I believe wargames can be useful tools for both teaching and causal inference. On the teaching side, I have developed two games for play in classrooms: 1) a game on the Yucca Mountain nuclear debate to teach about how politicized knowledge assessment is conducted and 2) a game on social media regulation to teach about the incentives faced by both public and private actors. I have also published a co-authored article in PS: Political Science & Politics about evaluating the efficacy of teaching games.

On the causal inference side, my ongoing book project makes use of a series of experimental wargames called Military Assessment of War, or MAW, to examine how states evaluate the prospects of war. In MAW, participants play as the military leadership of a fictitious nation, tasked with assessing its likelihood of victory in war against a rival. They must juggle conflicting streams of information under time pressure to uncover the underlying truth about the balance of power.

I have two ongoing wargame projects, Umbrella and Technology & Conflict. The former investigates how leaders make decisions on nuclear weapons use while the latter explores how military innovation affects conflict initiation. If you are curious about wargaming or would like to play one of my games, please email me at harrisb@mit.edu.