Indeed, if Romney had remembered ever playing the game with any of his five sons, he might have been able to rebut the president on the spot. He could have said: "Of course this is ‘Battleship.' That's why I want a lot of smaller, but still well-armed vessels for the U.S. Navy, not just a handful of extremely expensive, highly vulnerable aircraft carriers and a few dozen submarines. China has hundreds of lethal missile and torpedo boats. We need more small, swift ships of our own that pack a real punch."
Romney might also have quoted Senator John McCain's cri de coeur against the huge cost overruns on and problematic performance prospects of the new Ford-class carrier: "It's outrageous. It's a national disgrace."
"Battleship" aside, there is another old-line board game, "Stratego," that also speaks to the hider/finder dynamic -- this time as it applies to land warfare. In "Stratego" the locations of enemy forces are clear; what remains hidden are the identities and relative strengths of the various units, minefield patterns, and the opposing commanders' headquarters. Thus victory in "Stratego" is completely dependent upon mastering the ability to "find" while keeping the identity and location of one's own key forces hidden. If we had the ability to find Taliban forces reliably, the Afghan war would end in a trice. "Stratego" is all about finding what is hidden in plain sight.
In addition to its value in thinking through the problems posed by irregular wars, the lessons of "Stratego" can be used to illuminate more conventional conflicts as well. In China, for example, soldiers of the People's Liberation Army train their minds using a hider/finder wargame, Lu Zhan Jun Qi ("Army Chess"), which bears a strong resemblance to "Stratego." However, "Army Chess" includes transport systems and missile weapons, adding layers of complexity that "Stratego" lacks. Still, it is a clear sign of the Chinese military's appreciation of the importance of "finding" the enemy.
On the theme of chess variants, I have created an offshoot of the old German game, kriegsspiel, a double-blind contest in which each side -- seated out of sight of the other and with a referee in between -- can see only its own chess pieces. The object is to learn how, over time, to infer the locations of the opposing forces -- in effect, "how to find" (and also how to keep hidden). Many graduates of the military school at which I teach have, over the years, confessed that the details of my lectures may have dimmed in their minds; but the lessons of kriegsspiel remain clear and have often helped to inform and guide their actions against our all-too-elusive enemies.
So, yes, this is "Battleship." "Stratego," too. And it is likely to remain so for decades to come.
SUBJECTS:
