Gaming the Islamic State three ways from Sunday
McCants’ presentation at the Boston conference, and his forthcoming book (above), both make it clear that the apocalyptic stress of today’s “caliphate” has morphed significantly from the more immediate apocaypticism in IS’ Zarqawi-era predecessor, Al Qaeda in Iraq.
And for a nuanced understanding of time-urgency in apocalyptic rhetoric, Stephen O’Leary‘s Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric is the definitive work.
So when do we start introducing ideational war (and/or peace) games alongside our games of brute force?
And how do you factor esprit, morale, and “angels, rank on rank” (Quran 8.9, 89.22) into troop movements and so forth?
Hint: they’re force-multipliers.
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Bryan Alexander:
July 16th, 2015 at 1:01 pm
What games have done this well so far?
Charles Cameron:
July 16th, 2015 at 5:02 pm
None that I know of. Van Riper’s red teaming is an instance of using a doctrinally innovative approach to game a more conventional one, but it demonstrates “irregular warfare” as a concept rather than, say, the spiritual significnce of attacking / defending the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra.
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I don’t think we yet know how to mesh quantitative (hi tech, big data) with qualitative (anecdotal, personal insight), Bryan, and the general leaning is towards the former. Apart from anything else, it requires bigger budgets, with more pleasant side effects. And we’re in a STEM-oriented world, where as a general rule surface beats depth..
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Do you have any insight from ARGs?
Scott:
July 17th, 2015 at 2:13 am
After trying to read Kimberly Kagan’s inaccurate account of the surge, I find it hard to take anything the ISW says seriously.
Charles Cameron:
July 17th, 2015 at 4:06 am
Indeed, Scott — not my favorite source, just one I happened across today.