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Since the introduction of the “Kriegsspiel” (wargame) to the Prussian General Staff by Baron von Reisswitz in 1811, which was improved by his son in 1824 by introducing paper maps, unit markers, and well‐documented rule books, wargaming has had a place in military education and planning. From this beginning, General von Muffling, the Prussian Chief of Staff, ordered the use of wargames throughout the Prussian Army, and many allied and visiting armies copied these ideas. Wargames help to think through options, investigate new ideas for operations, and prepare military decision‐makers by confronting them with surprises requiring a quick response. Following disruptive events requiring a reorientation, like the end of the Cold War in the nineties, or the emerging of new nuclear armed rogue nations in our day, wargames help to set the stage by providing dynamic context including the necessary complexity of the challenge for decision‐making.

Wargames are no longer limited to military planning. Domain‐specific tabletop games are conducted today in various other domains, from preparing local administration and government for conducting large events, like the Olympics or a sports world championship, or for responding to natural or man‐made disasters, like earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, or terror attacks. Even in business, wargames are conducted to evaluate different options, strategies, and possibilities.

The rise of computer simulation changed the role of wargames. Computer simulation systems driving computer‐assisted exercises now play the dominant role, especially in the training and education domain. Simulation systems are used to plan and optimize procurement and development as well of a wide array of physical systems. Even operational testing and evaluation is heavily supported by simulation systems, offering a high degree of fidelity in physics‐based computations. With the increasing capabilities of artificial intelligence methods, simulations also are becoming more realistic in their representation of command and control.

However, wargames are on the rise again. After years of placing trust into the power of computation, using human creativity and intuition in wargames is becoming increasingly important in the search for new doctrines or concepts of operations. The power of our simulation systems rests on our representation of systems; capturing human ingenuity requires us to look beyond our simulated representations.

What I want to show within this chapter is that wargaming and computer simulation are not competing methods, but that with the advances in both domains a new approach is possible that will enable deeper insights into the complex domain of modern operations, in which we take full advantage of both technologies. New wargaming centers will have to take more advantage of the computational power of simulation systems, while the creativity of wargamers will guide the activities. The following sections will provide several domains that will benefit from such a symbiosis.

This introduction presents two viewpoints on the challenges: those of a simulation expert with more than 20 years’ experience in the development and application of simulation systems on many scale and in many domains, and those of a wargaming expert, preparing, conducting, and evaluating wargame events of highest interest in the defense domain.