Wargaming as a defense innovation[Le wargaming comme innovation de défense]

Wargames are games that have been used by the military for over two centuries in various armies, notably the British navy and the Prussian army. They are usually serious tabletop games involving cardboard counters or miniatures. In order not to restrict it to military considerations, a wargame can currently be defined as: the simulation of a situation characterized by tension, crisis or confrontation, taking the form of a serious game based on a scenario featuring complex interactions between several protagonists whose roles can be taken on by players. These games have been successfully used to test new tactics and strategies, even contributing to military victories. Following the promotion of map-based wargaming by Prussian staffs under the name of "kriegsspiel", the victories of their armies over Austrian and French armies, wargaming and the corresponding activity known as wargaming spread widely to staffs around the world from 1871 onwards. Since then, wargames have undergone increasing development and specialization, both in the form of board games and miniature games. Civilians have also taken to them, indirectly leading to the emergence of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game in the early 1970s. Advances in computer technology have also given rise to digital wargames, but these are often very complicated to adapt to situations for which they are not initially designed, although solutions to correct these problems are regularly proposed. Wargames are not only used for officer training and historical re-enactment, but also for problem-solving and exploring hypothetical scenarios, and as such are tools for innovation. They allow us to ask questions like "what if?" and are thus used to test the potential and certain inconveniences of new doctrinal, tactical or device solutions. In this way, wargames are used by military staffs, universities and research institutions to foster innovation and strategic thinking. There are different types of wargames to suit different situations: red teaming wargames, course of action wargames, matrix games, seminar wargames...