The main task of the armed forces of all countries has always been to prepare to fight possible wars and, to do this, the general staffs of the armies are constantly engaged in the conception, recreation and concrete simulation of operational scenarios, also known by the English name of wargames. There has always been a heated debate on the level of realism that characterizes these simulations, but recent developments in the field of artificial intelligence could represent an important technological leap and create previously non-existent opportunities and allow new generations of officers to approach the battlefield in a completely new way.
In the beginning was the Kriegsspielthe first modern wargame
Although theoretical training methodologies in the art of war for military leadership existed in every era, it was not until 1824 that a Prussian officer, Georg Heinrich Rudolf Johann von Reisswitz, presented the first model of wargames in the modern sense of the term. Given the pragmatic nature of the officer corps of the Royal Prussian Army, this game was simply renamed with the term Kriegsspiel (“war game” in German).
Despite the premature death of von Reisswitz, who committed suicide in 1827 at the age of just 33, his invention did not die with him, but soon became an integral part of the training course of the officers of the Kingdom of Prussia first and of the German Empire later.
The importance of Kriegsspiel in Germany it reached its peak between the First World War and the Second World War, when the limits imposed by the Treaty of Versailles made theoretical exercises the only means available to the officers of the Reichswehr first and then of the Wehrmacht. Right through the Kriegsspiel they conceived and perfected the revolutionary and infamous doctrine of Blitzkrieg (literally “blitzkrieg”).
The wargaming in the world
Until 1870 the other great powers paid little attention to Prussia, but the astonishing victory achieved by the Prussians against France during the Franco-Prussian War completely changed the cards on the table. In fact, the Royal Prussian Armed Forces had no advantage over their opponents either in the number of soldiers or in training or armament; however their officer corps was the most professional in the world and had already been practicing the art of Kriegsspiel which, having thus landed in the Anglo-Saxon ecumene, became the wargames that we all know.
Each country has adopted its own particular approach to wargaming professional, going so far as to develop dedicated versions for the needs of ground forces, naval forces and, more recently, air and space forces. During the Cold War, the best school of wargaming on a global level it was the Soviet one, strengthened by the real experiences gained during the conflict, which were then also made available to the allies of the Warsaw Pact and, more generally, to all the communist armies and revolutionary movements fighting against the West and its allies scattered around the world.
At the same time, the wargaming saw a process of relative decline in the United Kingdom and the United States of America, but the bloody experiences learned during the so-called “limited wars” (first of all: the Vietnam War) quickly convinced the military high echelons to make up for lost time, also helped in this sense by a new powerful event: the information revolution.
The introduction of artificial intelligence: lights and shadows
The introduction of computers revolutionized the world and, obviously, also had its effects on more recent developments in the art of war. If in 19th century Prussia i Kriegspiel they were nothing more than board games, the modern ones wargames revolve around sophisticated computer simulations, the same ones that have allowed the military computer games sector to be created from scratch over the last three decades.
The development of artificial intelligence represents the latest and current stage of this evolutionary trend. Thanks to this support, the military can now analyze scenarios that were previously simply impossible to contemplate, for example aerial maneuvers so demanding that they push the human body’s ability to withstand it to the limit.
Furthermore, by knowing the tactics and operational doctrines of a potential enemy, Artificial Intelligence can play the role of “active aggressor”, putting planners to the test as if they were facing a real and reactive flesh-and-blood enemy fighting a real battle and not a pre-selected set of static scenarios.
Lastly, the development of Artificial Intelligence offers a glimpse of the possibility, especially for large and medium powers, of deploying powerful self-driving weapon systems that can do without human control to carry out the mission. This possibility is triggering heated debates both for its ethical implications and for the dangers connected to a possible loss of control, as already predicted in cult science fiction such as the saga Terminators.
