Gaming Counter-Insurgencies.
Thesis submitted. There are parts I’m happy with and parts that I’m not.
The paper is an exploration of the relationship between gaming and modern military intervention in developing areas, how the two interact and the social training we may be receiving through this form of media.
Paper: All your Insurgencies are belong to us
The following is an excerpt from the conclusion. It kind of sums up the paper.
Here’s the core of the problem, today’s military hands out aid with the left hand and shoots with the right. They are in the middle of a bunch of pissed off locals who are wondering why they are there and when they are going to improve their lives rather than just get in the way. They are in countries which are not always friendly and in which the ‘enemy’ is not always apparent. Games however, still portray the military as “your dads’ army” of young men “kicking ass” and saving the day. If we keep thinking of the military like this – and keep teaching 19 year old potential recruits that the military is this glorious realm of heroes rather than the tiring schizophrenia of humanitarian soldier, then we do our soldiers a disservice. By not emotionally or psychologically preparing our society for our role as peace makers in the transition and peace spaces required for meaningful development to happen, we do ourselves a disservice. As we run up budgets which would be better spent as development aid when we get bogged down, because we thought we were getting into something completely different, we do the entire exercise of intervention a disservice. The U.S. Military can “kick ass” better than any other, without a question. What they don’t yet do as well, is what comes after “kicking ass” and are hamperedfurther by a society not prepared to commit to the transition phase and peace building phase. Games can and do play a role in preparing or misleading the public, soldiers and international elements on what military intervention, by the U.S. or any other military, are about, how militaries should interact with local populations and how old school red vs. blue thinking is not only ineffective but down right dangerous.
We need to introduce to games, and the wider media, a more humanitarian, a more holistic approach to interventions that are necessary to win peace, not just win war. By training society to think more completely about peace-making rather than just war-making, we can begin to address the disservices we are currently doing to so many groups. This can be done through fun. This can be done through games. Game companies such as Kuma\War are explicitly attempting to start a dialog based in games. This paper is attempting to begin the pulling of that dialog into the development realm. We live in a world where the military process directly involves and impacts the development process in more subtle, more complex and more enduring ways than ever. Educating the public in how these two processes are intertwined is a key step in working with the military to provide meaningful development in hostile areas. I do not claim that all current games undermine developmental or military goals, nor that they are a magic bullet. Rather, I claim that we should be asking a few questions: In the gaming industry, are we giving all the issues “proportional and symmetrical” treatment? Is the industry bringing in all the facets and complexities that make military COIN ops so challenging? Is it possible to build a better, more fun game, based on these challenges which can spread constructive, rather than destructive messages?