Search

Wargames help intelligence professionals gain insight into the operational art--the culminating point and rationale of all the knowledge requirements of an operator--or what might be described as the military genius to recognize strategic opportunities in the battlespace. However, according to the director of net assessment, Andrew Marshall, past information related games may have lacked the analytical rigor to dissect and measure the complex interrelationships between knowledge and war. This article will examine one attack on this problem: the Forward Focus value model and its use in measuring an operator's needs for information. Moreover, it will highlight Forward Focus II discoveries and their potential for future warfare. These findings are based on operator preferences and utility measures expressed in a wargame and captured through a multi-attribute utility analysis technique (value-focused thinking) for various operational objectives during the wargame., Published in Joint Force Quarterly (JFQ), p90-96, Autumn 1996.