”—because the consequences on the ground are less apocalyptic than what comes with the use of traditional, more powerful nuclear weapons. Wilson, of the Project on Government Oversight, falls into the latter camp.
War games in general are a longstanding means used by defense wonks and military leaders to figure out what other humans, beyond their borders, might do, and what they themselves might do in response or preemptively. “People role-playing together in a room is a type of war game that is often referred to as a tabletop exercise,” says Goldblum. It’s a common practice in think tanks and in government. “There are also war games in the form of strategic board games,” she continues.
A swelling soundtrack accompanies the game’s loading. Before you can make any moves, you first have to signal that you are about to do something by putting a generic marker on a hex, thus telling everyone that you might act on that piece of territory. If it’s a hex that belongs to another playing country, the two of you can negotiate in the chat box. Then, you can act—or not—on that tile: conventionally striking it with infantry or a missile, cyber attacking it, or navally attacking it.
In fact, reasonable skepticism about SIGNAL’s utility and biases, standard for a group of scientists, led the team to also
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