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On Wargames and War: Modeling Carl von Clausewitz's Theory of War
Swedish Defence University, Department of War Studies and Military History, Strategy Division.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0462-6679
Tampere University, (FIN).ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1356-3948
2023 (English)In: Representing Conflicts in Games: Antagonism, Rivalry, and Competition / [ed] Björn Sjöblom, Jonas Linderoth, Anders Frank, London: Routledge, 2023, p. 75-96Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

The stated purpose of Carl von Clausewitz’s magnum opus On War, in which he presented the most comprehensive theory of war to date, was educational. Clausewitz saw that proper education departed from theory and concepts, which students were encouraged to reflect over and clarify. Although their common use in pedagogy, wargames often continue to struggle with incorporation of the seven factors always present at war in Clausewitz’ theory – violence, friction, chance, politics, trinity, victory and ethics. As a result, many games offer a rather conventional understanding of war that does not match reality. This chapter investigates how Clausewitz’s theory of war has been modelled in two popular ‘commercial-off-the-shelf’ tabletop wargames: Twilight Struggle and Paths of Glory. Based on an analysis of how the seven concepts of war have been modelled in these games, the chapter discusses how Clausewitz’s theory of war can be used to improve the pedagogy of war.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
London: Routledge, 2023. p. 75-96
Keywords [en]
Clausewitz, commercial tabletop games, Paths of Glory, pedagogy, Twilight struggle, war
National Category
Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalisation Studies)
Research subject
War Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:fhs:diva-11253ISBN: 9781003297406 (electronic)ISBN: 9781032285597 (print)ISBN: 9781032278278 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:fhs-11253DiVA, id: diva2:1724042
Available from: 2023-01-04 Created: 2023-01-04 Last updated: 2023-01-05Bibliographically approved

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Käihkö, Ilmari

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
  • harvard-cite-them-right
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
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  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf