Military exercise
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[[Image:Valiant Shield - US Kitty Hawk kicks off operations.jpg|right|320px|thumb|[[USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63)]] kicks off Exercise [[Valiant Shield]], the largest war games of the [[United States Navy]] since the [[Vietnam War]].]]
[[Image:German_Bundeswehr_in_a_house.JPEG|thumb|right|300px|[[German Army]] soldiers during exercise ''Joint Resolve 26'' in Bosnia.]]
A '''military exercise''' (also called '''war game''' in [[American English]]) is the employment of military resources in training for [[military operation]]s, either exploring the effects of [[War|warfare]] or testing strategies without actual [[combat]]. Exercises in the 20th century have often been identified by a unique [[codename]] in the same manner as military operations.
==Types of exercises==
;Field exercises
The more typically thought of exercise is the field exercise, or the full-scale rehearsal of military maneuvers as practice for warfare. Historical names for field exercises in the Commonwealth include 'schemes.' In a field exercise, the two sides in the simulated battle are typically called "blue" and "red", to avoid naming a particular adversary.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
;Simulations
{{main|Military simulation}}
Other types of exercise include the TEWT (Tactical Exercise Without Troops), also known as a sand table, map or cloth model exercise. This type of exercise (in recent years assisted by [[computer simulation]]) allows commanders to manipulate [[model (abstract)|models]] through possible scenarios in military planning. This is also called warfare simulation, or in some instances a [[virtual battlefield]] and in the past has been described as "wargames." Though "wargames" today is used more frequently to refer to recreational [[wargaming]] using either a playing [[board game|board]] with physical pieces to represent units, or played with [[miniatures]], or a genre of [[computer game]]s. Such examples of modern military wargames include [[DARWARS]], a [[serious game]] developed since 2003 by the US [[DARPA]] agency with [[BBN Technologies]], a [[defense contractor]] which was involved in the development of [[packet switching]], used for [[ARPANET]] and developed the first [[computer modem]] in 1963.
==History==
[[Image:F-15_Su30_Mir2000.jpg|right|thumb|250px|Two [[Indian Air Force|IAF]] [[Su-30]] MK (rear) and two [[USAF]] [[F-15 Eagle]]s fly with two IAF [[Mirage 2000]] (middle of V-formation) during joint [[United States|US]]-[[India]] military exercise [[Cope India '04]]]]The modern use of military exercises grew out of the [[military]] need to study [[War|warfare]] and to 'reenact' old battles for learning purposes. During the age of ''[[Kabinettskriege]]'' (Cabinet wars), [[Frederick II of Prussia|Frederick the Great]], [[Kingdom of Prussia|King of Prussia]] from [[1740]] to [[1786]], "put together his armies as a well-oiled clockwork mechanism whose components were [[robot]]-like warriors. No individual initiative was allowed to Frederick's soldiers; their only role was to cooperate in the creation of walls of projectiles through synchronized firepower." <ref> [[Manuel de Landa]], ''[[War in the Age of Intelligent Machines]]'', p.127, Swerve Editions, New York, 1991 </ref> This, of course, was in the pursuit of a more effective army, and such practices made it easier to look at war from a top-down perspective. Disciplined troops should respond predictably, allowing study to be confined to [[maneuver]]s and [[Command and Control (Military)|command]].
The stunning [[Prussia|Prussian]] victory over the [[Second French Empire]] in the [[Franco-Prussian War]] (1870-71) is sometimes partly credited to the training of Prussian officers with the game [[Kriegspiel (wargame)|Kriegspiel]], which was invented around 1811 and gained popularity with many officers in the Prussian army. These first wargames were played with [[dice]] which represented "friction", or the intrusion of less than ideal circumstances during a real war (including [[morale]], [[meteorology]], the [[fog of war]], etc).
21st century militaries still use wargames to simulate future wars and [[modelization|model]] their reaction. According to [[Manuel de Landa]], after [[World War II]] the [[Command, Control and Communications]] (C<sup>3</sup>) was transferred from the military staff to the [[RAND Corporation]], the first [[think tank]]. [[John von Neumann|Von Neumann]] was employed by the RAND Corporation, and his [[game theory]] was used in wargames to modelize [[nuclear dissuasion]] during the [[Cold War]]. Thus, the US [[nuclear strategy]] was defined using wargames, SAM representing the US and IVAN the Soviet Union. Early game theory included only [[zero-sum games]], which means that when one player won, the other automatically lost. The [[Prisoner's dilemma]], which models the situation of two prisoners in which each one is given the choice to betray or not the other, gave three alternatives to the game:
*Neither prisoners betray each other, and both are given short-term sentences
*One prisoner betray the other, and is freed, while the other gets a long sentence
*Both prisoners betray each other, and both are given mid-sized sentences
While the first is their best overall choice, neither of them can be sure that the other wouldn't betray him (and thus be freed while he would get a long sentence). Thus, betrayal was considered as the most rational thing to do, i.e. [[minimax]]ing the losses (getting the [[possibility|possible]] loss to be the minimal possible). This modelization gave the basis for the [[massive retaliation]] nuclear doctrine. The [[zero-sum fallacy]] and [[cooperative games]] would be theorized only later, while the evolution of [[nuclear technology]] and [[missiles]] made the massive retaliation nuclear strategy obsolete.<ref>Concerning the use of military wargames, see [[Manuel de Landa]], ''War in the Age of Intelligent Machines''</ref>.
Military wargaming was thus progressively improved, although according to Manuel de Landa it still suffers today from a [[systemic bias]] on [[conflict]] against cooperative behavior. Dice, which were a rational way to represent [[chaos]], were replaced by the Prussians by artillery range tables, and then by evaluation of each weapon's lethality, etc.
==See also==
*[[Maneuver warfare]]
*[[Flanking maneuver]]
*[[Pincer movement]]
*[[Simulation]]
*[[Aggressor squadron]] (aircraft in military wargames)
*[[War games in progress on September 11, 2001]]
*[[Live fire exercise]]
* [[Canadian Army Trophy|CAT (Canadian Army Trophy) Competition]]
== References ==
{{Reflist}}
==External links==
* [http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&before_9/11=militaryExercises Complete 911 Timeline:] Military exercises up to 9/11
[[Category:Military exercises and wargames| ]]
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