ARTICLE
26 July 2026

Research on the Construction of Wargame Culture in the New Era Based on War Mechanisms and Scientific Cognition

Fang Zhang1 ,  Yanan Lei1 ,  Yingxin Duan1
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1 Rocket Force University of Engineering, Xi’an 710025, Shaanxi, China
© 2026 by the Author. Licensee: Bio-Byword Scientific Publishing Pty Ltd, Australia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

The construction of wargame culture should take compliance with the objective mechanisms of war as its fundamental principle, mathematical-quantitative analysis as its foundational method, bilateral autonomous adversarial engagement as its practical form, and dialectical after-action review and iteration as its cognitive advancement path. It constitutes a distinctive military cultural paradigm that embodies scientific military thinking, integrates the science of command with the art of command, and facilitates the pre-practice of war. With the steady advancement of wargaming applications, the cultivation of wargame culture should fully unleash the core value of wargames in exploring the laws of war, validating tactical concepts, and shaping decision-making thinking, thereby providing cultural foundations for the transition of military training and preparedness from an experience-based judgment paradigm to a scientific operations research paradigm.

Keywords
Wargame culture
War mechanisms
Scientific quantification
Adversarial gaming
Dialectical cognition
Science of command
Art of command
Realistic training
References

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[11] Perla P, 1990, The Art of Wargaming: A Guide for Professionals and Hobbyists. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis.

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