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Professional Wargaming Newsletter

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

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Don Chappell on May 17, 2008 at 12:34pm

Great idea!

Let me request that you send me the e-mail at my Lockheed Martine e-mail. I'll then circulate it amongst all the LM OA groups.

don.chappell@lmco.com

Thanks,
D.

Permalink Reply by Jon Compton on July 6, 2008 at 11:54am

Hello to All:

It is now the end of the first week in July and the deadline for submissions to the new professional wargame newsletter approaches quickly. Again, 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

Please help make this first step to a professional journal and society a reality by contributing some time and effort to the project.

We had a number of ideas for naming the newsletter:

Professional War Gaming Newsletter
Studies in Wargaming
Journal of Defense Ludistics
The Good Fight
On War Gaming
vom Kriegsspiel

Please let me know your thoughts on any of these.

Permalink Reply by Jim Werbaneth on July 6, 2008 at 1:22pm

Studies in Wargaming or On Wargaming sound the best, especially as they're to the point and free of jargon.

Also, down the road would you be interested in articles on using wargames in the classroom? I'm going to be doing just that in the fall semester.

Permalink Reply by Jon Compton on July 6, 2008 at 4:36pm

I think such pieces would be fine.

Permalink Reply by Smitty on August 16, 2008 at 11:16am

Jon:

Have you signed me up?

Smitty

Permalink Reply by Smitty on August 16, 2008 at 11:16am

Jon:

Have you signed me up?

Smitty

Permalink Reply by Defense Linguistics on August 16, 2008 at 10:25am

Jon,
Would you kindly add me to your newsletter list?
neal.durandoDELETE@defenselinguistics.org
Cheers,
N.

Permalink Reply by Jon Compton on August 16, 2008 at 10:41am

Done.

Permalink Reply by Brian Train on September 16, 2008 at 1:05pm

Jon, could you pelase add me to the mailing list for this?
Brian(dot)train(at)gmail(dot)com.

Thanks!

Permalink Reply by Jon Compton on October 8, 2008 at 9:36am

Soon as I finish my qualifying exams I'm going to put it together. Look for it sometime in November.

Permalink Reply by Andreas Ludwig on October 8, 2008 at 1:01pm

Definition of war gaming
Glossary of war gaming terminology
History of War Gaming

I suppose it's too late, but we do have some articles on these topics on our website, however so far only the glossary is also in English:

http://www.homefrontcenter.de/Allgemein/glossary.html

Permalink Reply by Jon Compton on January 28, 2009 at 9:41am

Many are by now wondering when the first edition of the Professional Wargaming Newsletter will be posted. I'm sorry to announce that, for now, the newsletter is on hold. Although we received some submissions, we only received just enough to complete one issue, and a disjointed issue it would be. There was no material at all for a second edition. For now we have decided to shelve the newsletter until the topic can be taken up again at the next Connections Conference in 2009. In the mean time, I will keep everyone posted on any new developments.

Although the newsletter is on hold, please do not feel that this should prevent you from submitting material for it. Should an influx of articles come in, then I'm certain the newsletter can be placed back on a forward burner.