The new strategic environment brings with it many new challenges: a renewal of major power rivalry, long-term strategic competition, the emergence of one and possibly more nuclear-armed regional challengers, and the possibility of regional conventional wars under the nuclear shadow, among many others. To meet these challenges, the U.S. National Defense Strategy of 2018 calls for efforts to “out-think, out-maneuver, out-partner, and out-innovate” potential adversaries, all as part of a more “competitive mindset” for the United States and its allies and partners.

What can wargaming contribute to out-competing potential adversaries? How can it become more effective in developing theories of victory and success? Roberts will explore these questions from his perspective as analyst and former senior policymaker.

About the Speakers

Dr Brad Roberts is director of the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. From April 2009 to March 2013 he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy. In this role, he served as policy director of the Obama administration’s Nuclear Posture Review and Ballistic Missile Defense Review. From September 2013 through December 2014, Dr. Roberts was a consulting professor and William Perry Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Prior to joining the Obama administration, Dr. Roberts was a member of the research staff at the Institute for Defense Analyses and an adjunct professor at George Washington University.

Ivanka Barzashka, Director of the King's Wargaming Network, will chair the lecture.

The event is part of the King's Wargaming Network Public Lecture Series. The 2019/20 lectures examine how experts are building the future of wargaming to advance analytical wargaming and to develop wargaming education.