Politics of play: wargaming with the U.S. military

In the current century, games play a key role in many areas of our lives. Once thought frivolous and nerdy, videogames are now the leading global entertainment medium, and games are widely used in education, medicine, government - and war. Since 2014, the US government has directed the military to expand the use of wargames across their training, planning, and rehabilitation spheres. Combining original empirical data gathered at US military computer-assisted command post exercises (CPXs) and school-houses with a distinctive theory of immersive play, this title offers a new critical analysis of the use of wargaming to produce soldiers in the digital age.

In the current century, games play a key role in many areas of our lives. Once thought frivolous and nerdy, videogames are now the leading global entertainment medium, and games are widely used in education, medicine, government - and war. Since 2014, the US government has directed the military to expand the use of wargames across their training, planning, and rehabilitation spheres. Combining original empirical data gathered at US military computer-assisted command post exercises (CPXs) and school-houses with a distinctive theory of immersive play, this title offers a new critical analysis of the use of wargaming to produce soldiers in the digital age.

A wargaming renaissance has been underway in the US military. Having proven to be the most effective recruitment tool of the 21st century, games have proliferated across all levels of the military's strategic, operational, training, and rehabilitation architecture. From board games to high-tech digital and virtual reality platforms, wargames enable milarites to learn lessons from the past, play out possible responses to current crises, and explore the effectiveness of future operations and strategies. From the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the Covid 19 pandemic, today wargames are a key means by which the US military - and many other militaries - make plans and fight wars.Politics of Play is the first academic book dedicated to the US military wargaming renaissance. Grounded in 100 hours of interviews undertaken by the author during fieldwork with US military wargamers, it explores how games intervene in players' cognitive and affective registers using immersion and the drive to win. In addition, Politics of Play develops a new theory of play grounded in the thought of Jacques Derrida which seeks to expose and disrupt the politics and power relations at work in the use of games to produce warfighters in the digital age.