Understanding Strategic Culture Through Games • Hacker News Board

Re: Understanding Strategic Culture Through Games

#31

Post by dragontamer » Fri, Mar 25, 2022, 10:06 PM UTC

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #28

dragontamer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Games are idealizations of combat that leave out some of the most important details. Well, yes. That's what this blogpost is about. American sports do NOT have ties: Baseball gets an extra inning, Football goes into overtime. Etc. etc. As such, American strategy is "win or lose", because these games influence our decision making skills and our behavior. It is the imperfection of games, and how these "imperfect game…

>This is largely a blogpost about how these games are imperfect at understanding war. But we humans keep using games as war analogies for some reason, despite their imperfections. I mean, there are very good reasons to do this: wars are very expensive to fight for training purposes. Games are stake-less and can be repeated (or over in 20 minutes, or have the rules change as desired, or...) Fidelity is useful, but it'…

Despite the deep cultural connections between Football and the US Military, no one I'm aware of actually thinks of Football practice as military / war practice.

Football, despite all of the military grandstanding that goes on TV, is just a game. Its how people have fun.

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This article is about how these games ("just for fun") end up affecting military strategy, despite clearly not being about war at all.

IE: America's ability to trust the NCOs in the field might very well hail from football. The Offensive coordinators do grand strategies, but they leave their trust to the Quarterback (who is like a squad-leader / NCO in the military analog).

Similarly: your Baseball nerds can crunch numbers and statistics, and provide all kinds of strategies recommendations to the Pitcher. But at the end of the day, its the Pitcher (and the catcher) who decides what kind of ball to throw.

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America's "decentralized" military structure / supreme trust in the NCOs in the field comes from somewhere. Maybe from the sports we play. These games have affected our military's organization structure at a fundamental level... despite having nothing to do with war.

Re: Understanding Strategic Culture Through Games

#32

Post by wolverine876 » Fri, Mar 25, 2022, 10:22 PM UTC

People embrace romantic notions about warfare and like to imagine a fanastical version of it. Call of Duty does very well! We tend to think of warfare as a game.

The reality is the polar opposite of a game: Games have rules and fairness; warfare has almost no rules (by definition - it exists where rules and laws fail), and nobody wants a fair fight - they want a massacre (or surrender). Games have no stakes - they are for entertainment, and no matter how many points you score, you drink a beer with your buddies that night; warfare is life and death - you literally might not sleep again, some of your friends in your unit will likely be killed in the next battle, your loved ones and society might be destroyed, and the brutality and pain is commoplace. And the responsibility, stress and pressure are enormous - if you mess up, you don't kick the ball out of bounds, your friends die.

In histories of some wars I've read about - and it's probably true for others others - describe that before the war people are very excited for it; I have felt that powerful urge myself. IIRC, people had picnics to watch early US Civil War battles, and soldiers can be very excited to. The reality then hits quickly, as people experience things too horrible to describe on HN, including the horror of killing other human beings, often in gruesome ways. Even in the relatively low-level wars the US recently was involved in, even the very well-trained, very safe (relative to other wars) soldiers who have a safe home to return to, have very high PTSD and suicide rates. As has been noted throughout history, warfare changes the survivors for the worse.

Maybe there are some things that could be gained from games, but I imagine training would be far better. Imagine someone who played software developer games (if only such fun toys existed!) as preparation for being an actual software developer. It might be a nice intro, but mostly irrelevant to actual training.

EDIT: To be clear, I think the article may be more descriptive - how certain games affect thinking - than prescriptive - 'we should learn through games'.

Re: Understanding Strategic Culture Through Games

#33

Post by invalidOrTaken » Fri, Mar 25, 2022, 10:23 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #31

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is largely a blogpost about how these games are imperfect at understanding war. But we humans keep using games as war analogies for some reason, despite their imperfections. I mean, there are very good reasons to do this: wars are very expensive to fight for training purposes. Games are stake-less and can be repeated (or over in 20 minutes, or have the rules change as desired, or...) Fidelity is useful, but it'…

Despite the deep cultural connections between Football and the US Military, no one I'm aware of actually thinks of Football practice as military / war practice. Football, despite all of the military grandstanding that goes on TV, is just a game. Its how people have fun. ------- This article is about how these games ("just for fun") end up affecting military strategy, despite clearly not being about war at all. IE: Am…

>These games have affected our military's organization structure at a fundamental level...despite having nothing to do with war.

If they really had nothing to do with war, why would they affect our thinking about it?

I'm not saying sports, games, etc. were instituted explicitly as wargames. Rather, I'm saying that while there are obviously differences between games and war, there are similarities---enough that there are lessons one can learn about war, from games. The parallels are many: adversarial conflict, mass coordinated action, risk..."some reason" seems a little too mock-mystified to me.

Re: Understanding Strategic Culture Through Games

#34

Post by dragontamer » Fri, Mar 25, 2022, 10:44 PM UTC

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #33

dragontamer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite the deep cultural connections between Football and the US Military, no one I'm aware of actually thinks of Football practice as military / war practice. Football, despite all of the military grandstanding that goes on TV, is just a game. Its how people have fun. ------- This article is about how these games ("just for fun") end up affecting military strategy, despite clearly not being about war at all. IE: Am…

>These games have affected our military's organization structure at a fundamental level...despite having nothing to do with war. If they really had nothing to do with war, why would they affect our thinking about it? I'm not saying sports, games, etc. were instituted explicitly as wargames. Rather, I'm saying that while there are obviously differences between games and war, there are similarities---enough that there…

> If they really had nothing to do with war, why would they affect our thinking about it?

Shared cultural interests.

Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Jesus / Christianity, maybe even Buggs Bunny and Mickey Mouse even, will affect our culture and shape our views of war. Also Chess, Football, NASCAR, etc. etc.

Meanwhile in China, maybe Go, Xiangqi, Ping Pong, Soccer, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Buddah, Journey to the West (aka: the Monkey King), and other such cultural icons will affect Chinese thinking of war... whether or not its a legitimate analogue or not.

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Thus, this article's discussion and musing. Next generation generals will be affected by PUBG, League of Legends, Starcraft, and Call of Duty players. These shared cultural experiences, for better or worse, will affect the strategic thinking of the next wars.