Spot Report From The Future: North Korea Has 10% Chance To Take, Hold Seoul

An example of starting positions for DMZ.

Last week was Battle Week in my Strategic Intelligence class.  Using DMZ, Decision Games recently released tabletop wargame that simulates an invasion of South Korea by North Korean forces sometime in the near future, my 20 students duked it out over the Taebaeck Mountains and Cheorwon River Valley for nearly four hours. 

The results?  The rules give a "win" to the North Koreans if they can take and hold Seoul.  Those same rules call it a draw if North Korean forces can take Seoul but not hold it.  In the 10 games we played, the North Koreans were only able to take and hold Seoul once while they managed 2 draws.

Obviously, the purpose of this exercise was not to predict the future.  I wanted to get my students to think about strategy and the impact of intelligence on strategy.    In order to encourage this kind of thinking, I had them outline what they thought their opponent's strategy would be and then detail their own strategy before they began the game  

At the end of the game, I also asked them to consider how well they had been able to estimate their opponent's strategy and how well they had executed their own strategy.  

While I am still crunching all this data, one of the most interesting results came out of my students' predictions about the outcome.  I wanted to know which side the students' thought would win.  I also wanted to check for bias so I asked this question two different ways.

First, I asked who would win, "me" (the student filling out the survey) or "my opponent" (the student they were playing against)?  Only three of the 10 North Korean players predicted victory while none of the South Korean players predicted a North Korean victory.

Next, I asked, out of the 10 games to be played, how many times would the North Koreans win?  While the range was from 1 to 4, the average was 2.25 games.

While the level of understanding of the game and the rules varied among the players, if I give a half point to a draw (which I am inclined to do...), both the individual predicted average and the collective average indicates a high degree of calibration on the part of these student analysts -- an encouraging result, for me, at least. 

I will post more as I develop it but leave a comment if you have a specific question.

The Desperate Person's Guide To Gifts For Intelligence Analysts (Link List)

So, you have an intelligence analyst in your life and you want to buy him or her a gift.  I fully understand your horror at this prospect.  

They either already have it ("Picked it up from the second or third most obscure site on the Internet...") or it is impossible to find ("All I want is that Flemish-Urdu dictionary I keep asking for...").

SAM is here to help.  All of the gifts below have been rigorously tested using real analysts and are guaranteed to be better than a pair of socks.

Cover via Amazon

A Guide To The Good Life:  The Ancient Art Of Stoic Joy.  I just finished this book and I can heartily recommend it to the analyst in your life.  William Irvine, the author, has done an admirable job of dissecting the various strains of ancient stoic thought and re-mixing them for the modern world.  

Want a taste of stoic thinking?  From Marcus Aurelius (Emperor and noted stoic):  "If you work at that which is before you, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you were bound to give it back immediately; if you hold to this, expecting nothing, but satisfied to live now according to nature, speaking heroic truth in every word which you utter, you will live happy. And there is no man able to prevent this." Even if you don't see why that is such an awesome quote, take it from me, your analyst will.

DMZ:  The Next Korean War.  This is an old-school, table-top, war game published by Decision Games that depicts a near-future war in the Korean Peninsula.  While the game is not based on any of the recent tensions between North and South Korea, your analyst will appreciate the care that has gone into this simulation as well as the opportunity to examine the terrain and orders of battle in detail.  If they can find another grognard, they may even be able to test out a few strategies they have been kicking around inside their heads.

Anything From Wondermark.  Wondermark is the strange and amazing online comic by David Malki.  Some of his best stuff he has compiled into books or put on t-shirts.  You may think that your analyst is too sophisticated for a ninja riding a unicycle t-shirt or a "The Revolution Will Not Be Telegraphed!" t-shirt, but, believe me, you're wrong (See below...)

(By the way, you can find more like this at Wondermark.com)

Do you have any other ideas about what to get an analyst?  Leave 'em in the comments!