Coevolutionary Gaming Theory Can Facilitate Decision Making

Over the course of history, the strategic environment has changed rapidly and is now more complex than ever before – it is currently characterized by unpredictability and disorder, and may yet manifest itself in the collapse of nuclear armed nations, destabilizing conflict in geo-politically vital regions, and humanitarian crises. A world of disparate actors – not all nation states – now exists. Unpredictable events will continue to cause strategic surprise. The widespread effects of past conflicts such as World War II, Vietnam and the Iraq war are still being felt and have created significant strategic repercussions. The failures of these conflicts are the result of our military and political leaders’ failure to quickly adapt to wartime conditions. This occurs because of a general refusal to commit to a military culture of learning that encourages serious debate, critical assessments of our military operations, and challenges to our doctrine in the face of emerging change. Additionally, leaders have struggled with the critical responsibility of forecasting and providing for a ready force, one that is well-resourced and prepared to conduct future operations. It is the responsibility of our military and political leaders to send our military to war with a ready force, and a strategy that will ultimately result in victory. But understanding war and warriors is critical if societies and governments are to make sound judgments concerning military policy.

Managers generally consider the rivalry among competitors as a major source for deriving strategy. As explained by the Michael Porter it is a narrow view of competition. A set of other parameters should be evaluated, mentioned in article as five competitive forces, along with industry

Some of the concepts/models that are applied to strategic problems vary in meaning depending on the setting one is in whether it be in the actual real world or in the classroom. These

When faced with a difficult choice a person will think the multitude of different options over before making their final decision. Do they go with the choice that will benefit them or the choice that will benefit others? Many decisions are made on the circumstances of the situation a person is in. If a person is told in a time of war to participate in an act, that person will participate due to the fear of the consequences, even if that person does not know what the consequences are. In Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher Browning the men of the battalion are faced with many options during their time in the battalion. Choices that include killing Jews in a firing squad to

The notion of an American way of war informs how scholars, policymakers, and strategists understand how Americans fight. A way of war—defined as a society’s cultural preferences for waging war—is not static. Change can occur as a result of important cultural events, often in the form of traumatic experiences or major social transformations. A way of war is therefore the malleable product of culturally significant past experiences. Reflecting several underlying cultural ideals, the current American way of war consists of three primary tenets—the desire for moral clarity, the primacy of technology, and the centrality of scientific management systems—which combine to create a preference for decisive, large-scale conventional wars with clear objectives and an aversion to morally ambiguous low-intensity conflicts that is relevant to planners because it helps them address American strategic vulnerabilities.

For example, an inferior adversary is more apt at using an attrition strategy, so planners need to know how to best counter and defeat this strategy. Defeating an attrition strategy is usually labor and resource intensive, so planners and policy makers must determine if the objective in view is worth it, otherwise the endeavor must be abandoned. However, attrition warfare does have its risks and weaknesses and it is the planner’s job to identify and exploit

Each session, these scenes become increasingly elaborate. At the end of creating the war scenes a battle occurs. The client labels these sides as good or bad. During two sessions, the good side was the Americans and the bad side was the Chinese. During four sessions, the good side was green and the bad side white. Each play session, the client makes the distinction of “good guys” and “bad guys”. During play, the good guys chase and attack the bad guys, which is consistent with a G>B, AGG code. At other times, the bad guys attack the good guys. As this action is initiated by the good guys, this is included in the aggressive theme as opposed to Good Guy vs. Bad Guy as the bad guys are pursuing the good

Today’s strategic environment, whether government or corporate, is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) often times characterized by “wicked problems” or unsolvable problems. Compiled during the early 19th century, Clausewitz’s manuscript “On War” arguably posited the same conclusion in relation to the strategic level of war. He described war as uncertain, unpredictable, and marked by chance. The more the scale moved from the tactical realm to the strategic realm, the more complex war became due to the aforementioned variables. Society today must contend with the impacts of globalization, which has led to significant changes in economic, social, and cultural norms. These changes have resulted in compressed timelines and reduced decision space. With so much information available, the risk of information overload has presented challenges to how individuals approach problem solving. As a result, society has become over reliant on what Guy Claxton defines as deliberate mode (d-mode), “a way of knowing that relies on reason and logic.” (Claxton, p2)

"After war-gaming all COAs, the staff now conducts COA comparison to select the COA that best supports the mission and commander's intent" (Artillerization, n.d., "Step 5: Course of Action Comparison" section, ¶ 1). It is the responsibility of all the staff

In the view of global security,(2011) The military decision making process abbreviated as MDMP is a planning model that establishes procedures for analyzing a mission, developing and comparing courses of action(COA) that are best suited to accomplish the higher commander’s intention and mission. The MDMP comprise of seven stages and each stage depends on the previous step to produce its own output. This means that a mistake in the early stage will affect all the other stages that follow. These steps include:

To remain competitive a company must consider who their biggest competitors are while considering its own size and position in the industry. The company should develop a strategic advantage over their competitors’

The events that were described in this case study sounds to me as if they started off with the planning model of Rational Planning. I say this due to the fact that all the right parties were alerted to what needed to be done with goals being said and set to be put into place for starters. This did help with the main concerns being priorities and kept to along with formations being followed with effective organized tactics. They were put into place after the goals were set and made. As I read this case study and from my understandings this war was being analyzed and evaluated by senior officers in Washington who all had different ways and structures they thought

For each separate scenario identified, a suitable course of action has been constructed that best encompasses the strategy stated above.

considered relative to those of close competitors and with one eye to the likely reaction of rival

Game Theory, the analysis of the concepts used in social reasoning when dealing with situations of conflict (Rubinstein, 1991), is one of many methods used to provide rational strategies towards the making of decisions. Game theory provides logical and mathematical models towards decision-making which are applied to real-life situations such as