Final Report of the Defense Science Board (DSB) Task Force on Gaming, Exercising, Modeling, and Simulation
Information
Date
January 2021
Summary
This is the the final report of the Defense Science Board’s Task Force on Gaming, Exercising, Modeling, and Simulation (GEMS). This task force was asked to review the current state of the GEMS enterprise within the DoD, assess advancements in GEMS technologies and capabilities, and provide recommendations to the DoD for better leveraging GEMS tools to meet United States national security objectives. This broad inquiry was divided across the following topics: -Digital engineering to support an enterprise-level GEMS strategy that would promote effective adoption of GEMS tools; -Training augmented with and facilitated by GEMS tools to enhance warfighter lethality and survivability in the face of emerging threats from peer competitors; -Experimentation campaigns enabled by GEMS to discover new tactics and concepts; -High quality virtual exercising to increase readiness; -Evaluating and testing high-level geopolitical strategies with long time horizons through strategic gaming; -Integrating the use of technology-based enablers such as game engines and synthetic environments for a wide variety of DoD missions; and -Promoting effective GEMS governance to enable the proper coordination of GEMS activities and uses across the DoD and the wider national security enterprise. This report offers a number of recommendations that will position the DoD to adopt and leverage the power of GEMS. We hope this report will receive senior-level attention to ensure that the recommendations are implemented as quickly as possible. If the DoD moves to improve its GEMS capabilities and incorporate GEMS tools in a coordinated manner, the benefits to the Department will be revolutionary. In the contemporary security environment, the DoD must not fail to take advantage of this game-changing set of tools and enablers.