Is the US planning for War by... playing games?

would US forces defend the island yes if in fact there was an unprecedented attack they don't pay us money for the protection you know I'm standing on a giant map at CNA getting ready to play a game about war in Taiwan a delicate piece looks a little more fragile today I'll be assuming the role of the leader of China I am presumably the leader of the PRC right now okay amazing and Sam the creator of our Channel search party is playing the leader of the United States I China have just invaded Taiwan and I have

troops there it's been 90 days and now Sam has to decide whether to respond and how but wait what's going on here we're surrounded by experts in all kinds of fields having to do with war and we're at an organization that does research and Analysis for the US military but we're rolling dice we're playing on a giant game board why do we need to play games about war war games are a very cheap way to get better at decisions um than War militaries spend millions of dollars on designing and playing war games and I came

here to understand [Music] why here's the US military gaming Out World War I battles before they happened here's the Vietnam War the Iraq War and lately they've been gaming out what might happen if China invades Taiwan that's what we're doing today now this has always struck me as odd that we play games for war so I asked CNA if I could come do one for myself to see what I could learn so let's see how this face off goes using this giant map and in the process we'll learn why militaries play [Music] games okay so

here's how it works the game designers have created a scenario where I China have invaded Taiwan for 90 days we have had boots on the ground in Taiwan and all these blocks represent the weapons the vessels and troops that I have in my theater of war the game designers have given both Sam and me specific objectives that reflect real world objectives in a conflict like this and that's about it it's now on us to make decisions as if we were the leaders of our respective sides and see how the other side reacts while Sam is

Consulting with his advisers on the first move I start thinking about the countries in this region how do I use this moment to undermine confidence in the US to make the US look less trustworthy right away I'm feeling like I have the upper hand here I've captured Taiwan and now all I need to do is keep the US Military and its allies away they want to make it really costly for the US where any calculation they have to make comes with a very high cost to American citizens We've Just Begun this game and I'm already

surprised at how into this I'm getting I can feel Sam's anger at me that I invaded Taiwan my worry that he'll respond and escalate this conflict so I start working on a plan to make it difficult and costly for him to respond hopefully keeping him out of here we head to the map to start looking at options I toy around with creating a blockade around the island we had the advantage of proximity and speed to set up a wall that says this is going to be costly but this is where I start thinking about the

US's presence in the region especially in Japan and Korea yeah there's a huge presence here is this a vulnerability I think the scariest thing is just the movement across the straight is probably where they're going to focus in and it's like can I stop that so I'm trying to think of these contingencies what they might do okay I'm about to take my turn but I want to pause to thank today's sponsor in cogy for sponsoring today's video all of our personal information is really valuable and companies buy and sell it so that they can Target

us for a variety of things adver Ms insurance premiums there's an entire economy of data Brokers that use your name and your address and your phone number and your email and your demographics and your browsing habits to try to make money it's the major reason why rooc calls and junk mail are so pervasive but it also leaves us vulnerable to identity theft luckily we are protected by the law you have a right to privacy you can request to be taken off these lists the problem is there are hundreds of these lists and it's not easy

to request to be taken off all of them and Cog does this for you you sign up for incog you give them permission to act on your behalf to go make requests to take you off these lists and they do that they do the hard work of restoring your privacy and my favorite part is you get to check in on it they've got this dashboard so to date they've taken me off of 657 lists and they've successfully taken me off of 533 of those lists and they estimate that they've saved me almost 400 hours they're

giving 60% off to all of you if you use the link in my description it's incog Johnny here you get 60% off the yearly plan thanks incog for sponsoring today's video I know all of you are excited to get back to the giant map to see what move I make in the South chin sea let's do it now I've studied the geopolitics of this region extensively but already I feel myself looking at this region in a whole new way so my plan is to beef up my Naval presence around Taiwan while also moving more of

my troops onto the island hoping that Sam doesn't attack great I think we have a plan here and I guess I'll wait to see what what blue does over on team blue Sam seems to be contemplating punishing me not with a direct strike but by targeting my natural resources I think oil is probably a move okay we've done our planning it's time for us to both make our moves so both of you have two operations prioritized ready to go what we are interested in is consolidating our control over this island and signaling to the rest

of the region and to anyone else who might want to get involved that we really serious about defending um and so we are going to move some of these Naval assets to surround the island as I make my move The Surreal experience of feeling like the leader of China continues to grow we are not here to kick anyone out or to invade other places we are simply here to realize our role in the region as the leader of the region and and this is our way of demonstrating that and we hope it does not escalate

into anything more than it needs to okay here comes the response from the US China did an act of aggression we are basically going to show them the ramifications of that we would like to choke their natural resources from the Indian Ocean the US military begins stopping ships that are bringing oil to China this is their punishment for my invasion of Taiwan and this is when I realize that what matters here isn't just how I respond to this but what narrative I tell the rest of the world that gets them on my side storytelling is

so important in a war like this there's no International legal basis for this Behavior the US is a lawless hypocritical state that bullies its adversaries what we're trying to do here is to show them that they've made an error and that we have multiple ways to punish them I'm kind of riffing here but soon I find my narrative and I start to hit it hard we are messaging to the world that this kind of behavior of bullying our commercial ships and our energy resources is threatening the whole global economy I decide to move some Navy

ships over to this important choke point in the global economy near the Suz Canal jibuti where China has a base from which I can monitor the flow of goods and resources to my region we will move a ship over to jibuti here it's not intervening any way it's just here in case things get a little more real I'm particularly interested in in what do the countries also in the South China Sea and in in East Asia feel they're worried that China is expansionist and they much prefer the us to continue to be the one policing

free trade in this area then have China suddenly play that role we roll the dice to determine how other countries in the region are reacting to all of this plus two so the tie means that we adopt the assumption that the neighboring countries are split the game adjudicator who's kind of the referee helps move things along in a realistic way there's an active debate in the southeast Asia region over who is the right guaran of their safety tensions are rising here as we go back to our advisers to plot the next move and while we

do that let me briefly get you up to speed on why we're doing this in the first place turns out that playing games about war has been around for a while as long as there has been War and solid Maps military leaders have wanted to try to simulate how a war could play out before it happens people have been playing games about war for for thousands of years and it's not it's not about a game it's about having an opportunity to to think about things outside of actually having to do it but it wasn't until

the early 1800s that wargaming became more formalized a serious tool for war training and planning real assumptions real constraints real game mechanics that mimicked at least some aspects of real war these Prussian dudes are not playing risk they're getting ready for war there's a lot going on here but the main point in these games is to present decision makers with scenarios that force them to Grapple with the hard decisions of War World War II saw extensive gaming so much so that one Admiral later said that they had gamed out so many different scenarios of how

the conflict with Japan could go that quote nothing that happened during the war was a surprise absolutely nothing except the kamakazi tactics towards the end of the war we had not visualized those war games are practice for war with time these War Games turned into huge Productions involving hundreds or even thousands of participants they moved on to fancy computer simulations that made it feel more and more real more and more precise some of the games were there to help plan for what might happen in war but many other games were there to help hone the

skills of different officers to train them [Music] [Applause] [Music] back on the giant map the conflict is taking a new turn Sam has sent a secret operation of American soldiers to covertly sabotage the bomber planes that I had sent to Djibouti this will require a lot more maintenance and reduce their usefulness in the region he's also moving a bunch of military assets into this region I don't like it we are stepping up our Navy military assets um but out of range of China's defenses Rock forces yes so we have total control of Taiwan we've built

this big Naval blockade around the island they are sabotaging our natural resources coming from the Middle East and we China are using this as a way to amplify to the world that the US is a lawless bully who is sabotaging us when we're just doing what we're entitled to do so it's looking pretty good for the PRC today and not looking great for the US I'm still feeling really good about all of this that is until Sam makes his next move looks like the us is going to escalate here by taking some of their ships

through the Taiwan straight floating through the Taiwan straight to assert that this is International Water they have the right to do this going to come through the straight and show us that they're really serious about defending Taiwan this is a very risky escalatory move Sam's naval ships will be accompanied by Japanese and Filipino ships a show of solidarity with regional allies this is not good I go from feeling great to worried on how I'm going to respond we can't let them do this because it completely shatters our whole uh narrative and our messaging this fwn

operation is uh coming from Japan it is escorting humanitarian Aid to Taiwan it's been 120 days they're starving it's humanitarian Aid that's [Music] it I think we have to draw the red line and say if you don't turn back we are going to sink something we're not bluffing and I want to show that if your humanitarian ship is coming escorted by uh military vessels that will be an aggressive move that we will respond to we don't recognize your Zone around Taiwan so we are doing that anyway we continue our same message that anyone coming into

this water for any reason with military vessels is considered with hostile intent and will be treated uh as such and we're not bluffing our next moment of action is you're approaching this line of folks we bring out a line of ships to physically stop the movement I mean we'll Contin continue to try and avoid but we're navigating past okay I'm sure there's somebody on a Chinese vessel that's got a very good video of a maritime militia ship getting Ram to stern this is a hostile act and very aggressive and we are making plans to respond

and we ask you to turn around immediately or you will face the consequences of this invasive act that we have very clearly signaled to you is not okay Sam is trying to call my bluff and I really don't want it to work I can't let this happen I have to respond or else all my threats will lose their credibility and if you can't tell I'm now fully immersed in being the leader of [Music] China we have tried to avoid this very moment uh but you have given us no choice so I decide to use a

series of missiles to Target one of the Filipino ships we are firing at one vessel attempting to sink it as a way to demonstrate our earnestness so one way or another we overwhelm your defenses and we get some missiles through we we sink the Filipino ship because of the chaotic nature of kinetic War we roll some dice to establish whether or not in this scuffle one of these ships fires back and shoots down one of my aircraft and it turns out they do so us takes down one of our Jets a Filipino ship is either

has been suck or is is sinking the US sag has has fired back there's a big flaming ship that is clearly in the process of sinking in the middle of the straight lots of cameras going onto the national newscast showing these sinking ships a shooting War has begun what happens next Sam acts quickly and retaliates targeting one of my Surface action groups which looks something like this sitting here in the Indian Ocean things are escalating our ESG in the Indian Ocean sinks uh one of they SX wa about to have an engagement unprecedent in modern

history yeah the question becomes what results from this right is there enough us force to be able to defeat this if you're trying to do it absolutely my heart is actually beating faster at this point we're a couple hours into this and I find myself having forgotten that I am indeed not xiin ping and that I'm in an office building in Arlington Virginia playing a game I don't want to escalate here I think doing some sort of superficial damage kind of to this ESG would be kind of a reasonable way to just say like hey

we we will you know we will be here if you if you attack us and this is where I really start to understand the value of all of this this kind of role playing against a real human opponent in a real world scenario forces you into a totally different mental experience than reading about it learning about it watching movies about it totally different which is the whole point and what I've shown you here is actually just the highlights of what was nearly a full day of playing out this scenario we went into way more detail

on every one of these moves forcing us to think about details and calculations which really couldn't have come in any other way there is so much learning that takes place on both sides the red team players learn about blue capabilities the blue team players learn about red capabilities want them to put themselves in the headp space of the commanding officer um the person who would be making as many of those decisions as possible and think about what information they would have think about what information they wouldn't have the game is a framing mechanism each game

that we design is targeting a different series of cognitive processes to try to help the players walk through how would I solve this problem or how would I approach this issue okay so we play games about war to prepare for war some simple and physical that can be done in a day some digital built off software that take weeks but what do we do with the results what a warum allows you to do is a very flexible approach to try to explore that and then set up things to go and analyze and things to go

and test and do back in the 1960s the US military extensively gamed out what would happen if they joined the war in Vietnam when they tested gradually bombing North Vietnam with air attacks the conflict only escalated in the game creating a prolonged conflict in the game the American public came out in opposition of this attack and the Communists gained support in the north this all happened before The Invasion but the results were largely ignored the assumptions questioned And yet when we ended up going into Vietnam quote the outcome of this game was eily prophetic of

what actually happened in 1999 the US military gamed out what it would look like to overthrow Saddam Hussein they gamed out assassination an internal coup they gamed out what it would look like to handle infighting in the Iraqi Army and even installing their own government every one of these resulted in some kind of chaos ethnic conflict military infighting the breakup of the country Mass violence rival forces bidding for power concluding that this would create quote a period of widespread Bloodshed and might lead to the creation of a less than desirable post Saddam state but a

few years later there was a new president in the white house and he was leading a country that had just been attacked by terrorists based in Afghanistan but George Bush and the people around him were still obsessed with overthrowing Saddam Hussein a country away in Iraq so they designed the most expensive game in US history a war game that simulated a war with a madeup country but the secretary defense wanted a report on how the learnings from this game could be applied to a potential invasion of Iraq the US side immediately lost the game when

the red team used a bunch of low Tech tactics to get ahead sinking an American ship the adjudicator stopped the game to reset it refloating the ship and saying that such low Tech tactics would never really work against the US in a real war new constraints were put on the red team and critics say that these new constraints effectively guaranteed that the US would win now the adjudicators could have had other reasonings for resetting the game like this but in the end this represented yet another forced validation that the administration was seeking to invade Iraq

so war games can be very informative if those designing and playing those games are committed to learning from the game and not trying to get the outcome that they want something John Kirby emphasized to me a while back when we were setting up for an interview in the White House only as good as the input yeah and uh and the honest way in which you execute them back here on the game board things continue to escalate but we're out of time for today spending the day playing xiin ping taught me a lot a unique form

of learning that helped me understand the geopolitics of the Pacific in a new way so I'm walking away from this with a much deeper understanding of why militaries put so much effort into making these games I just got a little taste of it me and Sam are by no means good at this but I can see how this serves as practice as a way of testing assumptions thinking in new ways something that is so important for something that is so high stakes war is chaotic it's emotional it's reliant on humans making human decisions and it's

impossible to realistically practice and as always when we talk about war there's a deep Paradox here one that military thinkers have been repeating for centuries that if you want peace you must prepare for war so war is a common factor of history and it's better to think about war than to fight a war and maybe if we think about war enough we can figure out how to not fight a war [Music]