ICONS User Manual: Simulation Methodology

Early Simulation Trials

Early Simulation Trials
ICONS Simulations

In the field of international relations, the group of kindred activities referred to as "political gaming," "simulation games", "crisis games", "computer simulations" and the like, has been around in one form or another for several decades. It has its roots in such intellectual traditions as military strategy, diplomatic analysis, international relations scholarship, organizational sociology, operations research, economics, and computer science. One way of distinguishing these various types of simulation activities from one another is to categorize them by the role played by the "machine" or computer.

The simulation exercises used in the ICONS Project grow out of a type of simulation that in its original form was not closely associated with computers. Sometimes referred to as "all-man" simulations, they originated with policy-oriented people more interested in understanding particular situations than in the discovery of scientific generalizations. Their aim was to capture more of the complexity and subtlety of international political issues through the use of fairly detailed scenarios, which focused on real or plausible policy problems.

These simulation games were played for periods of varying length; but an entire game seldom represented more than a few weeks of actual calendar time, during which most of the variables at the systems level of analysis were assumed to be relatively unchanged. Unlike "man-machine" simulations, which cast the computer in a central role, these simulations were "free-form", with country-teams often staffed by foreign policy experts and area specialists, whose decisions were constrained not by the rigid input requirements of a computer model, but rather by judgmental considerations of plausibility.

Much of the thrust of the efforts with man-machine simulation in international relations was social scientific in spirit. The goal was the development of a body of explicit, systematic, empirical theory. Scholars like Guetzkow, whose work on the "Inter-Nation Simulation" had so much impact on subsequent developments, were interested in the development of a reliable and valid experimental tool.

Replicability was essential to this purpose. The emphasis in this work was on systematically modeling the decisional environment for participating decision makers.

The ICONS simulation exercises can be traced back to a hybrid form, closer in spirit to the free-form games of the all-man paradigm, but relying for their success on interactive computing, which enable human participants at distant locations to negotiate with each other through the assistance of a computer-based communications network. The earliest trials of this type of simulation exercise were performed by Professor Robert C. Noel of the University of California at Santa Barbara. His aim was to see whether the game would retain its essential elements if the participants were physically removed from one another. The first "distributed" games used a scenario based on a nuclear proliferation theme and set in the Middle East circa 1973. The participating country-teams were students in undergraduate courses in international relations at various universities in California.

Despite their primitive nature, these early trials removed any doubt about the basic feasibility of distributed gaming exercises. While the dynamics of the interactions were altered, they were not distorted by the new medium. The addition of inter-location competition clearly represented a new dimension for the exercises. Since then, the enormous expansion of international computing networks and declining hardware and communication costs have brought the exercises within the means of most institutions.

Several conclusions can be drawn about the feasibility of distributed gaming -- from a variety of perspectives. Although not all early exercises were unqualified successes, the overall experience with them has firmly established the feasibility of the concept. Technical feasibility, which was a problem in the early days, is no longer in question. Neither is there any remaining doubt about the behavioral feasibility of the idea -- that is, whether the total package can evoke the desired forms of human behavior in an appropriate manner. The simple facts are that distributed political gaming does work and that the quality is independent of the communications medium.

Participants in the simulation exercises have reported an increase in student motivation to be a major benefit. The exercises are also said to enhance conceptual insight. They foster the development of an analytic approach to policy evaluation. They help to bridge the gap between theory and practice. They promote empathetic understanding and provide relevance to other course and instructional materials that potentially lack them. Most importantly, the exercises foster a better understanding on the part of students of the interdependency of issues and systems.

One of the great strengths of the simulation methodology lies in the fact that it brings faculty and students from different schools and in different courses together in meaningful intellectual activities. They do so in ways that do not make sense from a single campus perspective. Most curricula include, in addition to courses in general international relations, specialized courses in the foreign policy of key nations and in foreign policy issues, such as arms control and disarmament or the international economic order. In any one academic term, however, only a subset of these courses can actually be taught. Given considerations of size of faculty, estimated enrollments, course load and preferences, and curriculum balance, the latitude for coordinating some of the more specialized courses is often limited. What the simulation exercises offer is access to scholars and courses at other campuses whose similar interests allow an exploration of the international system otherwise unavailable. In sum, the demonstration of the complexity and interdependence of the international system is made feasible through the application of inter-departmental cooperation.