Gaming techniques have long been used to help acquire vicarious experience in themanagement of crises and the conduct of military operations. As part of our Carnegie-sponsored project on 'Avoiding Nuclear War: Managing Conflict in the Nuclear Age,' we conducted an experiment to investigate whether such traditional gaming techniques can be adapted to new purposes. Our objective was to explore the utility of gaming as a research tool, i.e., as a way to formulate and explore a variety of research hypotheses related to the management of superpower crises, rather than in its traditional role as a pedagogic or training device. To do this, we sought to design a game that could be repeated frequently and economically to generate and explore substantive research hypotheses, and actually to begin to develop some hypotheses. Our overall conclusion is that the techniques we developed and adapted hold real promise of making it possible to employ political-military gaming as a research tool. It also appears to be feasible to design the game materials, procedures, and hardware that are required to support the distinctive requirements of superpower crisis management games. Given the central role that communications plays in superpower crisis bargaining, we believe that the computer-based communications feature we have developed for the game is a major and important innovation.
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