Wargames as Experiments: Strategy and Unintended Escalation (WESUE)

Project Information

WESUE

Grant agreement ID: 101109871

DOI

10.3030/101109871

Project closed

EC signature date 24 April 2023

Start date 1 September 2023

End date 30 April 2026

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 230 774,40

Coordinated by

SYDDANSK UNIVERSITET
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WESUE (Wargames as Experiments: Strategy and Unintended Escalation (WESUE))

Reporting period: 2023-09-01 to 2026-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Wargames as Experiments: Strategy and Unintended Escalation (WESUE) is designed to understand the causes of nuclear escalation and failure of restraint and alleviate the lack of data, either due to non-events or the fact nuclear data is often classified. Previous scholarship is lacking because it is 1) on correlations, large-n studies designed to offer probabilistic models, 2) prospective, offering conjectures from possible scenarios as educated predictions, or 3) products of the Cold War where the main driver of competition was power parity. WESUE generates previously unavailable data through a simulation software to offer causal explanations of nuclear escalation in relevant crisis settings, informing more accurately theory and policymaking. WESUE’s research question is pertinent: What are the causes under which nuclear escalation becomes more likely?

As such, the objective of WESUE was to understand the dynamics of crisis escalation, especially in cases where technology may have a role to play, and to determine how military strategies can have an impact on crisis dynamics.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Under WESUE, the research developed a simulation software to generate synthetic data for rare events. It allowed to test cases of escalation dynamics where no such case exists, for example in the context of the integration of the air forces in Scandinavia. Moreover, the usage of simulation and wargames to understand the dynamism of conflict and innovation discussed in the project became a book under contract at Bloomsbury Press under the title Virtual Battlegrounds: Forecasting Modern Conflicts. Moreover, the military strategy aspect of the project became a book contract with Cambridge University Press under the title Asymmetric Deterrence: Explaining the Coercive Power of North Korea.

The results of the project have been presented in workshopped in many venues, including at Cornell University Press, the NATO Defence College, EWIS in Poland, the University of Southern Denmark, and the Royal Danish Defence College.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

WESUE’s scientific impact is threefold. First, the simulation platform it created provides a new methodology to create synthetic data for cases or events where there is none, leveraging artificial intelligence to generate thousands of simulations to validate hypotheses or research questions. Moreover, by also using wargames with actual participants, it allows to validate externally the results of the simulations. The security studies impact relates to the second work package. My work on military strategy and domestic constraints allowed me to develop a theory of asymmetrical deterrence to explain how the weaker powers are able to deter stronger power, something that the current literature under theorizes. For international relations, the project allowed me to look at questions of escalation in different theatres including Scandinavia, the Mediterranean, the Korean Peninsula, and the Middle-East while demonstrating that wargaming can actually deliver relevant data for real life issues