There is an effort afoot to create a professional wargame society among those who work in the field professionally. Part of the strategy is to eventually found a peer reviewed journal dedicated to professional wargaming topics. As a first step, it was decided that a professional wargaming news letter would be a good way to go. I volunteered to head up the venture. Here was the general email I sent out:
Thank you for making this year’s Connections Conference such a success.
On Thursday afternoon of the conference the annual meeting was held to discuss the formation of a professional society for war gaming. Several potential avenues of approach were discussed. It was decided that one of the long term goals of such a society would be the eventual creation of a body of peer-reviewed literature on the subject of professional war gaming. Although it is not feasible to create a professional journal at this time, one positive step in that direction would be the founding of a quarterly newsletter, to be made available to the Connections mailing list in PDF format. The purpose of the newsletter would be to keep war game professionals informed of events, progress in the field, and to forward the cause of the eventual formation of a society. Jon Compton volunteered for this effort.
At this time the intention is to release the first edition of the news letter in approximately six months. This effort, however, depends upon you. This release period means that we need to gather content for the first edition within three months. We need content, of from 300 to 600 words, dealing with matters pertaining to professional war game design, development, implementation, philosophy, epistemology, etc.
Suggested topics include, but are certainly not limited to:
Definition of war gaming
Glossary of war gaming terminology
History of War Gaming
Discussion of the formation of a professional society
Formation of a discipline of study
Standards of practice
War Game Theory: What War Gaming is, is not, and its relationship to
other analytic techniques
Why War Game? Rationale and purpose of War Gaming
War Gaming to support Military Operations
War Gaming to support Military Strategy
War Gaming to support National Security
Game Theory and War Gaming
Gaming 4th Generation Warfare
Collection and Analysis of War Game data
War Game Design, implementation, and execution
Events of interest
Book reviews
We invite any and all recipients of this email to submit pieces for publication in the newsletter. Deadline for the first edition is July 31, 2008. Please submit your piece to jbcompton@mcsgroup.org.
And while you are cogitating over your contribution, please feel free to suggest a name for our newsletter.
Thank you for your attention.
J. Bernhard “Jon” Compton