The U.S. Air Force’s latest way to prepare for a global conflict? Video games. The Air Force is increasingly using video games as a cheap, detailed and internal way to test potential war scenarios. And it’s increasingly using one game in particular: “Command.” And as of this past week, airmen can play the game’s professional edition on the Air Force’s internal network.
One unusual aspect is that the game the Air Force turned to isn’t some in-house project developed by the Department of Defense for the military or a blockbuster release like “Call of Duty” or “Total War,” but rather a popular game studio that specializes in detailed two-dimensional combat.
The Wall Street Journal reported on additional details on the Air Force’s approval. The big update is that the game can run on the service’s secure networks. Matrix Games elaborated on that in its own update announcement, noting that “various security vulnerabilities have been identified and removed or mitigated. [‘Command Professional Edition’] is now included on the USAF Evaluated Products List (EPL), which clears it for deployment on USAF protected systems and networks.” This allows members of the Air Force to play the game using classified and internal information, which won’t run the risk of being leaked to outside players. And there are a lot: about one million people play Command.
The Department of Defense has been in contact with the publishers since 2016 and using it for certain wargaming tests since 2017. One former Air Force officer said that when he was with Air Force Air Mobility Command, he had to work to convince his superiors of the benefit of these types of simulators.
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The game itself lets players, over a two-dimensional map, outline potential defensive and offensive tactics, ranging from low-cost options to a more expensive and fortified strategy. Advocates told the Wall Street Journal that ‘Command’ helps with improving tactical decision-making and seeing the big picture in a possible confrontation.
It’s not just the U.S. Air Force using Command as a wargaming tool. According to the Wall Street Journal report, it’s also used by Taiwan and the United Kingdom’s Strategic Command. Within the U.S. defense infrastructure, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA has also tested out potential strategies with Command.
Letting troops play this game is also much cheaper than other modern wargames the military has done. The Millennium Challenge in 2002, for instance, was a massive, resource-consuming wargame that pulled from a variety of assets in order to be conducted. It also saw the opposition force or red team under the command of Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Paul Van Ripper quickly take out the blue team with quick asymmetric warfare tools. The wargame, which involved thousands of troops, multiple ships and other military assets, which still needed to carry out maneuvers in the field, was infamously restaged with greater restrictions on the red team’s abilities, which led Van Ripper to criticize what he saw as a scripted outcome.
With the U.S. military shifting away from strategies focused on counterinsurgency towards more potential peer-on-peer conflict, cheaper alternatives, like ‘Command,’ lets the military game out potential and highly specific encounters from the security of internal offices and commands.
Video games have been a growing tool for the U.S. military, as it realizes that many recruits and current troops have grown up with the games. Despite occasional dismissive comments towards gaming Americans, the Department of Defense has realized video games can help with hand-eye coordination. Some modern weapons systems use controllers not that dissimilar to those used with an XBox. Video games have also caused a number of headaches for the U.S. military. Fans of ‘War Thunder,’ a popular military simulation game known for attention to real-world detail on weapons and equipment, have been known in several instances to leak classified military information on online forums to prove points or argue over specifications.
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