The Gaming Lab at CNAS

From armed conflicts to global pandemics, military strategists and policymakers use gaming to gain insights into some of the most challenging problems they face. Games help develop and test strategies, support effective decision-making, and communicate vital lessons to key stakeholders.

The Gaming Lab at CNAS, nested under the Defense Program, develops and runs innovative unclassified games and exercises on a range of challenging national security issues. Drawing on its extensive game design and subject matter expertise, the Gaming Lab develops tailored games along three primary lines of effort: operational wargames, strategy games, and expert elicitation exercises. The Gaming Lab conducts rigorous post-game analysis, identifies key insights from its games, and makes concrete policy-relevant recommendations.

To learn more about using wargaming or similar methodologies to explore difficult problems, contact the Gaming Lab at gaminglab@cnas.org.

Primary Lines of Effort

Operational Wargaming

The Gaming Lab at CNAS runs unclassified wargames to examine critical operational issues in Asia, Europe, and beyond. These games may be used to develop innovative operational concepts, test new strategies or capabilities, or to explore novel scenarios. Examples of past operational wargames include:

Exploring how a conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan could unfold and the military strategies that China and the United States might choose to adopt to achieve their aims
Examining whether three different budget-constrained force structures were capable of defeating large scale aggression, territorial land-grabs, and gray zone conflicts in the Indo-Pacific and Europe
Exploring new operational approaches to command and control to improve the U.S. military’s ability to achieve degradation dominance in future conflicts with China and Russia

Strategy Games

The Gaming Lab at CNAS designs custom strategy games that explore critical aspects of national security, ranging across diplomatic, information, military, and economic activities. CNAS also runs political-military games that focus on the non-military aspects of competition and conflict. Examples of past strategy games include:

Exploring how China could leverage coercive tactics to gain control over Taiwan’s semiconductor industry and shift the balance of power in U.S.-China strategic competition
Examining how Iran might use chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons in the future to control escalation and challenge U.S. interests
Assessing the implications of proliferated drone technology to state and non-state actors

Expert Elicitation Exercises

The Gaming Lab at CNAS develops and runs scenario and tabletop exercises, simulations, and red team analysis to explore security issues through subject matter expert elicitation. CNAS also uses such exercises to educate audiences about critical problems in defense and national security. Examples of past expert elicitation exercises include:

A virtual wargame simulating a conflict in the East China Sea
A scenario exercise exploring economic coercion in the U.S.-China relationship in Asia and Europe

The Gaming Lab Team

Becca Wasser

Lead
Stacie Pettyjohn

Senior Fellow and Director, Defense Program
Andrew Metrick

Fellow, Defense Program
Hannah Dennis

Research Associate, Defense Program
Philip Sheers

Research Assistant, Defense Program
Molly Campbell

Program Administrator, Defense Program
Dr. Alec D. Barker

Former Adjunct Senior Fellow, Defense Program, Principal, MITRE
Philip Breedlove

Member, CNAS Board of Advisors, Distinguished Professor, Sam Nunn School at Georgia Tech
Robin Dickey

Adjunct Associate Fellow, Defense Program
Billy Fabian

Adjunct Senior Fellow, Defense Program, Senior Analyst, Govini
Greg Grant

Adjunct Senior Fellow, Defense Program, Senior Principal, MITRE’s National Security Sector
Dr. Erik Lin-Greenberg

Adjunct Fellow, Defense Program, Assistant Professor of Political Science, MIT
Admiral Cecil Haney, USN (Ret.)

Member, CNAS Board of Directors, Former Commander, US STRATCOM
General Mike Holmes, U.S. Air Force (Ret.)

Former Adjunct Senior Fellow, Defense Program, Senior Advisor, The Roosevelt Group
LTG Anthony R. "Tony" Ierardi, USA (Ret.)

Adjunct Senior Fellow, Defense Program, Rebellion Defense
Jennifer McArdle

Adjunct Senior Fellow, Defense Program, Senior Director for Defense Programs and the Deputy Chief Learning Officer at CAE USA
Dr. ED McGrady

Adjunct Senior Fellow, Defense Program, Principal, MonksHood Media LLC
Sarah Mineiro

Former Adjunct Senior Fellow, Defense Program
Admiral John Richardson, USN (Ret)

Member, CNAS Board of Directors
Peter Schwartz
Tom Shugart

Adjunct Senior Fellow, Defense Program
Sarah Smedley

Former Adjunct Senior Fellow
Robert O. Work

Senior Counselor for Defense and Distinguished Senior Fellow for Defense and National Security