Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative

Overview
Leadership
Gallery
Research & Commentary

News Events

The vision of the Hoover Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative is to advance wargames, simulations, and their data as analytic tools and learning resources for academia, policy, and industry. WCSI plays a unique role in the wargaming community, serving as a data-centered bridge between traditional wargaming and academia with the aim of expanding the use of wargaming beyond traditional communities and in catalyzing wargaming innovations for both academia and policy.

Three Pillars of the Wargaming & Crisis Simulation Initative

The Wargaming Archive

The centerpiece of WCSI is Hoover Institution’s Wargaming Archive, a publicly accessible digital repository of wargaming data housed within the Hoover Library and Archives. The wargaming archive features scholar-designed wargames, unclassified and declassified government wargames, and think tank or industry wargames. The archive is designed to be easily searchable across a wide array of substantive and methodological terms, facilitating both large-N analysis and deep case studies. The archive also increases methodological transparency and rigor within the wargaming discipline by hosting wargaming design materials and data for evaluation, replication, and testing. Finally, the archive is a pedagogical resource that provides open source game design and materials for use in the classroom.

Visit Archive

Running Wargames and Simulations

WCSI runs scholar-designed game series and simulations to help understand some of the biggest academic and policy questions of our time including the US-China relationship, cyber, nuclear weapons, AI, and space. Previous game series include the International Crisis Wargame Series and the Maritime Crisis Wargame Series. In addition to running research games, WCSI also uses wargames as training for policymakers and academics, including Hoover Institution’s Congressional Fellowship Program and Governors’ Chief of Staff Program. All material and data generated through WCSI’s wargames and simulations are stored in Hoover Institution’s open access wargaming archive, which allows these games to be replicated, modified, and used for teaching and training.

Fostering the Wargaming Community

WICS facilitates the methodological advancement of wargaming by providing data, resources, and a community of interest for scholars developing best practices for wargaming design and analysis. In order to build the community, the initiative hosts events that brings together leaders in wargaming, academia, industry, and the policy community; publishes wargaming methodology studies in peer-reviewed articles, periodicals, and books; and hosts and collaborates with academics, policy leaders, and partner institutions on wargaming research.

Featured: International Crisis Wargame

The International Crisis Wargame Series is an experimentally-designed strategic crisis wargame that explores the relationship between new technologies, domestic politics, conventional military capabilities, and nuclear threats. It was specifically designed to look at the impact of cyber operations on nuclear stability but has more broadly helped researchers better understand the role that emerging technologies play in crisis decision-making and how Cold War paradigms of deterrence and crisis escalation apply in a world with new capabilities and vulnerabilities.

This webpage provides users with the materials needed to teach or host your own wargame. Should you use our materials or are interested in more of this research, please contact ICWG Series lead, Jacquelyn Schneider.

Learn More

Leadership

Jacquelyn Schneider

Hoover Fellow

Jacquelyn Schneider is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Director of the Hoover Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative, and an affiliate with Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. Her research focuses on the intersection of technology, national security, and political psychology with a special interest in cybersecurity, autonomous technologies, wargames, and Northeast Asia. She was previously an Assistant Professor at the Naval War College as well as a senior policy advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission.

Learn More

Program Manager

Jacob Ganz

Jacob Ganz is the Program Manager for the Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative at the Hoover Institution. His research focuses on the history of wargames and their present-day influences on American foreign policy. Ganz wrote his master’s dissertation on the 1964 Sigma Wargames and their impact on the Vietnam War decision-making process. Ganz holds an MA/MSc in international and world history from Columbia University and the London School of Economics. He graduated with a BA from the University of California, Davis, where he received highest honors for his thesis on the history of the Phil Burton-Willie Brown political machine.

Undergraduate Research Fellow

Emma Barrosa

Emma Barrosa is a senior at Stanford University, studying international relations and data science. Emma is involved in the Hoover Institution’s Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative where her interests lie in wargaming history and archival research. Emma is a 2024-2025 CISAC Honors student in which her thesis tests how private and public wargaming environments influence participants’ behavior.

Student Fellow

Valencia Xu

Valencia Xu is a Student Fellow for the Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative at the Hoover Institution, as part of the Hoover Student Fellowship Program (HSFP) for 2024-25. She is a current undergraduate student pursuing a bachelor's degree in International Relations, with specializations in International Security and Social Development, as well as a minor in Sociology. Her research interests lie mostly at the intersections of international affairs, law, and political psychology and sociology.

Visiting Fellow

Jonathan Pan

Jonathan Pan is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he focuses on the intersection of national security, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), and video games. Pan served from 2005 to 2010 in the US Army as an infantry officer with a combat tour in Afghanistan. Pan is particularly interested in enhancing wargames and simulations with AI/ML. He is also the chief executive officer at Exia Games, a defense AI startup.