Seeking Strategic Advantage: The Potential of Combining Artificial Intelligence and Human-centred Wargaming

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Notes

1 Ben Wallace, as cited in Ministry of Defence (MoD), Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre, ‘Influence Wargaming Handbook’, July 2023, p. iv, <https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1164868/Influence_Wargaming_Handbook_web.pdf>, accessed 16 August 2023.

2 Eugene Morgan, ‘Enhancing UK Defence Wargaming Capability: Anchoring Cultural Change and Challenge with Our People’, presentation at the Connections US Professional Wargaming Conference, Washington, DC, June 2023, <https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1hWybOHGaTsbezs6PJP6I32TX0JRpzUsp/edit#slide=id.p3>, accessed 16 August 2023.

3 MoD, Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre, ‘Wargaming Handbook’, August 2017, p. iii, <https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a82e90d40f0b6230269d575/doctrine_uk_wargaming_handbook.pdf>, accessed 16 August 2023.

4 MoD, ‘Defence Artificial Intelligence Strategy’, 15 June 2022, <https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/defence-artificial-intelligence-strategy/defence-artificial-intelligence-strategy#foreword-by-the-secretary-of-state-for-defence>, accessed 16 August 2023.

5 B Ravi Kiran et al., ‘Deep Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Driving: A Survey’, arXiv, 23 January 2021, <http://arxiv.org/abs/2002.00444>, accessed 16 August 2023.

6 Charles Turnitsa, Curtis Blais and Andreas Tolk, Simulation and Wargaming (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2022).

7 MoD, ‘Influence Wargaming Handbook’, p. iv.

8 Ibid.

9 Investment in AI has increased thirteen-fold over the last decade. See Nestor Maslej et al., ‘Artificial Intelligence Index Report 2023’, Stanford University Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, April 2023, p. 184, <https://aiindex.stanford.edu/report/>, accessed 23 October 2023.

10 United States Government Accountability Office, ‘Defence Analysis: Additional Actions Could Enhance DoD’s Wargaming Efforts’, Report to the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, April 2023, <https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105351.pdf>, accessed 16 August 2023.

11 Maslej et al., ‘Artificial Intelligence Index Report 2023’.

12 Jon Compton, ‘The Obstacles on the Road to Better Analytical Wargaming’, War on the Rocks, 9 October 2019; Ed McGrady, ‘Getting the Story Right about Wargaming’, War on the Rocks, 8 November 2019.

13 Oriol Vinyals et al., ‘Grandmaster Level in StarCraft II Using Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning’, Nature (Vol. 575, No. 7782, November 2019), pp. 350–54.

14 Jia-Yu Yao et al., ‘LLM Lies: Hallucinations Are Not Bugs, but Features as Adversarial Examples’, arXiv, 4 October 2023, <https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2310.01469>, accessed 25 October 2023; Vipula Rawte, Amit Sheth and Amitava Das, ‘A Survey of Hallucination in Large Foundation Models’, arXiv, 2 September 2023, <https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2309.05922>, accessed 16 August 2023.

15 Matthew Caffrey, ‘On Wargaming’, Newport Papers (Vol. 43, January 2019), <https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/newport-papers/43>, accessed 16 August 2023; Peter P Perla, The Art of Wargaming: A Guide for Professionals and Hobbyists (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990).

16 Greg Kuperman, ‘Gamebreaker’, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, <https://www.darpa.mil/program/gamebreaker>, accessed 21 August 2023; SHADE, ‘Stabilizing Hostilities Through Arbitration and Diplomatic Engagement’, <https://www.shade-aie.org/>, accessed 21 August 2023; Alec Barker, ‘BrainSTORM: Exploring Artificially Intelligent COA Development in STORM’, in Tien Pham and Latasha Solomon (eds), Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Multi-Domain Operations Applications III (Vol. 11746), <https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2587186>, accessed 16 August 2023.

17 James Goodman, Sebastian Risi and Simon Lucas, ‘AI and Wargaming’, arXiv, 25 September 2020, <https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2009.08922>, accessed 16 August 2023; Anna Knack and Rosamund Powell, ‘Artificial Intelligence in Wargaming: An Evidence-Based Assessment of AI Applications’, Centre for Emerging Technology and Security, Alan Turing Institute, June 2023, <https://cetas.turing.ac.uk/publications/artificial-intelligence-wargaming>, accessed 16 August 2023.

18 Morlie Hammer Graubard and Carl H Builder, ‘RAND’s Strategic Assessment Center: An Overview of the Concept’, RAND Corporation, September 1980, <https://www.rand.org/pubs/notes/N1583.html>, accessed 16 August 2023; Paul K Davis and Paul Bracken, ‘Artificial Intelligence for Wargaming and Modeling’, Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation (8 February 2022), <https://doi.org/10.1177/15485129211073126>, accessed 16 August 2023.

19 Knack and Powell, ‘Artificial Intelligence in Wargaming’.

20 Ibid.

21 Dan Pontefract, ‘Can Artificial Intelligence Help the Film Industry? It Already Is’, Forbes, 24 April 2023.

22 Goodman, Risi and Lucas, ‘AI and Wargaming’.

23 MoD, ‘Wargaming Handbook’.

24 Ivanka Barzashka, ‘Analytical Wargaming for Strategic Challenges: Theory and Applications’, King’s College London, 2023 (forthcoming).

25 BBC News, ‘Amazon Scrapped “Sexist AI” Tool’, 10 October 2018.

26 Barzashka, ‘Analytical Wargaming for Strategic Challenges’.

27 See, for example, MoD, ‘Ambitious, Safe, Responsible: Our Approach to the Delivery of AI-Enabled Capability in Defence’, June 2022, <https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1082991/20220614-Ambitious_Safe_and_Responsible.pdf>, accessed 16 August 2023.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ivanka Barzashka

Ivanka Barzashka is the co-founder and CEO of Strand Analytica, a British-American defence tech startup. She was the founding director of the Wargaming Network at King’s College London.