The Atlantic – SimCity Baghdad

A new computer game lets army officers practice counterinsurgency off the battlefield.

US Naval Institute Proceedings – Simulation: The (Almost) Real Thing

Military simulation facilities have come a long way from even a few years ago. Many now are sophisticated enough to mimic real-life operations. Some are absolutely eye-popping. And they’ve become standard fixtures in the military.

Economist – The military-consumer complex

Military technology used to filter down to consumers. Now it’s going the other way.

Economist – War games

Consumer products and video-gaming technology are boosting the performance and reducing the price of military equipment.

Washington Post – U.S. tested 2 Afghan scenarios in war game

Greg Jaffe on how the US is using wargaming to explore its options in Afghanistan

US Naval Institute Proceedings – Time for the Navy to Get into the Game!

The Army is using high-quality video games to attract recruits and train Soldiers. Why can’t the Navy do the same for its Sailors?

Time – North Korea Invades! (And Other Pentagon War Games)

A look at some current wargames being run by the US military.

Air Force – PACAF’s “Vision” Thing

A new wargame tells airmen what it will take to hold the line in the Far East.

New York Magazine – With a nuclear North Korea and Iran on the way, the geopolitical situation is evolving in unpredictable ways. Can a hypersophisticated World War II simulation teach us 21st-century global strategy? Eminent historian Niall Ferguson rates the state of play.
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New York Times – There is a reason American military officers express grim concern over the tactics used by Iranian sailors last weekend: a classified, $250 million war game in which small, agile speedboats swarmed a naval convoy to inflict devastating damage on more powerful warships???yet another look at Millennium Challenge 2002.
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Virtual Worlds News – A look at the future of military training – the use of virtual worlds as “first person thinkers” for training.
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New York Times Magazine – In an age of microscopic technologies and sweeping Google Earth panoramas, Will Wright, the worldís most successful video-game inventor, has set out to create a game (or is it the art form?) that will teach us how to really see. A preview of Spore, the ultimate game (or wargame?). What will be Spore’s applications in – and implications for – military education?
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Wired – Roadside bombs. Hostile insurgents. 1,200 extras in Arab dress. Welcome to Louisiana and the Army camp known as the Box, where the violence is fake but the fear is for real.
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US Naval War College Review – War games can produce valid knowledge, useful for planning and decisions, but they can also produce “valid-looking garbage.” There are principles that can help users and analysts tell the difference and avoid the pitfalls, but if game results are to merit reliably the confidence they are now given, the craft of gaming must become a profession.
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Wired – A seemingly harmless gesture could get a soldier in hot water, especially in a war-torn country. Body language that’s meaningless in the United States — such as showing the soles of one’s feet — is offensive in Iraq. So the American military is adopting a new video game created to help soldiers navigate the mysterious world of international nonverbal language.
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Washington Post – A look at the growing use of videogames to train soldiers and Marines for combat.
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Military & Aerospace Electronics – Improved displays and screens are helping engineers build sharper pictures, but the greatest improvement in military simulation and mission rehearsal has been in software. Military users strive to feed the simulators with real-world, nearly real-time data freshly collected from satellite-based sensors.
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Economist – Can software really predict the outcome of an armed conflict, just as it can predict the course of the weather?
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New Map Game – An extensive summary (90 pages) of Thomas P.M. Barnett’s New Map Game wargame that occured earlier this year.
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Wired – The Pentagon marshals thousands of computer-generated soldiers, tanks, ships and networked flight simulators to make large-scale training exercises more realistic than ever before.
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The Business – Another journalist describes in detail Thomas P.M. Barnett’s recent New Map wargame.

Here is Part 1 and Part 2.
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Washington Post – The United States would be all but powerless to protect the American economy in the face of a catastrophic disruption of oil markets, high-level participants in a war game concluded yesterday.
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Daily Telegraph – A first look at Thomas Barnet’s New Map Game, which took place this week.

The game’s Web site can be found here and the rulebooks may be found here.
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Guardian – In offices created by an ex-Star Trek designer and using techniques and technology from movies and gaming, some of Hollywood’s top creative talents are helping the US military to train for war in the 21st century.
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Washington Post – A look at Gator 6, an interactive video that is being used to train officers bound for Iraq.
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