The Dalig and Vadan Exercise: Teaching Students about Strategy and the Challenges of Friction and Fog

Abstract

For classes which contain a discussion of strategy, war, political violence, terrorism, insurgency, peace operations, or ethno-nationalist conflict to name a few, students must have an effective, foundational understanding of the complexities of using military force. To that end, we have developed an operational "battlefield" exercise, the Dalig-Vadan Exercise (DVE), which allows an entire class of students to get a sense of the dynamics and complexities of command and execution of competing strategies without any military background, any particular emphasis on time, place, or context, and de-emphasizing the consequences of violence. Anchored on Clausewitz's friction and fog, the DVE provides students with a first-person encounter with decision making in a dynamic, multiparty, informational-limited, and time-sensitive environment that can be related to a wide range of courses and course material in international relations and related fields.International Studies Perspectives (2014) 15, 477-490.

Adapting a Governmental Training Platform to Simulate Peace Operations in the Classroom

“…Some may help students to grasp concepts through short and simple games like the prisoner's dilemma, the security dilemma, or collective-action problems (Thomas 2002). Others may help students to learn about the complexities of using military force-fog and friction-like the Dalig and Vadan Exercise (Asal, Griffith, and Schulzke 2014). Chasek (2005) has developed a simulation around the UN Security Council's response to terrorism.…”