The Pentagon?s Rural AGILE/COIN Wargame (1966)

This is an example of an early professional counter insurgency game written for the Pentagon to explore a rural insurgency through a wargame. America was engaged in a strategic counter insurgency in Vietnam. Every effort was being made to wage war more effectively in the conflict. One of the tools applied was wargaming, such as this game. The game has players representing all sides. The game allowed the players to explore the asymmetrical conflict from a different perspective, using the prism of wargaming. Agile was played in key establishments and had some training value. One success was pulling special forces soldiers away from their normal military skills focussed training and asking them to actually influence the hearts and minds of the people in the villages of rural South Vietnam. This book includes after action reviews of 12 games. It also has examples of the American players committing atrocities against the civilian population as an in-game strategy.