“In
our leisure we reveal what kind of people we are.”
— Ovid
 |
Members of the Chinese PLA Navy play Sebastian
Bae’s Littoral Commander: Indo-Pacific wargame. |
A recent social media
post by Sebastian Bae — game designer, wargaming professor, defense
analyst, former US Marine (among many other roles) — shared news
that members of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) were
playing his modern wargame
Littoral Commander: Indo-Pacfic. “I
did not have the PLA Navy playing my ‘Littoral Commander
Indo-Pacific’ #wargame on one of their ships on my bingo card for
2026. Absolutely wild,” Bae posted. It is an interesting testament
to our open-source internet age, where information and products
travel the world for use by anyone who wants them...including our
potential near-future adversaries. It certainly validates the quality
and utility of Bae’s wargame. It also raises questions about what
adversaries can learn from the games we ourselves design and use, how
such games reflect both the designer’s knowledge of battlefield
capabilities and assumptions about elements affecting the outcome of
combat.
