Wargaming: A Medium of Historical Reflection

I normally try to keep Chaos Keep out of the realm of politics and current events in general, mostly because I generally view those things as anxiety triggers and my personal intent of this blog is to stay away from such things. This week though there was an interesting post in a hex and counter thread I follow on Reddit that I thought was interesting fuel for discourse.

"Does anybody else lose their appetite for hex games when there's a major military conflict going on? I used to love strategy but now that I see the reality (not like wikipedia pages) it's kinda sickening"

I found this post interesting for a number of reasons: one, because it highlights just how effective the Western media is in highlighting conflicts it deems “worthy” of coverage. Secondly, there are nearly innumerable conflicts occurring at any given time around the globe apart from the war in Ukraine, a phenomenon that has been steady for the last several decades. But most importantly, I think this is a good opportunity to reflect on wargaming as a medium not just for pure entertainment, but also as a means to experience history through a different perspective and reflect on the importance of key historical events.

There are several mediums one can use to understand history. One very common way is to read a book about a particular event. I’ve got a huge library of WWII books, books about the Napoleonic wars, military history journals, you name it. This is a great way to get a good grasp of the context behind particular events, especially the geo-political landscape that drives nations to war. But books, particularly books about European history, can be extraordinarily dry and it is hard to consume the real perspective of the players involved. More specifically, it’s easy to understand the context, the names of kings, the things they did, etc, but it’s very hard to get a grasp on how the people involved felt and the kinds of decisions they had to make.

Another common medium is film. Film gives viewers another perspective, and it’s often a highly intimate portrait of a particular event in history. Using the WWII example, there are hundreds of films out there that depict the viewpoints of the various participants and nations - many of them are quite excellent, gut wrenching and visceral. As an American, I’ve found that collectively our national lens on the war is quite narrow (I’ll call this John Wayne syndrome), and so over the years I’ve branched out to foreign films to gain additional understanding of how other countries viewed this devastating conflict.

Come and See (1985) is a mind shattering Russian film about atrocity on the Eastern Front

Not surprisingly, when you view foreign films, you quickly find out that American forces are not viewed as righteous crusaders, even by our allies, and that we’ve truly invented an image cultivated by no one but ourselves. Films also highlight some of the personal challenges in history that books often fail to highlight from an emotional perspective. The Battle of Algiers is a great example of a movie that does more than entertain, and brings light to the personal struggles of people in the throes of revolution, insurgency and tyranny.

Battle of Algiers (1966) depicts the French-Algerian conflict between 1954-1957

Finally, we arrive at the medium of wargaming. Originally, modern wargaming really wasn’t a vehicle through which to experience history. Much like Chess, many early wargames from the 1950s were set piece affairs, with generic maps and forces, depicting a fictional war between the nations of Red against Blue. As the medium matured, so did the simulation of real world events. There are now thousands of titles depicting virtually every armed conflict since the dawn of time - from the Romans and Carthaginians to the counterinsurgencies of today.

Wargames present players with a unique opportunity: now they are not just reading about events or watching them occur on a screen, but they are placed in the proverbial driver’s seat of history. Wargamers take on a position of leadership for a particular nation at a particular time, generally a military commander or a politician. They are given the historical constraints of a particular time period and asked to make decisions from the perspective of that nation. Some may revel in this opportunity and some may find it offensive. I personally view this as an opportunity to experience history from a different lens than is offered from the two mediums discussed previously.

There is a specific series of wargames offered through GMT called the Counterinsurgency (COIN) Series. Because counterinsurgency conflicts are often caught up in political, racial, and post-colonial issues, this series tends to draw significant controversy. Going back to the Battle of Algiers example above, there is a particular game called Colonial Twilight which simulates the French-Algerian insurgency throughout the early 1950s. The players are asked to take the roles of the various factions involved - one player as the Algerian Front de libération nationale (FLN) insurgent group and the other as the French colonial government and military forces attempting to quell the burgeoning revolution in Algeria. Players make decisions in leveraging terror tactics, political influence and military might to decide the fate of this nation. How then should the person playing the French feel? Knowing that the French were on the wrong side of history in this conflict, is it a sickening exercise to try to play a wargame from their perspective?

GMT's Colonial Twilight (2018)

My thinking is still no and has always been no. My reasoning is simple - I have always been a student of history and will continue to be. I could see how one might be totally offended by this experience however. It’s not for everyone. And in the end if a game isn’t being enjoyed, what’s the point of it?

I’ll offer an even more personal example that has led me to this conclusion. I’m a 2-tour veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan. That conflict has shaped who I am as a person and has given me a perspective on that piece of history that people who have never been in a conflict zone could never understand. When I learned that GMT was also coming out with a game about the Afghan conflict, I was immediately turned off. No way I’m playing that thing, I thought. It’ll hit way too close to home. Even beyond that, what could this game offer me that I haven’t already experienced? Hell, I was there, I didn't need a game to tell me about this conflict. Boy was I wrong.

GMT's A Distant Plain (2013)

GMT’s A Distant Plain is another quintessential COIN experience. In this game, players take on the roles of the Taliban, warlords, Afghan national government and finally the NATO coalition forces. Not only did I find an interesting and fresh perspective on the conflict, it gave me a reason to reflect on what happened there. Given the recent withdrawal from Afghanistan, I was deeply upset by decisions made by the US government. This game offered me another opportunity to sit back and really do some internal analysis on what happened and what it meant to me.

Not everyone will agree with my perspective, and that’s okay. I do hope though that people add wargaming to their list of ways to experience history, and when they do, they’ll see how it can be used not just for entertainment but also for deep reflection.