This report presents the results of an ethnographic study of the sociocultural dynamics of the professional defense wargaming community and how institutional traditions, norms, and other cultural elements shape wargaming practices. It is the Task 3 deliverable for the larger research project, Wargaming, Social Complexity, and Asymmetric Threats, sponsored by the Basic Research Office (BRO) of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Key objectives for the full project were to identify areas where future investments in basic research might catalyze the greatest progress in methods to inform decision making around complex social behaviors and to explore how modeling & simulation (M&S) and artificial intelligence (AI) on topics of social complexity can be used to improve the fundamental science and practice of wargaming in particular and capabilities in national-security decision making in general.
Publication Information
Gawrys, Michaela L. 2026. "Sociocultural Dynamics of the Defense Wargaming Community of Practice." College Park, MD: START (February).