Modelling the Outcomes of International Crises Using Confrontation Analysis

Introduction: Free Kriegsspiel and Committee Wargames

Since the Prussian Kriegsspiel games of the 19th century, wargaming has been an important part of military training (Allen, 1989; Perla & Curry, 2011; Sabin, 2012; Smith, 2010). Training wargames have usually emphasised operational movement and combat aspects of warfare, rather than political aspects of confrontations (Smith, 2010). At the start of the Cold War in 1945, there were a variety of manual wargames focusing on testing command and control facilities, training or developing better war-fighting strategies. Many of the American games such as THEATERSPIEL looked at war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in central Europe (Allen, 1989; Perla & Curry, 2011). These games subsequently included various mathematically based computer models of an all-out thermo-nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and United States.

In the 1950s, the US government recognised the limitations of existing wargaming techniques and started to develop new wargaming methodologies. These started with strategic games focussing on modelling high level crises rather than the actual hostilities (Bennett, 1988; Wilson, 1968). The American government’s methods are worth examining in detail because in many ways the methodology of crises games has not evolved much since these early games. When events indicated that a situation had potential to develop into a confrontation, a team of seven to eight military officers carried out an investigation by interviewing staff operations and intelligence officers, and other specialists inside and outside of government, especially in universities (Hansen, 2013; Wilson, 1968). The relevant United States ambassador, with current political knowledge of some of the states involved, would be included in these interviews. The team aimed to generate a fact book covering the combat potential of the forces involved, relevant geography and other resources. This work was supported by a written paper on Problems, Issues and Questions that included different views of the situation; based on these sources, the scenario was generated and the game prepared.

Such crisis games normally included as players a committee of five to ten participants representing each country (Hansen, 2013). These committees collectively made decisions in the best interests of the country they are playing, but with no representation of in-fighting within teams (as could happen by making different members of the team take on specific roles, such as service chiefs, and giving each of them individual as well as team objectives). The teams representing the United States were expected to pursue whatever policies best helped the United States achieve her national interest, but other teams were expected to act in a way that reflected the American interpretation of the national interest or ideologies of the countries they were playing (Howard, 1998; Wilson, 1968).

Over the course of the three real days allocated to each game, the committees spent four hours each day discussing the options, then outlined to the game moderator their plan for the next two to seven days in game-time (Hansen, 2013; Wilson, 1968). The outcomes of the different plans were then arbitrated by the Game Director using their experience along with advice from specialists, in a manner reminiscent of the free kriegsspiels of 19th Century Germany (Allen, 1989; Smith, 2010). [In free kriesspiels combat outcomes are based on the recent combat experience of the senior game moderators (Curry, 2008). Therefore, the realism of the game outcomes was critically dependent on the skill and knowledge of the game moderators.] The post-game debrief was collated into a thirty-minute short film enlivened with archive shots of riots, ships and troop movements consistent with the game’s storyline.

The American government recognised the value of these games for training. Griffin (1965) reported that the games gave specialists a view outside their own field and participants learnt about the pressures real world foreign policy operates in. The military reported that the games gave them insights into problems that might otherwise have been overlooked. Thomas Schelling, a Nobel Prize-winning academic who directed a number of games in the 1960’s pioneered the concept of bargaining in strategic behaviour (Schelling, 1960, 1966). Schelling said:

One thing games could teach . . . was how little strategy, or even war was military; how it was less concerned with the application of force than with the exploitation of potential forces. They could teach the importance of communicating with one’s opponents, not only by what one said, but by what one did. (Wilson, 1968, p. 71)

Since these early games, seminar wargames (or committee games as they are referred to in the UK) have become an integral part of American planning and training regimes, even into the Internet age (Perla & Curry, 2011; Smith, 2010). The underlying game methodology of the American Department of Homeland Security’s biennial cyber warfare exercise CYBER STORM is based on those same principles. As many of these games integrate political manoeuvres alongside military actions they are commonly referred to as pol-mil games. Although modern pol-mil wargaming frequently is supported by computers and the resources of the Internet, it is still essentially driven by committees making decisions, with outcomes arbitrated by game moderators (Hansen, 2013). They can be viewed as free kriegsspiels with added multimedia.

Development of Confrontation Analysis

Howard (1971) criticised the use of the existing seminar/committee game wargame methodology for assessing national security matters because it gave too much scope to unorthodox behaviour. Too often, participants became bored and did things out of curiosity to see what would happen. He argued that such committee games tended to produce non-replicable results in which the actual process by which decisions were made was difficult to record, and the group dynamics within each committee were impossible to model. Howard reasoned that a structure was needed to help produce more plausible player behaviour, and proposed the technique of metagame analysis (Fraser & Hipel, 1980). Metagame analysis involved making a game out of a problem, where the players attempt to achieve their objectives based on the options open to them. Subsequent analysis of a metagame may give insight into potential strategies when faced by such problems. In the 1990s, Howard developed metagame analysis into a new technique that he called Confrontation Analysis (also known as Drama Theory and Dilemma Analysis).

Confrontation Analysis is a method that can be used to structure, think through and understand complex multi-party interactions (Howard, 1998). Howard intended the method as a challenge to game theory. Game theory is a method of mathematically modelling conflict between rational decision makers in which gains and losses are defined numerically and determined by the interaction of strategies chosen by each player, expressed in a decision/payoff matrix (Neumann & Morgenstern, 1944). Confrontation Analysis assumed that rather than behaving in ways consistent with the tenets of classical game theory, the actors involved in such complex interactions actually attempted to re-define the rules of the game when interacting during a crisis. In practise this means the players generate new options for actions they can take during the game, with each option potentially changing the situation, often making it more complex.

Whilst classical game theory treats an entire interaction on the basis of a single decision matrix and attempts to resolve it, usually by choosing the decision that minimizes the opponent’s maximum gain, Confrontation Analysis treats interactions as a sequence of changes to the decision matrix as negotiations progress.

During a game based on the principles of Confrontation Analysis, the parties involved discuss the situation until they have made their initial positions clear; these positions could be visualised as a card table (also referred to as an options board). The term card table was coined because the participants had each option summarised in front of them on a card, which they could bring into play on the table. The use of such option cards to mediate interactions produced precisely-defined dilemmas in terms of contradictory options. These well-defined dilemmas then become the subject of negotiations as each party attempts to eliminate their own dilemmas (Azar, Khosravani, & Jalali, 2014; Howard, 1998).

Worked Example of Confrontation Analysis From the Bosnian Confrontation (1995)

This example is taken from the work of British General Rupert Smith, drawing on his experience during NATO interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo (1995 and 1999). The concept also formed some of the theoretical background behind his 2006 book The Utility of Force. General Rupert Smith placed great credence on the method, but due his retirement and the death of Nigel Howard, the method lost traction in the military and there was no evidence of its continued use in actual military procedures as proposed by Smith, Howard and Tait (2001). However, outside the military, the method has occasionally been used for defence, political, legal, financial and commercial applications (M. G. Smith, 2006, Young, 2011). This example is a theoretical representation of the interaction between the Bosnian Serbs and the United Nations over some of the safe areas in the former Yugoslavia. Historically, the Bosnian Serbs had surrounded UN enclaves with forces poised to attack. Each side had a position about what they wanted to happen; this is summarized in Diagram 1. NATO, on behalf of the United Nations, opted to use artillery and airstrikes to change the Bosnian Serb position. General Smith argued that if the tool of Confrontation Analysis had been used, NATO could have achieved the same outcomes, without the actual use of the artillery and airstrikes. Clearly, this would have been a better solution.

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Figure 1.

Initial card table of Bosnia example.

Looking at the column titled Bosnian Serbs’ Position we see that they wanted:

To be able to attack the enclaves (shown by a tick in the box on row 1).

NOT to withdraw heavy weapons from next to the enclaves (cross on row 2).

For the UN NOT to use air strikes (cross in row 4).

Note that the Serbs were ambivalent about taking hostages (row 3), they were willing to do so if they needed to, particularly if the UN employed air strikes.

The UN wanted:

The Bosnian Serbs NOT to attack the enclaves.

The Bosnian Serbs to withdraw their heavy weapons away from the enclaves.

The Bosnian Serbs NOT to take hostages.

If no further changes were made in the situation then what the sides were saying would happen is shown in the Threatened Future Column:

The Bosnian Serbs said they would attack the enclaves.

The Bosnian Serbs said they would NOT withdraw their heavy weapons.

The Bosnian Serbs said they would take hostages if the UN uses air strikes.

The UN said it would initiate air strikes.

The initial confrontation analysis identified four problems, known as dilemmas in Confrontation Analysis, as shown on the card table. A dilemma can be identified on any row, where one of the parties does not want a threatened future to happen. For example, row 1 shows the Bosnian Serbs are threatening to attack the enclaves. The action, attack the enclaves, has a tick under the threatened future column. The UN does not want this to happen, as shown by a cross under their position in column 5. The next stage involved the parties attempting to change the card table to eliminate some or all of these dilemmas. This illustrated part of the power of the method, as it forced the stakeholders to think in term of clearly defined objectives.

In the situation illustrated in Diagram 1, the Bosnian Serbs had one dilemma (UN air strikes against them), but the UN had three. Three of those dilemmas revolved around the need to dissuade the Bosnian Serbs from taking three actions (attacking the enclaves, keeping the heavy weapons in the enclave, taking hostages).

Faced with these dilemmas, the UN modified the card table to its advantage by taking two actions within its control. First, it withdrew its forces from the positions where they were vulnerable to being taken hostage. This eliminated the Bosnian Serbs’ option to take hostages (i.e. it deleted the third row from the table). The second action was to create a new card Use Artillery against Bosnian Serbs. The UN had a Rapid Reaction military force moving into a position where it could use artillery against the Bosnian Serbs. This modified the card table to that shown in Diagram 2.

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Figure 2.

Second card table of Kosovo example.

The UN has eliminated the hostage card and introduced the credible Use Artillery card changing the situation in their favor. The Bosnian Serbs now have two dilemmas (the threat of airstrikes and use of artillery against them).

The Bosnian Serbs were faced with the situation in which they could still attack the enclaves and not withdraw their heavy weapons, but the UN could respond by using artillery and air strikes against them (which would interfere with their ability to attack/keep their heavy weapons). Faced with this new situation, the Bosnian Serbs modified their position to that shown in the final card table, Diagram 3.

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Figure 3.

Final card table of Kosovo example.

The card table shows that the Serbs would not attack and they would move their weapons away from the enclaves. In return, there would be no UN airstrikes or artillery used against them. This illustrates how Confrontation Analysis could have been used to identify and clearly resolve dilemmas the UN faced. Confrontation Analysis does not necessarily produce a win-win situation, but it is an analytic technique for identifying dilemmas and can help predict how the parties will attempt to change the decision table itself.

Summary of the Game Narrative

The various teams were given a set of options, embodied in the cards, which they could then play to represent actions they might take during play. For example, Gaddafi could leave the country or withdraw from Tripoli; the NTC could agree to a ceasefire with the Gaddafi forces and the UN could launch bombing operations in support of the NTC and/ or the Berbers. The players were also empowered to create their own cards to represent actions not provided by the game designers; this was particularly useful as the game evolved from the starting positions. The technique helped moderate the free rein of individual player personalities by establishing at least a starting framework for their actions, which was more tightly controlled by the designers than is usually the case in free-play seminar games.

The key element of the game was changing the table itself by adding or removing options. At each stage of the game, the player teams discussed potential options amongst themselves, sometimes after consultation with the game moderator or other subject matter experts who were available. The teams presented their ideas to add or remove options on the table, with the game moderator adjudicating discussion of the feasibility of their proposals. The outcomes of the contest for mutual leverage with these competing strategic initiatives being codified in the options table. The outcome on each row was determined by the side with agency in each case, unless that side was ambivalent, in which case the other recessive preferences triumphed.

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Figure 4.

Illustration of the card table for options for the international community.

The International Community had the option of bombing Tripoli and threatened to do it. The table shows that Gaddafi did not want this future to happen (shown by an X), but the International Community and the Tripoli Citizens’ did (shown by a tick). The NTC did not mind if Tripoli was bombed or not (shown by a dash). The Berbers’ position was blank as they had not yet expressed any preference about this potential future. The detail of the game has been published (Curry & Young, 2017).

The course and outcome of the game was different from the way events developed in the real world. While there were many similarities, the key difference was that after extensive negotiations, the Gaddafi player offered to withdraw from Tripoli in exchange for a ceasefire. The proposal was beneficial to all parties, except apparently Gaddafi. The Gaddafi player had extensive experience of gaming this sort of pol-mil game and they concluded they were not going to win the current military confrontation, therefore they identified the next best possible strategy. This was to obtain a ceasefire which would allow them relocate their remaining forces to their geographical stronghold. In return for this withdrawal, The NTC would agree a ceasefire with Gaddafi’s forces. Consent from both sides was required before the ceasefire card could be played.

The NTC were so focussed on the prize of occupying Tripoli, they agreed. Gaddafi then used the ceasefire (and the suspension of air attacks) to move into the south of the country (the desert region near Chad) effectively going into internal exile, and his son Saif moved the remains of the army to Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte. As the ceasefire became effective, it became apparent that although the majority of the population of Libya was now outside Gadhafi’s control, Gaddafi still maintained control of a large area of desert in the south (Fezzan and Sirte). The International community team were surprised that although part of Libya had been liberated, Gaddafi was able to establish a new position of some strength.

With Gaddafi’s forces no longer in Tripoli, the card Suppress Tripoli revolt that had been played by Gaddafi to prevent the Citizens of Tripoli from rising up, was removed from the card table. The Citizens of Tripoli then seized control of the city before the NTC forces arrived. The fact that Tripoli had freed itself, rather than being liberated by NTC or Berber forces, had significant influence on the largely political struggles between the various parties to become dominant in the government of post-civil war Libya.

Role Play in Confrontation Analysis

Role playing within the conflict is considered a necessity within the scope of Confrontation Analysis when run as a multi-player game for two main reasons; 1) the player has to take on the priorities of their party, and 2) the dilemma concept supports the personalization of the confrontation experience. Role playing within games has been demonstrated to support engagement (Chen, Duh, Phuah, & Lam, 2006), motivation (Dickey, 2007), social interaction (Cole & Griffiths, 2007), and acquisition of content knowledge (Chan, 2012).

However, role playing within Confrontation Analysis also creates potential. The participants of such a game are expected to come to the scenario with a certain amount of experience or knowledge about the dilemma; play does not teach the participant how to best support their role. This is different from the various role playing games where the participant creates their own character based on personal attributes (Hou, 2012). Within each dilemma are variables that create expectations for role playing; for example the team representing NATO needs to be aware of the NATO’s policy on using force in a civil war in a Confrontation Analysis scenario about the Libyan Civil War. Personal attributes are not a consideration for the role playing within Confrontation Analysis as they are in many of the popular role playing games that exist online and within gaming communities.

Controlling the Game Narrative

Game moderators face a tension between keeping a game on the narrative track envisioned by the game designer or letting the game’s narrative emerge organically from player decisions. One of the challenges of using Confrontation Analysis in gaming is moderating player inventiveness. Allowing participants to discover unconventional strategies (so called black swans) can be useful, but so can constraining the participants to explore some of the most likely options for each role.

If the game space is visualised as an ever expanding branching tree network, occasional low probability choices can move the game state into an entirely different branch. When gameplay begins within a set construct, a series of tasks are assigned to each team and they embody their roles within the session. At this point the game moderator retains control over the emerging storyline, introducing new tracks and situations as they arise. Conflict begins to occur when the narrative becomes a question of experience and opportunity. Players of Confrontation Analysis games, drawn from the public sector, are likely to be by nature experienced in war, politics, and government. However, well-constructed options cards can help players engage with the game and keep track of the evolving situation.

The Box Analogy

The game design creates the sandbox and hopefully makes its dimensions large enough to contain where the players want to go. However, players being players, almost always push on the boundaries of the box. Clever design can sometimes make those boundaries flexible enough to stretch so the players can be directed naturally onto the central focus of the game without feeling like the moderator has artificially constrained their choices of action. Those jumps are frequently the source of important insights. The moderator then needs to find a way to expand the box to re-contain the players, or alternatively find a way to pull them back in, which can be a real problem if they have tried to make a major change to the game narrative. An example of this, in the Libyan case study was the Berbers (a minority group opposed to Gaddafi), presenting an options card “Offer Russia a port in Libya and oil concession, in return for immediate military intervention”. Without exploring the details in this article, it is easy to see that this would completely change the dynamics of a game focused on the internal aspects of the civil war, into a multi-national game involving Russia on one side and NATO on the other. The game moderator constrained the players by applauding the idea, but saying the resolution would be a long term issue, far beyond the game time scale of the current game.

Conclusions

Strategic games, dealing with political conflict short of all-out war, are a significant part of national policy making. This research examined the use of Confrontation Analysis as a methodology for designing games about pol-mil confrontations, where the political parts of the situation are played alongside the military aspects of the situation.

The evidence from the Libyan game was the use of the card table was an effective briefing tool that proved useful in allowing non-subject specialists to rapidly grasp what they could do in the game.

A central feature of Confrontation Analysis is the assumption of good communication between the teams, allowing the positions of the parties on each option to be identified. The theory assumes that confrontations and dilemma resolution stages are proceeded by a scene setting stage where each party makes its position clear to the world. In the past this could have been criticised as simplistic, as a party could tell different stories to each of the other parties, but in the modern, connected world this is a much harder position to sustain. A major advantage of Confrontation Analysis is that it works from open source information, namely the actual things parties are saying they could do (the options), who can do it (the participants), what the participants are saying they want to happen (the ticks and crosses). Accurate quantifications of the much analysed values of Game theory, are much harder to obtain, and may be in fact be more subjective than analysts would like to admit.

The next step in this research is modelling other current world confrontations, such as the situation in Syria, that are fraught with so many similar issues. Confrontation Analysis shows promise as a structured approach to search out and identify potentially critical decision points and options. Using existing information, experts could apply their judgment of the utility of various courses of action and to map solutions that might offer a workable set of benefits to the key parties involved so as to identify potentially workable compromises. The promise of finding practical solutions to complex conflicts gives impetus to further investigation.