Mission: The German Wargaming Center aims to foster a strategic awareness among current and future civilian and military decision-makers at both national and subnational levels through the deployment of wargaming as a training-, simulation-, and research instrument. Our novel approach includes developing emergent strategies in the face of an increasing complex threat environment that encompasses all parts of our societies. Our work supports the Democratic Resilience Center’s mission to enhance the resilience of German society and its democratic institutions.
Wargaming: Wargaming is a mostly scenario-based approach in which outcomes and events are driven by player decisions, providing a safe-to-fail environment for exploring what works and what doesn’t in a structured format. At the German Wargaming Center wargaming is applied to understand influence and how democratic societies can increase their resilience in the face of harmful and hostile influence under whole-of-society definition of security.
Foreign influence on democratic societies forms the basis of coercive campaigns (both military and non-military), impacting attitudes and behaviors of various audiences. It is a significant aspect of e.g. NATO Defense Doctrine, emphasizing the need for understanding and conducting influence and behavioral effects. The German Wargaming Center seeks to research and convey how wargaming can be used to explore influence effects, model how those might impact democratic societies and sketch a path to increase democratic resilience through emergent strategies developed in the games.
Consultation and Training: The German Wargaming Center provides general guidance and training to public institutions and private enterprises, highlights points for consideration, illustrates and presents unresolved challenges for decision-makers in complex environments. Consultancy and training are offered for defense and security personnel, government partners, private sector stakeholders, problem owners, as well as practitioners.
Research and Strategic Wargaming: Wargaming is applied as a training tool and as a research instrument to analyze resilience for democratic societies, as well as conflict and cooperation and geo-economic dynamics in international relations. The German Wargaming Center's work combines insights from Psychology, Behavioral Sciences, Strategic Studies, and Political Sciences. At the German Wargaming Center wargaming as a research instrument and tool of strategic foresight is continuously developed and improved upon, using innovative approaches and international best practices.
The German Wargaming Center differs from conventional, tactical wargaming in its focus on the strategic level, in particular, the nexus of civil-military interaction. Challenges in strategic wargaming include dealing with complex multi-stakeholder relationships, diverse teams, fluctuating competition levels, and the lack of clear winners. Decision-makers in democratic societies must consider new leadership styles that that can balance defensive and offensive skillsets, manage key risks, and understand the unique requirements of democratic societies in an indeterminate environment shaped by hostile, neutral and even friendly actors, all of whom aim to exercise influence.
At the German Wargaming Center challenges such as scenario complexity, biases, modelling influence effects, and balancing simplicity with playability are addressed. The German Wargaming Center leverages digital tools and AI wherever applicable to enhance and refine its approach. Effective control and thorough data capture and analysis are essential for fact-based and credible results and are thus rigorously practiced at the German Wargaming Center.
A Wargaming Hub: The German Wargaming Center globally connects researchers and decision-makers through trainings, academic conferences and thematic workshops. It functions as a knowledge hub to coordinate and enhance the work of e.g. research task-groups and -panels in the framework of the NATO Science and Technology Organization. The German Wargaming Center provides case studies illustrating practical applications of wargaming in various scenarios, including strategic communications, hybrid and cyber influence, and educational games. These examples highlight innovative approaches and the importance of tailored game designs.
The strategic simulation “Entanglement” decision-makers with geo-economic and geo-technological developments and explores possible futures of global power relations. The dynamics of the simulation depend on the participants' ability to coordinate their actions with those of other players. Participants take on the roles of leading companies, states and international organizations, and 'shape the world' on the basis of their freely prompted proposals for their own moves. Through this creative output, players form an emergent strategy within the scenario. The simulation challenges and promotes imagination, quick comprehension and, above all, dealing with the 'unknown' in an environment characterized by bilateral and multilateral cooperation as well as continuous competition.
In “Entanglement”, scenarios can be customized and adapted to geo-economic / geotechnical developments of particular interest and importance in consultation with participating decision-makers prior to implementation.
After the simulation, an After Action Review (AAR) and optional consultancy are available to analyze the issues identified in the simulation and to prepare the participants for successfully managing geo-economic risks.
A simulation takes approximately 3-4 hours, with a number of participants ranging from 7-30, depending on the scenario and set-up.
The blackout simulation ‘Neustart’ is a co-operative, didactic learning game that was developed to prepare crisis managers and other stakeholders for coping with a large-scale and long-lasting power outage. The simulation was developed by the company Spieltrieb in collaboration with crisis prevention expert Herbert Saurugg. In the game, participants take on the roles of members of a municipal crisis team (administration, police, fire brigade, emergency services, building yard) and have to make decisions together in order to maintain order and supplies in a fictitious small town.
The aim of ‘Neustart’ is to realistically simulate the consequences of a blackout, promote the development of resilience and raise crisis awareness. The game mechanics focus on resource management and the proactive management of crisis events that occur during the game. A particular advantage is the low level of resources required to run the game, making it accessible to any type of organisation - even those that do not have professional crisis teams.
HyDRA is a strategic simulation game that deals with hybrid warfare and its effects on military facilities. As the ‘Red Team’, some of the players take on the role of a hybrid actor attacking a Bundeswehr facility, while the defenders, as the ‘Blue Team’, have the task of successfully completing a predetermined mission by the end of the year.In four game rounds simulating the period of one year, the defenders must fend off attacks aimed at destabilising the three main pillars of defence capability - morale, operational readiness and credibility. The defenders' goal is to keep these pillars stable until the end of the game, while the “Red Team” tries to bring down at least one of these pillars and thus achieve victory in the HyDRA scenario.The game illustrates the challenges of hybrid threats, which often lie below the threshold of armed conflict, and at the same time serves to raise awareness of these threats and strengthen the resilience of the players.
Enter the Hybrid Commander: Sisu world, a cutting-edge modular wargame crafted for countering hybrid threats. The game applies a Hybrid Conceptual Framework and Core Model for Resilience, developed in collaboration by the HybridCoE in Helsinki and the EU Joint Research.
Through riveting narrative techniques, the game unfolds the story of coordinated hybrid threat actions. It empowers players to identify vulnerabilities, exploit means, and dance on the fine line between war and peace. Beyond the tactical and strategic realms, the game challenges players to strategically link battles for overarching victories. This game stands as an essential educational tool for decision-makers navigating the dynamic landscape of hybrid threats.
The Game was developed at the European Center of Excellence as an educational hybrid (war) game to teach and train how to counter Hybrid threats and warfare aspects.
The commercial-off-the-shelf strategy game “Weimar” is a simulation of the Weimar Republic from 1918 onwards. The four playable parties KPD, SPD, Zentrum and DNVP struggle on the streets, in the parliaments and in public discourse to preserve the young republic until 1933 in the face of all social, political and economic crises as well as the rise of the NSDAP or to replace it with a soviet republic or a militaristic-authoritarian regime. The dynamics of the game create changing alliances and illustrate the fundamental differences and structural conditions within the Weimar Republic.
A didactic framework concept developed together with the Innovation Laboratory of the Bundeswehr Command and Staff College and the Bundeswehr College Hamburg enables the necessary contextualization and reflection for historical-political education for groups of 4-16 participants in a one- or two-day workshop or a five-day course.
Hedgemony is a wargame devloped by the RAND Corporation designed to teach U.S. defense professionals how different strategies could affect key planning factors at the intersection of force development, force management, force posture, and force employment.
The game presents players, representing the United States and its key strategic partners and competitors, with a global situation, competing national incentives, constraints, and objectives; a set of military forces with defined capacities and capabilities; and a pool of periodically renewable resources.
The players are asked to outline their strategies and are then challenged to make difficult choices by managing the allocation of resources and forces in alignment with their strategies to accomplish their objectives within resource and time constraints.
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Dr. Philip Jan Schäfer, Dr. Joseph Verbovszky, Prof. Dr. Gary S. Schaal
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Dr. Philip Jan Schäfer is the Co-Director of the German Wargaming Centre. He previously held the role of lecturer for special tasks in the Department of Politics and Society at Bielefeld University.
Prior to this, he served as a scientific advisor at the Bundeswehr Centre for Information Work. He completed his diploma in political science at the Free University of Berlin and went on to earn his doctorate at the University of Cologne with an outstanding thesis on the effects of environmental change on security policy in the Arab MENA states. During his doctoral studies, Schäfer began working in communications and headed the state campaign for sustainable mobility for the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Transport. In his subsequent role as Assistant Professor in the Global Studies Department at Korea University in Sejong, Schäfer taught and conducted research on mobility issues and systems theory.
Dr. Joseph Verbovszky is Co-Director of the German Wargaming Center and Senior Research Fellow at the Defense AI Observatory (DAIO), both at the Chair of Political Theory at Helmut Schmidt University / University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg.
He previously earned his doctorate at the University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich on the topic of German Structural Pacifism and worked for various defense companies in the areas of international cooperation and strategic analysis. He completed his Master’s degree in International Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
Colonel (GS) Dipl. Inform Sönke Marahrens, MPA; MMFIS is Department Head at the Center for Digitalization of the German Federal Armed Forces in Bonn.
Before he was the Director Community of Interest Strategy & Defence European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki, Finland from 2021 to 2024. From 2018 to 2021 he was the Senior Research Lead for Strategy and Armed Forces at the then newly founded German Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies (GIDS) in Hamburg.
He holds a Diploma in Computer Science of University of the Armed Forces in Munich, a MPA from the Royal Military College in Canada, a Master in Military Leadership and International Security Politics from the Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg, and an Executive Business Master from CASD, Rome, Italy.
By training, he is a German Air Force NATO Air Defence Officer with different leadership and managerial positions incl. Defence Planning Office and German MOD as well as Battalion Commander. Furthermore, he is a renowned expert for applied military research in the field of Modelling & Simulation, Operations Research and Concept Development and Experimentation.
His fields of expertise are Aspects of Leadership in the 21st Century, modern forms of conflict, Military Strategy, military conflict theory, Hybrid Warfare, Cyber, Artificial Intelligence for the Military and the Art and History of wargaming.
He has lectured on Military Strategy at the Führungsakademie and for the NATO Deep Program at Command and Staff Colleges of Finland, Romania, USA, Georgia, Armenia and Tunesia and more. 2020/2021 he was a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the US Marine Corps Krulak Centre.
Lieutenant Colonel (GS) Thorsten Kodalle is head of the iLab and lecturer in security policy at the Faculty of Politics, Strategy and SocialSciences at the Bundeswehr Command and Staff College.
His main topics are strategic wargaming and cybersecurity. He is a lecturer at the Institute for Peace and Security at the University of Hamburg (Practical Introduction to Wargaming and Serious Gaming), at the Technical University of Hamburg (Gamification of Strategic Thinking) and at the University of Applied Sciences Kiel (Agile Project Management).
After graduating from his diploma studies in political and social sciences, he pursued a military career in the German Armed Forces, participated in the General Staff Service/Admiral Staff Service National course and, after numerous assignments from the Ministry to NATO, earned a master's degree in military leadership and international security with a thesis on“Gamification of Cyber Security/Resilience” and developed his own cyber resilience card game.
He is an intrapreneur in the German Armed Forces, a certified Scrum Master and developed a game master training for the blackout simulation Neustart and the associated resilience workshop. He combines agile project management and wargaming to create “Agile Wargaming”.
Jan Heinemann is the founder and coordinator of Fight Club Germany, Admin Wargaming and Europe of the International Kriegsspiel Society and has a strong network in the international wargaming community.
As a historian and political scientist specializing in ancient and early modern military, social and cultural history, historical game studies, political philosophy as well as higher and advanced education, he has extensive research and teaching experience and is the editor of various anthologies.
He graduated from Leibniz University Hannover in 2019. He works as a facilitator for game-based educational workshops and consultant and is a wargaming expert certified by MORS and IKS.
