Panda and Reddie: On (AI) Wargaming and Nuclear War
At War on the Rocks, Ankit Panda and Andrew Reddie have written a must-read piece on AI and wargaming, the importance of which extends well beyond nuclear crisis. Recent experiments placing large language models in simulated nuclear crises have…
The Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics held that you can do anything, it’s just a matter of willpower. This administration runs on the Red Lantern Theory: Any failure to achieve a geopolitical goal can be ascribed to insufficient cruelty & brutality.
Unfortunately I have very little doubt at on how that is going to turn out.
If there ever was anyone at that level prepared to burn down a career over illegal target selection, they got purged by Hegseth a while ago.
The military will not save you from the voters' bad political decisions.
Newly posted to PAXsims: Robert Domaingue's Facilitating Learning in Tabletop Exercises and Wargames: A Field Guide Grounded in Adult Learning Science (55pp)
Joe Chretien discusses his AI NFL draft matrix game (and its implications for professional wargaming).
Connections North 2026 conference report
On March 14, Connections North held its tenth annual professional (war)gaming conference, this time at the National Capital Region Officers’ Mess in Ottawa. As is a Connections North tradition, it snowed heavily. The theme this year was (War)gaming Canadian…
Simulation and gaming miscellany, March 2026
PAXsims is pleased to present some recent items on conflict simulation and serious (and not-so-serious) gaming that may be of interest to our readers. PAXsims is made possible due to the generosity of our Patreon supporters. The annual Connections North…
Conflict simulation at McGill (2026 edition)
It is Winter 2026 term at McGill University and once again I'm teaching my POLI 452 conflict simulation course. The core of the course is eight game design projects, each undertaken by a group of five students. The projects are chosen by me, based on…
Simulation & Gaming (April 2026)
The latest issue of Simulation & Gaming 57, 2 (April 2026) is now available. Editorial How to Leverage Insights From Games and Gamification – the Road Ahead Marlies P. Schijven and Toshiko Kikkawa Research Articles Synergistic Integration of Artificial Intelligence…
Payne: AI and simulated nuclear crises
A recent paper by Kenneth Payne (King's College London) on the strategic behaviour of various LLM AI models in a wargame is receiving considerable attention. Today’s leading AI models engage in sophisticated behaviour when placed in strategic competition.…
CEASEFIRE!
Posted on behalf of Rebecca Sutton (University of Glasgow). Are you an educator or trainer who is interested in using the CEASEFIRE! negotiation skills video game in your course/training? Look no further... The CEASEFIRE! Toolkit for Trainers and Educators is here. Free to download on…
Violent and non-violent death tolls for the Gaza conflict: new primary evidence from a population-representative field survey - The Lancet Global Health www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
Connections North 2026 conference programme
The draft programme for the 2026 Connections North professional (war)gaming conference can be found below. The conference will be held on March 14, in Ottawa. The theme this year is (War)gaming Canadian Security in an Era of Strategic Uncertainty.…
The Vassal game engine as a support for modeling digital forces
The following article was written for PAXsims by Philippe Lépinard, Emma Germain-Leclerc, and Andréa Melo. Philippe Lépinard is an associate professor in information systems at IAE Paris-Est, the university management school of…
Good morning. Looking for insights into where and how I might begin writing for any Canadian outlets to tie US / Canadian politics together, and help people here understand WTF happened to the US, and why it's so dangerous even if a full democracy.
Hybrid warfare and NATO cohesion
Source: WSJ. In December, Die Welt newspaper and the German Wargaming Center of the Helmut-Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces held a wargame examining the hypothetical Russian seizure of the Lithuanian city of Marijampole. The exercise involved 16 former…
CFP: Connections Online 2026
The Connections Online 2026 wargaming conference will be held on 20-25 April on the theme of "wargaming soft factors: moving beyond the kinetics." Wargames have traditionally focused on "hard factors" - movement rates, firepower scores, penetration values. But all…
Serious Game Arcade 2026: Games and Sustainability
The 2026 Serious Games Arcade will take place on 10 June 2026 (at Concordia University in Montreal and hybrid) on the topic on "Games and sustainability." How are games and sustainability intertwined? Or broken? Serious games offer a chance to…
AWL Wargaming Conference 2026
The 2nd Edition of the WARGAMING CONFERENCE AWL will take place at the Military University of Land Forces (AWL) in Wrocław, Poland on 15-17 September 2026. The theme this year will be "Comprehensive Security: Advancing Wargaming in Military and non-Military Domains."…
Assises Françaises d’Étude du Wargaming 2026
The 2026 Assises Françaises d'Étude du Wargaming will take place on 23 April in Lyon. Nous vivons une situation d’imbrication de crises multiples : financières (par exemple celle des subprimes de 2008 dont la crise de la dette publique française est en…
Simulation and gaming miscellany, 26 January 2026
PAXsims is pleased to present some recent items on conflict simulation and serious (and not-so-serious) gaming that may be of interest to our readers. Many thanks to Catherine Philippe and Andrew Spearin for suggesting material for this latest…
Serious Play 2026
The Serious Play 2026 conference will take place at Duke University on 5-7 August. Further details can be found at their website.
@christysomos.bsky.social "Canadian Brig-Gen Robert McBride is the deputy commanding general... for the [US] 11th Airborne. His role in a division waiting to support ICE is a pointed example of how Canadian personnel are caught awkwardly..."
www.economist.com/the-americas...
All the more reason to attend the Connections North professional wargaming conference in Ottawa on March 14. paxsims.wordpress.com/2025/12/01/w...
Connections UK 2026 dates
From the organizers of the Connections UK professional wargaming conference: SAVE THE DATE! Connections UK 2026 will be on the 8th - 10th September 2026 at Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK To help us plan for this for the conference we are very interested in how you feel…
Some recent wargaming podcasts
The Wargame is a major five-part series from Sky News and Tortoise which imagines how a Russian attack on the UK could play out – and invites real-life former ministers, military chiefs and other experts to figure out how to defend the country. The Army Mad Scientist…
AFTERMATH: A Venezuela matrix game
From the ever-productive Tim Price comes a matrix game about Venezuela in the aftermath of the removal of Nicolás Maduro. Briefings are provided for six actors: the Venezuelan regime, the Venezuelan military and security services, the opposition, the United…
MIT Summer Wargaming Institute
The Summer Wargaming Institute is a four-day "bootcamp"-style program hosted by the MIT Security Studies Program Wargaming Lab on 12-16 July, designed to teach practitioners and scholars how to design and run wargames for research, training, and analysis. Applicants…
Simulation & Gaming (February 2026)
Simulation & Gaming 57, 1 (February 2026) is now available. Editorial We Need Cooperation to Save Our World- and Other Lessons Learned From Gaming Marlies P. Schijven and Toshiko Kikkawa Research Articles Exploring the Usability of Virtual Reality as a Tool to…