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The article presents information about the "Half-SAFE," a nuclear war game designed by the U.S. Department of Defense. The war game was designed to provide the U.S. commanders with experience of making strategic decisions in a nuclear war. The game was developed by Olaf Helmer and R.E. Bickner of RAND Corp. in the 1950s. The game is the result of cooperation of several institutions including the Air Force Academy in Colorado and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The instructional manual for the game was made public in February 1980. The game reflects the inner workings of the military mind. The game can be played with or without computer simulation.

This article explores the underlying culture of war sustaining the setting of scenarios within cyberwar games. In particular, it engages with the question of how to simulate a phenomenon that, due to its remoteness, possesses an ambivalent relation to reality. Looking at scenarios of major national and international cyberwar games as illustrations, this article, first, engages with the modes of existence of simulated cyberwar through the conceptual prisms of copy/original and simulation/simulacra. It then explores how these scenarios frame cyberwar in relation to cyberwarfare scholarship and legislations. It then sheds light on how, through operational exercises, these scenarios ultimately reproduce cyberwar as an imagined cultural artifact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the critical discourse on war video games is limited by a methodology that can tend to rely on theory above content, where politicaleconomists in communication studies frequently argue that games are little more than ciphers by which dominant ideologies-like the pre-eminence of the militarymedia complex-ensure their proliferation amongst wider culture, particularly in younger players. Political-economists of the military-industrial-entertainment complex have offered valuable structural analysis of the institutional and ideological links between the U.S. Department of Defense, video game corporations and warthemed video games. Several scholars have also analyzed how the narratives of war video games give ideological support to the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. war policy. Though these studies are important, they overlook an important fact: that not all war-themed video games offer simplistic, one-dimensional and affirmative war stories and war play experiences. The goal of this article's analysis of Spec Ops: The Line is to show how an ostensible war game is capable of turning players against war or, at least, encouraging them to contemplate its consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1976, the militaries of the United States and South Korea have been holding routine joint military exercises (JMEs) for the purposes of military training and deterrence against North Korea. These exercises are frequently cited as a cause of tension on the peninsula, causing North Korea to escalate its conflictual rhetoric and behavior. I empirically assess this claim using new data on US-ROK JMEs and machine-coded event data collected by the Integrated Crisis Early Warning System. The findings show that North Korea does not systematically escalate its con flictual rhetoric or behavior during or near the occurrence of JMEs. The results hold for both lowand highintensity exercises and for rhetoric that has the United States and South Korea as its target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a secret war being waged by the U.S. in the hinterlands of southern Philippines. With war on terror as the mission and objective, the war's legal cover is the Philippines-U.S. Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement. The joint Philippine-U.S. military exercises called Balikatan and other small-unit exercises serve as the disguise for implementation. The author asserts that secret bases and facilities have been installed in the Philippines. He reveals the role of the VFA in highlighting the inequalities in the two agreements including the surrender of Philippine sovereignty to U.S. secret operations and activities and the circumvention of the country's constitutional policy against foreign military bases and troops.

The article discusses the activities of the Wargame Division of Air Force Logistics Management Agency (AFLMA) in 2008. Activities include the Senior Decision Making Exercise in Pennsylvania, the Air Mobility Command's Global Air Mobility 2008 on June 16-20, 2008 in New Jersey, and Unified Engagement 2008 on October 29 to November 5, 2008 in Germany. It also says that its goal is to carry out agile combat support (ACS) objectives in Air Force and Joint exercises, wargames and experiments.

The article focuses on the mission and vision of the Air Force Logistics Management Agency (AFLMA). Its states that the agency is committed in improving capabilities on agile combat support (ACS) through supply solutions and research. It adds that wargame activities will be fully integrated and that ACS literature will be improved. The AFLMA also has a vision of being an agent of change by generation transformational solutions.

WarGames (1983), the first mass-consumed, visual representation of the internet, served as both a vehicle and framework for America's earliest discussion of the internet. WarGames presented the internet simultaneously as a high-tech toy for teenagers and a weapon for global destruction. In its wake, major news media focused on potential realities of the "WarGames Scenario." In response, Congress held hearings, screened WarGames, and produced the first internet-regulating legislation. WarGames engaged a "teenaged technology" discourse, which cast both internet technology itself and its users as rebellious teenagers in need of parental control. This discourse enabled policy makers to equate government internet regulation with parental guidance rather than with suppression of democracy and innovation, a crucial distinction within 1980s cold war context. Thus, this article historicizes the internet as a cultural text, examining how technology and its regulation shaped and were shaped by cultural representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of cultural awareness in counterinsurgency operations of the Iraq War. The author notes the views of journalist George Packer regarding cultural differences between U.S. troops and Iraqi citizens and discusses how cultural knowledge has been incorporated into U.S. counterinsurgency field manuals despite U.S. foreign policy. He notes how simulation methods for urban combat fail to acknowledge local populations.

The article discusses various activities and developments within the Air Force Logistics Management Agency (AFLMA) in the U.S. for 2007-2008. As a field operating activity, the agency reports to the Director of Resource Integration in the Headquarters of the U.S. Air force. The AFLMA finished a total of 60 projects with 17 improvement studies, 40 consulting studies and three wargames studies. AFLMA's hosted several events in 2007 including training sessions and wargame planning meetings.

The article offers information on the Air Force Logistics Management Agency's (AFLMA) Wargames Division. Accordingly, the AFLMA made separate Wargame Division to address the expansion of agile combat support (ACS) demands to exercises, wargames and experiments (EXWAREX). The achievements of the division for 2007 include engaging to two wargames, creating fuels pocket guide and analyzing fuels mobility support equipment data (FMSE).

The article presents a brief overview of the U.S. Air Force Logistics Management Agency (AFLMA) activities in 2007. It focuses on the principal missions of AFLMA including to study and analyze the Air Force logistical processes, support the Air Force Title X wargames, and publish literature related to agile combat support (ACS). It cites that the AFLMA aims to develop the Air Force core values, quality of life and professional skills, and to promote it as a world-class support center.

In post-9/11 America, digital war games have increasingly come to provide a space of cyber-deterrence where Americans are able to 'play through' the anxieties that attend uncertain times and new configurations of power. This article seeks to examine the increasingly close relationship between the US military and the digital-game industry, along with the geographies of militarism that this has produced. Focusing on the contribution that digital war games make to a culture of perpetual war and in the manufacture of consent for US domestic and foreign policy, the Pentagon's mobilization and deployment of digital games as an attempt to create a modern version of the noble war fantasy is critically examined. With particular reference to America's Army, the official US Army game, the article seeks to examine the influence of digital war games in the militarization of popular culture and in shaping popular understandings of geopolitics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the attempt of the U.S. Marine Corps to prepare itself for counterinsurgency operations and other forms of asymmetric warfare. The advocacy of this shift by Corps Commandant Charles Krulak in the late 1990s is cited. War game exercises created by Krulak are described. The de-emphasis of Krulak's ideas after he retired in 1999 is given. The Corps' institutional commitment to its traditional amphibious warfare role is cited as the reason.

The fundamental nature of warfare has not changed, but changes in the methods and conduct of warfare are shifting. In the past, emphasis has always been on large, identifiable foes with professional standing armies. This article offers specific structural and procedural treatments on how to teach adaptability with the Tactical Decision Game to develop and access the quality and quantity of junior officers demanded by the security challenges that face the Army and the United States. Today, many aspects of the program of instruction, training, management of the institutions responsible for creating the new generation of leaders, and how cadets are accessed into the officer corps is reminiscent of industrial age concepts derived from Frederick Taylor. To counter an array of national threats and opponents and to solve problems at the lowest levels with strategic consequences calls for a synthesis of institutions and courses that deal with leader development into learning organizations. To meet this need, the current educational and training ways and means must be assessed, evaluated, and changed. Weak spots and points of failure in cadet training must be identified, all on behalf of retooling the system in intuitive and adaptive ways that facilitate officer development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the elements that affect war gaming in the U.S. and its relationship with the government. Questions raised in the post September 11, 2001 controversy over invading Iraq; Forms of war games in antiquity; Concept of war games in the doctrine of preemption.

Promotes wargaming as an innovative tool for achieving war-fighting strategies. Benefits of wargaming; Influence of wargaming on the operational art of war; Information on the Title X games of the United States Defense Department; Potential initiatives for a Silver Flag operational level of war.

Discusses the concept of 'dominant effects' in warfare. Argument for a change in command and control systems; Production of war gaming and educational programs by the United States Air Force; Premise of effects-based operations.

Examines Title 10 war games being conducted at United States war colleges. Personal perspectives of game participants and neutral assessors; Use of war games to evaluate plausible offensive and defensive options against those of a potential adversary; Misuse of war games as justification for defense budget battles.

Focuses on the United States Army's Transformation Wargame 2000, a five-day war game held in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Goals of the war game; Controversial issues of the war game; Insights gleaned from the exercise; Highlights of the event. INSETS: Virtual Profile.;ALL TALK..

Discusses the role of wargaming on the United States defense planning. Need to search for basic understanding of the future of war; Application and testing of this understanding in a joint arena; Wargaming based on quadrants patterned after the framework developed by scientist Louis Pasteur.

Traditionally military aviators have prepared for air-to-ground bombing missions with maps and aerial photographs of their targets. Mission rehearsal systems augment these media by allowing pilots to view simulated ingress to their target, as seen from the cockpit perspective. In the present experiment we assessed the benefits of mission rehearsal with a task requiring observers to view recorded approaches to target objects and to detect the target objects as quickly as possible. Results indicated that premission simulations allowed observers to detect target objects at greater stand-off ranges than did study with maps and aerial photographs alone. Actual or potential applications of this research include the deployment of a mission rehearsal system to assist aviators' mission planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on computer-based war games or air-combat simulators in the United States. Views on air warfare; Context of the war games; Significance of the games; Disadvantages of the games.

This paper illustrates a methodology to evaluate how dissimilar military systems support the accomplishment of the United States' counterproliferation objectives. The key questions in evaluating counterproliferation systems are identified. By using decision analysis, an influence diagram model is developed that represents military activities in the counterproliferation process. A value model is developed that enables systems to be evaluated against common criteria. An analysis of intelligence, defensive, and offensive counterproliferation systems suggests that intelligence system improvements may provide the greatest potential to meet the United States' counterproliferation objectives. Sensitivity analysis is conducted to determine which factors in the model are most important. To demonstrate the model, nine systems from the Air Force Vulcan's Forge 1995 wargame are evaluated. This paper illustrates the value of decision analysis, and influence diagrams in particular, by involving decision makers and subject matter experts in structuring complex problems for analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]