117. From Campus To Command: The William & Mary Wargaming Lab With Luke Miller The Convergence

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117. From Campus to Command: The William & Mary Wargaming Lab with Luke Miller

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[Editor’s Note: Army Mad Scientist and the Georgetown University Wargaming Society co-hosted our Game On! Wargaming & The Operational Environment Conference at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, last November, exploring:

Trends in hobbyist wargaming;

How wargames can address unconventional and neglected aspects of the Operational Environment;

How wargaming can provide experiential learning for Professional Military Education (PME); and

How technology is enhancing wargaming.

Attended by approximately 150 participants, with an additional 20-odd virtual participants live streaming it remotely, the conference facilitated an open dialogue with wargamers from both inside and outside the military (e.g., professional, commercial, and hobbyist gamers).

At that conference, we hosted a Gen Z & Wargaming Round Table for the sizeable contingent of students attending the conference from Georgetown University, the University of Nebraska Omaha, and the College of William & Mary.

Today’s episode of The Convergence podcast features Luke Miller, who attended our conference last year, is a wargame designer, and is this academic year’s Director of the William & Mary Wargaming Lab. Army Mad Scientist sat down with Mr. Miller to discuss the role of wargaming and the university’s on-going wargaming projects with the War Department, his thoughts on wargame design and education in the military, and the future of wargaming — Read on!]

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Luke Miller is an undergraduate student at the College of William and Mary, studying International Relations and Economics. During the Summer of 2024, he was an e-Intern with the TRADOC G-2, where he researched national security threats to the U.S. and proposed solutions for Army adaptation to emerging challenges. Specifically, Mr. Miller conducted focused research on U.S. Army preparedness for a potential conflict with China over Taiwan. Mr. Miller is also a member of The Alexander Hamilton Society, a Global Scholar with the William & Mary Global Research Institute, and game designer and now Director of the William and Mary Wargaming Lab.

In our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, we sat down with Luke Miller to discuss the value of wargaming as part of higher education, designing games for both students and defense partners, and emulating an accurate and realistic red team. The following bullet points highlight key insights from our conversation:

The College of William and Mary’s Wargaming Lab, within their Whole of Government Center of Excellence, is known as the first fully undergraduate-led wargaming design initiative in the country. Through support from subject matter experts in the defense and national security fields, the Lab creates wargames and games for national security policy analysis and career professionals.

The Wargaming Lab designs wargames from the ground up, including researching content, game mechanics, and Specifically, the team has created various scenario-based micro-games, table-top games, and boardgames, focusing on qualitative results that can support policy analysis for specific customers, such as General Mark Matthews (USAF-Ret.).

The beauty of working through this problem set in an academic forum are the different perspectives brought by each individual student, using background knowledge from their varying degrees, such as international relations, economics, and physics, to create a well-rounded and effective tool to help make decisions.

The resurgence of great power competition has played a pivotal role in the national defense and security field’s growing focus on wargaming, as wargames can be a useful way to abstract many major aspects that feed into large-scale combat operations (LSCO). Wargames are inherently better at representing two or more great powers in a LSCO fight than counterterrorism or counterinsurgency.

As academic wargaming labs are becoming more abundant and established, the U.S. Army has the opportunity to partner with these groups as an inexpensive and productive way to leverage their broad sets of expertise and alternative, innovative approaches to tackling hard problems.

Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory for our next insightful episode of The Convergence on 02 October 2025!

If you enjoyed this post, check out the TRADOC Pamphlet 525-92, The Operational Environment 2024-2034: Large-Scale Combat Operations

Explore the TRADOC G-2‘s Operational Environment Enterprise web page, brimming with authoritative information on the Operational Environment and how our adversaries fight, including:

Our China Landing Zone, full of information regarding our pacing challenge, including ATP 7-100.3, Chinese Tactics, How China Fights in Large-Scale Combat Operations, BiteSize China weekly topics, and the People’s Liberation Army Ground Forces Quick Reference Guide.

Our Russia Landing Zone, including How Russia Fights in Large-Scale Combat Operations and the BiteSize Russia weekly topics. If you have a CAC, you’ll be especially interested in reviewing our weekly RUS-UKR Conflict Running Estimates and associated Narratives, capturing what we learned about the contemporary Russian way of war in Ukraine over the past two years and the ramifications for U.S. Army modernization across DOTMLPF-P.

Our Iran Landing Zone, including the Iran Quick Reference Guide and the Iran Passive Defense Manual (both require a CAC to access).

Our North Korea Landing Zone, including Resources for Studying North Korea, Instruments of Chinese Military Influence in North Korea, and Instruments of Russian Military Influence in North Korea.

Our Irregular Threats Landing Zone, including TC 7-100.3, Irregular Opposing Forces, and ATP 3-37.2, Antiterrorism (requires a CAC to access).

Our Running Estimates SharePoint site (also requires a CAC to access) — documenting what we’re learning about the evolving OE. Contains our monthly OE Running Estimates, associated Narratives, and the quarterly OE Assessment TRADOC Intelligence Posts (TIPs).

Then review the following related Mad Scientist content:

From Data to Dominance: AI & Gaming to Create Decision Advantage and associated podcast, with Jonathan Pan

“Best of” Calling All Wargamers Insights (Parts 1 and 2)

The agenda, presenter and panelist biographies, their respective presentations, and associated videos from Army Mad Scientist’s Game On! Wargaming & the OE Conference at Georgetown University, 06-07 November 2024, as well as the Report from Game On! Wargaming & The Operational Environment Conference, 06-07 November 2024

Battle Tested: Revolutionizing Wargaming with AI and associated podcast, with proclaimed Mad Scientist Dr. Billy Barry

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).

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