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Generative Wargaming

Smarter, Faster, and More Adaptive Wargames

Wargaming has long been a vital method for understanding human decision-making in complex, uncertain environments by harnessing the power of experiential learning. While traditional wargames offer deep insights into how decisions play out under pressure, their dependence on expert facilitators and labor-intensive design limits their scalability and speed. That’s why APL is designing a future of wargaming that enhances human judgement.

Generative wargaming (GenWar) is a next-generation capability that integrates generative artificial intelligence, modeling and simulation, and human expertise. GenWar allows us to build and run wargames in days instead of months, analyze dozens of alternative futures at scale, and focus human attention on the scenarios that most demand thoughtful deliberation.

Expertise in Action

Our Capabilities

GenWar Lab

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GenWar TTX Explore High-Consequence National Security Scenarios

Engage in a digital environment for senior military commanders and civilian leaders to participate in tabletop exercises (TTXs) enabled by a diverse set of AI agents that serve variously as advisers and adversary leaders. The TTX platform is intended to accelerate and expand the use of wargaming, to enable innovative intelligence analysis, and to explore the behavior of AI agents in complex scenarios.

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GenWar Sim Accelerated Insights Through Human–Machine Teaming

GenWar Sim bridges the gap between wargaming and modeling, combining human judgment with machine speed. Built on the Advanced Framework for Simulation, Integration, and Modeling (AFSIM), GenWar Sim allows wargamers and analysts to explore the consequences of their decisions in data-driven environments, with the goal of bringing greater rigor and repeatability to every game and analytical excursion.

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GenWar X

Developing and creating advanced concepts that cut across existing tools to game out alternative future scenarios and create personas to model adversary decisions

GenWar Lab will radically accelerate our ability to harness the power of AI and advanced analytics to augment traditional wargaming methods. This initiative reflects APL’s continued commitment to create tools and infrastructure, and most importantly the right team, to leverage AI to find innovation solutions to the nation’s toughest security challenges.

James Miller Assistant Director, Policy and Analysis

What are the benefits of generative wargaming?

GenWar not only embeds AI into the wargaming cycle but also brings humans more fully into the modeling and simulation loop by making sophisticated tools accessible through natural language. Users without technical backgrounds can engage directly via a chat interface, asking questions and exploring scenarios the way people actually think and talk. This opens the door to a wider range of users, allowing analysts, planners, and operators alike to quickly generate, iterate, and evaluate dozens of courses of action—all backed by traceable, physics-based adjudication.

The real power of GenWar lies in its ability to accelerate ideation and sharpen insight. What once took months can now unfold in days. Players can explore a wide spectrum of plausible futures, identify which paths are most consequential, and focus their expertise on refining those options. This not only addresses long-standing limitations in traditional wargaming—such as challenges in traceability, scale, and structured analysis—but also deepens the core value of wargames: experiential learning.

By allowing users to engage with more diverse and relevant decision points, GenWar enhances the quality of deliberation, sparking more focused, creative, and impactful conversations. It empowers defense and national security leaders to run smarter, faster, and more adaptive wargames, enabling better decisions in an increasingly complex world.

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Let’s Solve the Nation’s Challenges Together

APL meets critical national challenges through the innovative application of science and technology.

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Johns Hopkins APL Establishes AI Wargaming Lab to Boost Strategic National Security Analysis and Planning Support Oct 30, 2025

APL is fusing its analytic and cutting-edge AI capabilities into a forward-leaning incubator, known as GenWar Lab, that leverages advanced AI and large language model capabilities to support the wargames and tabletop exercises that enable military decision-makers to explore dynamic and wide-ranging mission scenarios.

Learn more about Johns Hopkins APL Establishes AI Wargaming Lab to Boost Strategic National Security Analysis and Planning Support

Generative AI Wargaming Promises to Accelerate Mission Analysis Mar 3, 2025

A team at Johns Hopkins APL is creating an artificial intelligence-driven capability that automates much of the work that goes into designing, setting up, developing and running wargames. The effort holds promise to dramatically amplify the impact and value of wargames and similar exercises for the military and other government agencies.

Learn more about Generative AI Wargaming Promises to Accelerate Mission Analysis

Related Work

Devin Ramsden, an AI developer at APL, demonstrates a large language model (LLM) grounded by a direct acyclic graph (DAG) to assist warfighters in administering critical care on the battlefield.

Mission-Focused Generative AI

Inventing the future of artificial intelligence for the nation by advancing frontier models that enable creativity, subject-matter expertise, and personification

Learn more about Mission-Focused Generative AI

Related Areas of Impact

Mission Area

National Security Analysis