Ukraine Ukraine War Game Reflection

The February 27, 2024, war game held at Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania, simulated the early phases of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with participants assigned to each of the most relevant international parties to the conflict. As a first-time participant in war game, I found it interesting how the assumptions that were built into the war game were both representative of the concerns of American policymakers at the time the game was designed, and determined in the most likely outcome set of the simulation. In this particular case, much of the war game was centered around the concern of US policymakers about the risk of a limited military strike by Russia, and so the game proved useful as a simulation to determine which actions could either increase or diminish that possibility.

The night prior to the wargame, many of the participants had the opportunity to get to know each other over dinner and drinks, and it was interesting to see the following day how the individual participant’s personalities seemed to shape the strategies each country pursued. That dynamic usefully highlights how individual personalities can dramatically shape the trajectory of foreign policy processes.

The game was also useful in highlighting the disparate preferences among the parties to the conflict. As is always the case in international relations, no two actors share exactly the same preferences. What was useful in the game was integrating the myriad paths each actor could take in pursuing those interests. Overall, I found the experience to be an immensely useful thought experiment which highlighted the complexity of the situation in Ukraine.