Confessions of an Xbox General

Can a computer game teach the Army how to defeat the Taliban?

BY MICHAEL PECK | SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

I'm no strategist. I might beat a paper bag at chess if somebody Tasered the bag first. But fighting the Taliban? America would end up speaking Pashto.

Yet I write frequently about the U.S. military and video games. And when I had a chance to play an Army game on counterinsurgency -- COIN, to the cognoscenti -- I couldn't resist. What happens when the world's dumbest armchair strategist tries his hand at quelling an insurgency?

UrbanSim is a U.S. Army game that teaches COIN to battalion commanders. Where most Pentagon computer simulations look like spreadsheets and are just as fun to play, UrbanSim, which came out in 2009, resembles the kind of strategy game that many of us enjoy at home. That's probably because it was developed by the Institute for Creative Technologies, an innovative University of Southern California center funded by the Army and with deep ties to Hollywood and the video-game industry. But though it looks like a militarized version of SimCity, UrbanSim is actually a sophisticated simulation that incorporates factors such as economic conditions and social networking ties, and analyzes how these factors sway the population to back the government or the insurgents.

This is new ground for the U.S. military, which has traditionally been most comfortable with computer simulations rooted in the empirical. How much armor can a cannon shell punch through? How many MiG-29s could an F-15 shoot down? Such Cold War-era models weren't always accurate, but at least they could pretend to be based on science. COIN, on the other hand, is all about mushy intangibles -- psychology, sociology, political science. And if the social scientists can't agree among themselves how to quantify these things, how can a computer game do it?

The military's own simulation experts laugh at the notion that commanders will ever be able to click a mouse and have a computer tell them the perfect strategy for destroying the Taliban. Yet a computer game might at least give them a sense of how officers' decisions have consequences. Repairing the local sewer system is like casting a stone in a pond; the ripples shift the population's mood, which in turn changes support for the insurgents, which affects the number of attacks from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) -- and could eventually alter the course of the war.

 

Michael Peck is an editor at the Military Times magazines.

XTRAWISE

1:57 AM ET

September 29, 2011

War is a game

Gaming has always been a rage among certain segment of people. Some may call this class nerds or geeks. Among them, simulation games are the most popular ones. Violence, which remains suppressed in the society, becomes cool in the virtual world. That's why we have some many war and fight games for Nintendo, PSP and XBox. It's really cool to be able to fly a fighter jet, maneuver in the sky and kill the targets. War strategy games take this passion to an entirely new level. You have an entire army at your command. Can anything else make you feel more powerful? As a last thought, are these games also preparing us for violence at a subconscious level?

 

BARRYLYNDON

4:31 PM ET

October 2, 2011

Foucault Algorithms

The problem with Urban Sim like most COIN doctrines is that they naively assume that neo-liberal values can be uploaded to any culture. Algorithms based on Western ideas of knowledge and power may work in virtual contexts but in flesh based worlds beyond Western computer screens they fall short.

 

BARRYLYNDON

4:35 PM ET

October 2, 2011

Agreed

Not only are war games an integral part of normalizing and organizing war as a part of daily life they help to frame military solutions as an integral part of foreign policy.

 

DEBANJAN

5:10 AM ET

September 29, 2011

Violent nature of these games

If I had been an Al-Qaeda operative I would love to penetrate this particular pool of unemployed , angry young men sectors of American population.

These people are mentally killers due to their long term exposure to these violent video games and these people are supremely individualistic in nature who if need be will not accept the bonds and controls of either American society or American constitution.

I do believe if offered enough rewards many of these young men would love to work for Al-Qaeda as potenital cyber warriors or even potential drone operators if offered enough enocuragement and reward.

 

LIFELINE

8:39 AM ET

September 29, 2011

Thats a ridiculous statement...

I've been playing 'violent' video games since i was 6 up until now, which im 20, and i still continue to play them and even play them competitively. I was in a top 75 clan (basically a 'team' for online games) world wide for Socom 4 U.S. Navy Seals, and I still find time between work and classes to participate in gaming. I also come from a middle class family, but never have i had violent tendencies and im not a social outcast.

Policy wise I am independent but lean left-wing, I support left economic policies, I believe soft power is almost always the most effective route to go in situations where its an option.

The idea that these video games create killers is such a ridiculous myth, crime rates are dropping in America as a whole, not growing, and even if they were growing they probably would have more connection to the economic crisis than pixels on a screen.

I understand you stated 'unemployed,' perhaps saying more disadvantaged people would present themselves as more radical. Perhaps true. But video games being the catalyst to all this? That Al Qaeda are going to penetrate the gaming community?

In my experience, the make up of the gaming community IS the makeup of North American society. You get people who are -clearly- tea-partiers outside of gaming, you get centre, you get left. There are always going to be a few bad apples, but video games didnt make them bad.

 

LIFELINE

8:44 AM ET

September 29, 2011

There was an Xbox game...

You mentioned how this should be sent out to the public, they might actually do that, there was a game used for tactical training in Iraq which was eventually released on Xbox. I forget its name, but it was a third person tactical shooter and had you directing squads while in fire-fights. The military version had a few extra features, like citizens who would come out during a fire fight and start badgering you. It was a great game though from my experience.

I agree that this game probably would be affective to understand all the variables at work and how un-predictable these environments can be, but not going to win any wars. Still effective in that sense of achieving understanding of the difficulties.

 

BILLPRESTON

1:17 PM ET

September 29, 2011

The game is called F2C2

F2C2 is a real-time tactical strategy game that allows you to learn about the Army’s FCS program by giving you command of a Mounted Company Team in the year 2015. I've never played it but it looks interesting. I would be curious to see if it would attract more understanding of the complications and as you say unpredictable situations like this are.

I would love to at least check out the military version of this game.

 

JGWILKINSON79

8:51 AM ET

October 3, 2011

There was an Xbox game..."Full Spectrum Warrior"

The Xbox game was Full Spectrum Warrior (FSW). It, like UrbanSim, was an Army-Academia-Industry collaboration. Like UrbanSim, FSW's creation was driven by the talented team at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. Significant numbers of Subject Matter Experts were called upon to work with the creative team and the technologists to pull this together. Peck captured the overarching intent and learning objective when he stated that "...accurately simulating the dynamics of an insurgency wasn't the goal. The point was to begin to understand them". It is one thing to create an immersive "game" it is quite another to bring the systems together to create an effective learning environment. By all indications UrbanSim does a pretty good job with both.

By way of disclosure - I have worked both on the government side and, a year or so later, the industry side of the team that developed both FSW and UrbanSim.

 

SAINTIGEL

12:18 PM ET

September 29, 2011

crowd sourcing

It would actually be very beneficial to release this to the public and use it as a crowd sourcing tool. Video games have been helpful to the scientific community for solving problems, think how this could generate valuable models for effective strategy. Assuming the coded assumptions are correct, the military would quickly and easily have solid methods to draw on that would have positive results.

 

RBB

1:08 PM ET

September 29, 2011

Did William Bonney and John Wesley Hardin play too much Xbox?

Humans (including Americans) killing each other predates video games by a fair peace.

 

LANDONCLOONEY

10:30 AM ET

October 11, 2011

Good point RBB

We certainly can not blame video games for the world's violence. Humans have always been greedy and used violence to get their way. It's almost like every culture in the world needs a relationship rewind to repair the damage that has been done. All cultures would benefit from taking the time to learn how to get along with each other and put aside all of our fears. The problem is, humans are too close minded to actually understand and appreciate other cultures.

Just my thoughts.

 

SASS

7:17 PM ET

October 20, 2011

Stereotyping

Serial killers do not play violent games. Instead, they sit down and make a master plan, on how to accomplish their demonic agenda. So that means, playing violent games does not mean that the person is likely to kill anybody who angers them or perhaps be a war freak person whenever someone pisses them off. Same thing goes to the mentality of most people that states that all video gamers are nerds and geeks, or maybe a person who has a social problem. Let us just say that these people merely enjoys the game, enjoy being a fly zapper, but not to the point of living their lives according to the game.

 

ELI

6:11 PM ET

October 24, 2011

Where most Pentagon computer

Where most Pentagon computer simulations look like spreadsheets and are just as fun to play, UrbanSim, which came out in 2009, resembles the kind of strategy game that many of us enjoy at home. That's probably because it was developed by the Institute for Creative Technologies, an innovative University of Southern California center funded by the Army and with deep ties to Hollywood and the video-game industry. Search for executive jobs sydney.

 

YARINSIZ

3:00 PM ET

October 25, 2011

The idea that these video

The idea that these video games create killers is such a ridiculous myth, crime rates are dropping in America as a whole, not growing, and even if they were growing they probably would have more connection to the economic crisis than pixels seslichat on a screen. I understand you stated 'unemployed,' perhaps saying more disadvantaged people would present themselves as more radical.