
Colonel Noob's Final Thoughts
You can learn a lot about people from the games they play. Twenty years ago, the military might have dismissed a game like UrbanSim as wussy social science. That the Army now uses it to train its next generation of leaders says volumes about how far the military has come toward embracing "soft" concepts like social networking.
So how did this armchair strategist fare at COIN? Probably better than the U.S. military in the first years of the Iraq occupation, but possibly not as good as in the years following the "surge." I'm still not sure what I learned from UrbanSim. Like many an army commander before me, I never had a firm sense of how my decisions created consequences. Many hidden assumptions lie underneath UrbanSim's hood, and a simulation can only be as accurate as those assumptions.
But accurately simulating the dynamics of an insurgency wasn't the goal. The point was to begin to understand them. What staggered me was the almost infinite number of possible decisions and consequences in UrbanSim. I could kick down doors, bribe local leaders, smash insurgent cells, and fix sewer lines. But I didn't have enough resources to do everything, nor could I foresee how each action would help or hinder the other actions.
Tomorrow I will probably read about a battalion commander struggling to simultaneously fight the Taliban, build schools, and establish a rapport with villagers. I can't fully sympathize with his plight because I have never walked in his shoes (a fortunate thing for all concerned). But I can now understand his dilemma a little better.
If the Army were smart, it would make a game like UrbanSim available to the general public. It won't change anyone's mind about the war. But it will give them a greater appreciation for the challenges of counterinsurgency. Believe me: Colonel Noob can use all the help he can get.

SUBJECTS:


















(14)
HIDE COMMENTS LOGIN OR REGISTER REPORT ABUSE