Most organisations plan for the future through a best attempt at guessing what’s coming and hoping they’re right. Wargaming flips that – letting you test the future, pressure-test your plans, and uncover what breaks before it breaks you.
Once the preserve of military strategy rooms and war colleges, wargaming is now being used across government, critical infrastructure, and enterprise to build clarity in the face of uncertainty. Nowhere is this more urgent than in cyber security and business resilience, where the cost of guessing wrong can be catastrophic.
Why wargaming works
At its core, wargaming is a structured form of decision simulation. It allows teams to explore choices and consequences in a “safe-to-fail” environment – whether you’re fielding tanks or managing a cyber crisis. Unlike traditional scenario planning, wargaming is active, adversarial, and immediate. You’re not just discussing options – you’re testing them.
Modern wargaming can look like anything from multi-day command post simulations to digital sand tables, board games, or algorithmic models. The unifying feature isn’t format, but function: surfacing risk, sharpening decision-making, and strengthening organisational reflexes under pressure.
Lessons from the field
In Australia, advisory and IT solutions firm Atturra has been working with Defence on joint experimentation programs that prepare both military and civilian staff for a rapidly evolving threat landscape.
These engagements go beyond kinetic operations. We’re building simulations that challenge agencies to respond to diplomatic standoffs, economic disruption, and information warfare. The design focus is simple: create environments that reward foresight, punish rigidity, and teach fast.
One such design is Battle Chess. Inspired loosely by chess but built from the ground up for military education, the game maps six types of military capability – command, strike, sustainment, offence, defence, and reconnaissance – onto a familiar turn-based structure.
It may sound simple. That’s by design. Abstraction enables players to focus on key dynamics like initiative, coordination, and the interplay of capabilities across time and space. Each game loop reinforces the logic of the “kill chain” and invites players to stress-test their assumptions, not just memorise doctrine.
The result? Memorable, experiential learning. Strategy is no longer theoretical. It’s embodied – learned through doing, failing, adapting, and trying again.
Why cyber needs wargaming
Most cyber teams know what their incident response plans say they’ll do. But wargaming shows what really happens when systems go down, the phone starts ringing, and pressure mounts.
Cyber wargaming pits red and blue teams against one another in live-fire scenarios where the clock is ticking, resources are limited, and the stakes feel real. These exercises make visible the hidden flaws: unclear roles, mismatched expectations, brittle processes.
A simulated denial-of-service attack on critical infrastructure, for example, might require participants to detect the intrusion, contain it, maintain service continuity, and engage with the media and government – all while navigating internal silos and competing priorities.
In doing so, cyber professionals build operational muscle memory. They learn where they’re strong, where they’re vulnerable, and what needs to change – before the real attack comes.
The cost of not wargaming
The cost of not wargaming is simple: avoidable failure. When plans collapse in live environments – be it a foreign policy blunder or a supply chain compromise – the damage is real. Wargaming doesn’t eliminate risk, but it does give leaders the chance to fail in rehearsal, rather than in reality.
In a world where geopolitical tensions are rising and the digital domain is increasingly contested, the need for agile, scenario-driven thinking has never been clearer. Wargaming isn’t a side activity. It’s a strategic asset.
The path forward
This isn’t just a shift in training method. It’s a transformation in how we prepare people, organisations, and systems to navigate complexity.
You don’t need a crystal ball to see the future. You need a mechanism to test your assumptions, break your own plans, and get better fast. Wargaming does that. And the organisations that embrace it won’t just be more resilient – they’ll be more ready, more adaptable, and more likely to win when it counts.