international relations. But until relatively recently, that was also very male dominated. So now of those three communities, you see more women in international relations. And sometimes the way they may enter wargaming is as experts or as users or as people who receive briefings about the games. think you do see very, so that generation who, know, so about 10 years ago, they were the current generation. But they came at their wargaming expertise because they played hobby games. So whenever someone was like, we need to build a war game, the people who would volunteer would have that hobby gaming experience. I think now, so now I would say Gen X, like my generation is probably the more senior war gamers and our concept of games was Nintendo. So you do see over time that it’s… just because of the way people have different sort of generational experiences with gaming that some of the usage of the technology does change. One of the limiting factors for the Department of Defense is the classification and classified networks. So most games are classified and it can be very difficult to run software on classified systems. So people… sometimes look at the hobby gaming, the commercial hobby gaming industry, like the computer online gaming industry and goes, DoD is really behind. But you have to remember that that community can have millions of users. So, and the games don’t have to be realistic, just entertaining. And whereas for professional games, people may, it may have to be classified. You’ll have to run it once. sometimes and that’s it. So sometimes just from a cost perspective, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to spend a lot on developing software for game you might run for the sponsor once.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

THAT MAKES SENSE. AND AS FAR AS THE CLASSIFICATION, MEAN, IT MAKES SENSE THAT IT’S CLASSIFIED BECAUSE IF YOU’RE RUNNING A GAME AND YOU FIND OUT, OUR NEW B-21 RAIDERS CAN’T ACTUALLY DO XYZ MISSION THAT THEY THOUGHT WE COULD. AND IF THAT GETS OUT TO OUR ADVERSARIES, THEN IT JUST, YOU KNOW, SHINES A HOLE IN A GAP IN OUR OWN COVERAGE OF DEFENSE. RIGHT?

[DR. YUNA HUH WONG]

“Yes, absolutely. And in many cases, the scenarios or other details that are inputs into the war game are classified. And sometimes people, if they want to talk about different capabilities, the capabilities themselves are also classified, as well as some of the findings may be not things you want to get out.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

YEAH, I MEAN, THE THE INPUTS THAT MAKES SENSE BECAUSE IT COULD BE COMING FROM HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, SIGNAL INTELLIGENCE THAT YOU DON’T WANT YOUR ADVERSARY TO KNOW THAT YOU HAVE A SOURCE THAT THEY DON’T KNOW ABOUT. RIGHT. LET’S LET’S TALK ABOUT THE WOMEN’S WAR GAMING NETWORK A LITTLE BIT MORE. YOU KNOW, I HAVE TWO TWO DAUGHTERS, A TEENAGER AND A TODDLER. IF IF THEY CAME TO ME TOMORROW AND SAID, HEY, DAD, I WANT TO GET INVOLVED IN WAR GAMING. WHAT WHAT DO I DO AS A DAD TO? STEER THEM IN THAT DIRECTION. MEAN, WHAT RESOURCES ARE AVAILABLE TO ME.

[DR. YUNA HUH WONG]

“Sure, so I would recommend the Connections Wargaming Conference, which is an annual conference. And that’s where the Women’s Wargaming Network actually started. So, and that’s also where I started as a wargamer. So I think it was about 2011. Someone made me look this up once for an article. It’s like I walk into the Connections Wargaming, I’m sorry, walk into the Connections Wargaming Conference and I’m like, there are a bunch of middle-aged white men, excuse me, hunched over. with dice rolling dice, I didn’t know dice came in more than six sides. What are they doing? Right. And then I suddenly had this sense that I had come home and these were my people. It’s like, I’m home. It’s like, what is this? Right. What are they doing? Right. If these are my people, what is it that they do? And it was really through that network that it’s a community of practice. So if you look at the literature is on community of practice, the successful ones, you’re able to develop relationships. where you can call people up and go, hey, how did you do this cyber war game, for example? And so that is a community that sort of made it through the lean years where wargaming was not very popular. And I think continues to try to build resources. So in 2020, they had their first conference online because of COVID. And a couple of the longtime organizers called me. because they wanted to know my experience. just attended another annual professional conference and they were like, well, were there any lessons for connections from that? And I said, well, yeah, it’s really tough because people were just online. They had their cameras off. They had their audio off. So there are people who might come and you might never see them again. I think we’re going to have to make a little extra effort to connect people socially. And so was like, what about like a women’s war gaming network? They’re like, yes. So like, great. If you come up with an idea, sometimes you are the one who has to implement.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

IT’S A BLESSING AND A CURSE, RIGHT?

[DR. YUNA HUH WONG]

“Yes, yes, absolutely. for some people find that the focus on the war part of war gaming is not necessarily something they want to do. there are peace games, people, HGB, right, it’s a Texas grocery chain used games during the pandemic to figure out how COVID could affect their supply chain. So it does not have to be sort of war focused.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

AND THAT’S GOOD POINT. I MEAN, IT’S ABOUT CRITICAL THINKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING AND HERE’S YOUR INPUTS. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT KIND OF THING, RIGHT? YEAH, SO I GUESS THE LAST QUESTION I HAD IS WE HEAR SO OFTEN THAT WHEN THERE’S A TRADITIONALLY MALE-DOMINATED FIELD OR INDUSTRY, YOU KNOW, AND THERE’S PUSHBACK TO TO OPENING IT UP TO WOMEN. TRADITIONALLY, IT’S LIKE, WELL, WHAT CAN THEY BRING IN? RIGHT. THE PUSHBACK TO WOMEN IN COMBAT IS, WELL, THEY’RE WOMEN AREN’T STRONG ENOUGH. THEY CAN’T THEY CAN’T MEET THE QUALIFICATIONS. IT’S GOING TO DIMINISH BATTLEFIELD READINESS. SO WHEN YOU. OVER THE COURSE OF YOUR WAR GAMING CAREER, I’M SURE THAT YOU HAVE HEARD ALL THE DETRACTORS OUT THERE. WHAT’S YOUR ANSWER TO HIM? WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR WOMEN TO BE A PART OF THIS SPACE?

[DR. YUNA HUH WONG]

“So I think the community has been, once we started this conversation, has been pretty welcoming, actually. So I’ve noticed once we start talking about it, people do make an effort. so some of it is, again, traditionally, women have not been as trained in military planning or in just mechanics of board games. Right, so, but now like international relations especially is a way that they enter now because they, there are more women just in the community. I think though, like there are some things we’ve had to make explicit, like don’t do this, right? When women come, like A, like don’t make her the note taker. I’ve seen where I set a woman who is a racial minority and a PhD interested in war gaming and they made her the note taker. And I’m like, no, they did not do that. Right? Like they did, right?”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

ONE, YEAH.

[DR. YUNA HUH WONG]

“So I had to work behind the scenes to eventually give her more opportunities. But also, I think there’s also a tendency from sometimes women to believe they need to know a lot before they can offer something. Whereas it can be the case that men, especially younger men, are very interested, so they volunteer and are more confident that they can contribute. So sometimes if you just those dynamics alone. If you were to say, want people who are really interested, the women might not feel that they know enough. So that’s where I coach women when I mentor them. And they’re like, like, but I don’t know this, this and this and this. I’m like, let me tell you, like one time when I was at Rand, like the media office contacted me because some hobby gamer had contacted Rand and offered his insights. to Grands War Games. And I’m like, that’s great. That does not make you an expert on any of the topics the sponsor is interested in. But I, that was an amazing level of confidence. And I’ve said at other war gaming conferences before, and I’m like, for the love of God, when a woman shows up, I’m like, do not mansplain. So at that conference, it was a British war gaming conference. I came, the person, a person didn’t know I was one of the speakers. he immediately starts to explain to me that during World War II that the Soviet Union and Germany had a non-aggression pact. So this is after I had designed and co-led the 2019 NATO military strategy game, which we ran at NATO headquarters. And this man was assuming, maybe…”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

THIS GUY JUST WALKS UP TO YOU LIKE, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT WORLD WAR II.

[DR. YUNA HUH WONG]

“​​Right, right, like, and then so after I go up and go, for the love of God, don’t mansplain. It was an older gentleman, older British gentleman, and then he came to me afterwards and goes, did I like, I wasn’t doing that, was I? And I’m like, I have five degrees. I might know that, right, like that they had a non-aggression. I didn’t mention, like two of my degrees are in political science. I didn’t mention, yo know, like I’d done the NATO military strategy game and I’d done. hegemony for the Pentagon, right? It’s just, you know, right? If there’s a mansplaining chart, flow chart online that’s around, if it looks sometimes as would a man of equivalent experience and education know this, right? And if the answer is yes, then you are mansplaining. But it’s a great, the MI mansplaining chart. And I think one thing even I’ve pushed back, so Naval War, College, right, the big center for wargaming, the ancestral home, if you will, of modern US wargaming. They did have slides out that they were talking about how to put on a wargame. And in one slide, was like logistics, like wargame logistics. And they had, or like, they called it like wedding planning. It was a picture of like a bride. So I had to explain that a lot of people in the wargaming, men in the wargaming community do poo poo, the wedding planning piece of it, like who comes, who sits where, what organizational piece or what they call logistics. And like, you don’t want to, that actually is sexist because you’re mocking women’s work that women do for other women as like inferior to sort of the war game design that men might do. And I’ve even been interviewed by researchers studying the war gaming community and one of them offered this quote, said, war game designer as God. And I’m like, yes, that’s really what they think.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

AND SO JUST JUST HAVING THE, YOU OTHER OPINIONS IS IF IF YOU’RE DESIGNING A WAR GAME, YOU WANT AS MANY OPINIONS AS POSSIBLE. AND OBVIOUSLY, AS A MAN, I’M IMMEDIATELY EXCLUDING HALF THE WORLD POPULATION IF I DON’T INCLUDE, YOU KNOW, WOMEN IN MY IN MY INPUT. RIGHT.

[DR. YUNA HUH WONG]

“And if I could jump on that, recently, this is a comment I made at the Army Mad Scientist Game On event that was hosted at Georgetown University. so I said, I told them that this was the most male audience I’d ever addressed in my life. And I have seen some male-dominated fields. I’ve been in male-dominated fields since adolescence because I was in a science and technology magnet school. So it says something that it was the most male dominated field I’d ever seen. And I’m like, remember that women are more than half of college graduates, right? And you can pay them less. So remember that.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

BUT HOPEFULLY WE DON’T HAVE TO PAY THAT OR THEY DON’T GET PAID LESS, RIGHT? YEAH, HOPEFULLY WE CAN CHANGE THAT DR. WONG, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME TODAY. REALLY APPRECIATE IT IS THERE A QUESTION I DIDN’T ASK THAT YOU FEEL LIKE NEEDS TO BE ANSWERED OR OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT YOU’D LIKE TO SAY BEFORE WE LET YOU GO?

[DR. YUNA HUH WONG]

“I think for people asking what can they do, right? Because that’s another answer question I get that I appreciate. then I also, so another one thing you can do is you don’t have to look like someone to mentor them and to include them, right? And remember, and I did say at one conference, it makes me a little sad because when people get excited about women in wargaming, they mean white women, right? They’re excited to include white women. They don’t invite the other woman. So again, if like talent is randomly distributed, but opportunities are not, we don’t take advantage of things that some people have to offer. And then I also spent a lot of time trying to build up the basic skill sets. And so this year at connections, which is a free conference by the way, so anyone can come, I’m gonna try to suggest to the community sort of. Right, more like, what is it? It modeled after the facilitation professional societies where it’s a certification. Like here’s a skill, here’s a training, here’s a list of skills and trainings. And I feel like that can also help reduce bias. So another way, what you can do is rather than say who’s interested, say, well, I’m looking for someone who has experience in this, this, and this. So that way you can see, are the people that you think could contribute. Do they have experiences X, Y, and Z? So you might encourage them to get experiences X, Y, and Z. And then sort of evaluating a person against experiences X, and Z, you may be like, there are these women who do have experiences X, Y, and Z, who may maybe not be the most obvious candidates in some people’s minds, but who, if you sort of just. look at skills and experiences may help you select for people who may be overlooked, even though they have the skills and experiences that you need. And a third thing that people can do is just make more women visible, right? Like even representation in media, women might think that it’s not something that they’d be interested in until they see someone like them. And then they can then they’re like, wait, I could do that. So that’s pretty important. So thanks very much for that question.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

ABSOLUTELY, DR. WONG, THANK YOU SO MUCH. ALL THE LUCK TO YOU AND THE WOMEN’S WARGAMING NETWORK. I HOPE THAT IT TAKES OFF LIKE WILDFIRE AND WE GET MORE WOMEN INVOLVED IN THE INDUSTRY.

[DR. YUNA HUH WONG]

“Thank you so much.”

[TRANSITION]

[RYAN ROBERTON]

ALRIGHT, THAT’S GOING TO DO IT FOR US THIS WEEK ON WEAPONS AND WARFARE. REALLY HOPE YOU ENJOYED MY CONVERSATION WITH DR. WONG. PLEASE BE SURE TO LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE TO OUR SOCIAL MEDIA FEEDS TO HEAR MORE REPORTING LIKE THIS–AND SHARE OUR SHOW WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

FOR MY WRAP THIS WEEK, I’M GOING TO KEEP THINGS SHORT AND SIMPLE. I MET DR. WONG AT A DEFENSE EXPO A COUPLE YEARS AGO NOW. THAT’S WHEN I FIRST LEARNED ABOUT THE WOMEN’S WARGAMING NETWORK–AND WHY IT’S SO IMPORTANT. THE NETWORK OFFERS SUPPORT TO YOUNG WOMEN WHO MAY FACE A LOT OF BULLYING AND HARASSMENT WHEN THEY ENTER WARGAMING TOURNAMENTS.

AS A GIRL DAD–HEARING ABOUT THAT MADE ME BOTH SAD, AND FURIOUS. 

BUT I’M GLAD TO KNOW ORGANIZATIONS LIKE THE WOMEN’S WARGAMING NETWORK EXIST…BECAUSE IT DOESN’T JUST SHOW YOUNG GIRLS THEY BELONG…IT SHOWS THE WORLD THEY BELONG.