Introduction
Russian concepts of “hybrid warfare” blur the lines between peace and war, combining military and non-military means to achieve strategic goals. From Soviet-era practices of maskirovka (deception) and aktivnye meropriyatiya (active measures) to modern doctrines attributed to Gen. Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s approach emphasizes political warfare, information operations, and covert action alongside conventional force. As one analyst put it, hybrid war creates a paradoxical logic: it is “neither war nor peace,” flipping Clausewitz on his head so that politics becomes war by other meansscholar.archive.org. This presents a complex challenge for wargame designers. How do you simulate disinformation campaigns, cyber attacks, proxy forces, and guerrilla tactics – all orchestrated in tandem – within the structured confines of a game?
Wargaming has long excelled at modeling “blood and iron” conventional battleswarontherocks.com, but the multi-domain, often ambiguous nature of hybrid warfare is harder to capture. In this report, we analyze how Russian hybrid warfare doctrine has been (or could be) modeled in both commercial wargames (hobby/consumer games, from hex-and-counter board games to digital simulations) and professional military simulations. We trace the evolution of Russian hybrid warfare concepts from their Cold War predecessors to the Gerasimov-era doctrine, and examine specific games that attempt to represent elements such as disinformation, cyber operations, proxy fighters, and irregular tactics. We assess each example’s strengths, weaknesses, and fidelity to real-world Russian doctrine, drawing on academic and doctrinal sources for a rigorous baseline. The analysis is structured with a “grognard’s” appreciation for game design limitations and a scholar’s eye for doctrinal nuance, balancing criticism with insight.
Evolution of Russian Hybrid Warfare Doctrine
Soviet and Post-Soviet Precursors: Many ingredients of today’s Russian hybrid warfare were present in Soviet strategy. The USSR extensively employed Active Measures – influence operations ranging from propaganda to political subversion – and refined the theory of Reflexive Control (providing an opponent with tailored information to manipulate their decision-making)euromaidanpress.com. These aimed to “incline [the adversary] to voluntarily make the predetermined decision desired by the initiator”euromaidanpress.com. Soviet maskirovka doctrine, encompassing camouflage, deception, and surprise, was another pillar: for example, disguising true intentions and capabilities to mislead Western intelligence. Such methods were the forerunners of Russia’s modern information warfare. In the 1990s and 2000s, Russia’s conventional weakness and encounters with insurgencies (e.g. Chechnya) led its thinkers to value indirect approaches. The 2008 Russo-Georgian War is often cited as an early case of Russia blending cyber attacks (against Georgian networks) with rapid military operations, foreshadowing a more integrated battlespace.
Gerasimov’s Formulation: A pivotal moment in Russian military thought was Gen. Valery Gerasimov’s 2013 article “The Value of Science in Foresight,” which Western analysts later (somewhat misleadingly) dubbed the “Gerasimov Doctrine.” Gerasimov observed that “the role of non-military means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and in many cases they have exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness”. He noted that the focus of conflict had shifted toward the broad use of political, economic, informational, humanitarian, and other non-military measures – employed in coordination with local protest movements – and that open military force would be used only at a certain stage, primarily to secure the final victoryunderstandingwar.org. In essence, Russian theorists contended that modern war is won through a 4:1 ratio of non-kinetic to kinetic actions (a frequently cited figure in Western literature, reflecting Gerasimov’s emphasis). While the Western term “hybrid warfare” gained popularity after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, Russian military writers often use terms like “New-Generation Warfare” or “non-linear warfare.” Scholars Chekinov and Bogdanov, for example, described new-generation war as achieving strategic aims via coordinated political, informational, and military efforts, exploiting “the protest potential of the population” and covert forces, with conventional troops as a last resort.
According to the Institute for the Study of War, Russia actually defines hybrid war as a strategic-level campaign aimed at altering the target state’s alignment, “in which all actions, up to and including the use of conventional military forces in regional conflict, are subordinate to an information campaign.”understandingwar.org In other words, Moscow sees information confrontation (propaganda, deception, psychological ops) as the central thread binding all other tools – diplomatic pressure, economic coercion, proxies, and open combat. This is broader than many Western conceptions. Western observers often fixated on the “little green men” (unmarked Russian special forces) in Crimea or the separatist proxies in Donbas, viewing hybrid war as covert tactics short of open warunderstandingwar.org. But Russian discourse treats hybrid war as a continuum: a competition spanning peacetime and wartime, blending subversive, economic, informational, diplomatic, and military means across all domainsunderstandingwar.org. The use of conventional force is just one instrument in a synchronized campaign. Indeed, Russian officers consider conflicts like Ukraine, Syria, and even influence operations in Europe and the US as part of a global hybrid war struggleunderstandingwar.org.
Key Elements of Russian Hybrid Warfare: Based on this doctrinal evolution, we can distill several core components that Russian hybrid operations emphasize:
- Disinformation and Propaganda: The Kremlin conducts sophisticated information warfare to shape narratives at home and abroad. This includes state media propaganda, social media manipulation, and deceptive messaging to confuse and mislead opponents. A hallmark is plausible deniability – e.g., denying interventions (claiming, “those fighters are just volunteers, not Russian troops”euromaidanpress.com) or spreading multiple contradictory stories to muddy the waters. The concept of reflexive control underpins these efforts, aiming to control the opponent’s perceptions and decisions without firing a shot. In doctrine, winning the “information war” is seen as essential to victory.
- Cyber Operations: Hacking and cyber attacks are employed to disrupt communications, steal data, and sabotage critical infrastructure in tandem with psychological operations. Russian cyber units have been linked to attacks on power grids (Ukraine 2015), government websites (the 2007 Estonia incident), and influence campaigns (e.g. election meddling). In Russian practice, cyber strikes often precede or parallel kinetic strikes – as seen in Georgia 2008 and Ukraine 2014 – blinding or paralyzing the adversary’s response and amplifying the confusion sown by disinformationcodeanddagger.comcodeanddagger.com. However, cyber is not viewed as a standalone war-winning tool but as one more weapon to be integrated with others.
- Use of Proxies and Irregulars: A defining feature of Russian hybrid warfare is the use of third-party forces to achieve objectives while minimizing attribution and risk. These include local militias, separatist insurgents (e.g. in Donetsk/Luhansk), private military companies like Wagner, or even sympathetic political movements in target countries. By operating through proxies, Russia can foment unrest or seize territory while officially denying involvement (as in Crimea 2014). Unmarked “little green men” and Spetsnaz special forces often work in concert with local proxies to spearhead operations under cover. Irregular tactics – sabotage, assassinations, fostering insurgency – complement the overt diplomatic and military moves. This approach has deep roots; it echoes Soviet support for guerrillas abroad, but with new seamlessness alongside media and cyber tools.
- Conventional and Nuclear Forces as Backdrop: While much of hybrid warfare operates below the threshold of overt war, the threat of conventional force looms in the background. Russia leverages its military posture (exercises, deployments) to intimidate and to be ready to intervene if other means set the stage. In Crimea’s case, a conventional invasion was hardly needed because the preparatory hybrid measures were so effective; in other cases, such as eastern Ukraine, Russian regular units covertly bolstered proxy offensives at critical moments. The shadow of Russia’s nuclear arsenal also serves as a form of strategic deterrence to constrain outside intervention in these grey-zone campaigns.
- Synergy and Multi-Domain Integration: The crux of Russian hybrid doctrine is synchronized action across multiple domains – political, informational, military, economic – to achieve a cumulative effect. Gerasimov described modern conflicts where military and non-military measures are applied “in coordination” at all levels. For example, a typical campaign might involve diplomatic pressure and energy exports leverage on a target state, a cyber attack to knock out communications, a wave of propaganda to incite panic or dissent, covert insertion of proxy fighters, and finally (if needed) an overt military strike – all timed and tuned to collapse the adversary’s will to resist. The information campaign knits these together, ensuring each action amplifies the others. This orchestration is what makes hybrid warfare more than just a toolkit of subversion: it is holistic warfare. As a NATO analysis notes, Russia sees the entire conflict spectrum as unified, with even high-intensity combat nested within an ongoing info-war strategyunderstandingwar.orgunderstandingwar.org.
With this doctrinal baseline established, we turn to the question: How can these interlinked elements be translated onto the wargame table or computer screen? Below, we examine a range of wargames – from commercial board games beloved by hobby “grognards” to serious military exercises – that have tried to simulate aspects of Russian hybrid warfare. We evaluate to what extent they capture the essence of the doctrine outlined above, and how they handle (or struggle with) the multi-domain complexity.
Simulating Hybrid Warfare in Commercial Wargames
Designers of commercial wargames (including traditional hex-and-counter board games and digital strategy games) have gradually expanded their toolsets to represent irregular and information warfare. Classic wargames tended to focus on kinetic combat – divisions maneuvering on a map, resolving battles with dice and odds ratios – while treating political or informational factors abstractly, if at all. As one study observes, traditional force-on-force games often failed to incorporate “the irregular, asymmetric, competitive, and complex nature of hybrid threats”paxsims.wordpress.com. However, recent games have made innovative attempts to bring elements like propaganda, cyber attacks, and insurgency into play. These attempts range from adding event cards and tracks to depict political effects, to entirely new game systems centered on influence and subterfuge. Below is a comparison of notable commercial wargames and how they model key facets of hybrid warfare:
Table 1: Selected Commercial Wargames and Hybrid Warfare Elements
| Game (Year) | Theme & Scenario | Disinformation & Propaganda | Cyber Operations | Proxies/Irregulars | Multi-Domain Integration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ukrainian Crisis (2017) – Brian Train, Hollandspiele | Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, 2014 (Crimea & Donbas) | Yes: Propaganda, diplomacy and international opinion are central. The game explicitly makes “diplomacy, propaganda, and international prestige” as important as military forcehollandspiele.com. It’s possible to achieve objectives without open war. | No explicit cyber: The design focuses on political/military moves; cyber is not separately modeled. | Yes: Includes proxy forces and unrest. Russian “separatist” units and the threat of unmarked troops are present. The situation can escalate to armed conflict with irregulars if political measures fail. | High: This game is designed to simulate hybrid war. Political, informational, and military elements feed into each otherhollandspiele.com. A player allocating resources must balance propaganda vs. military buildup. The result is a complex, decision-rich scenario that might resolve via politics alone – a faithful reflection of hybrid doctrine. |
| Crisis 2020 (2007) – Joseph Miranda, Victory Point Games | Hypothetical civil war in the United States in the near-future (domestic insurgency vs government) | Yes: Public opinion is explicitly a battlefield. The rules state that “armed conflict is only half the battle because modern wars are also fought on a ‘data’ front of public opinion.”dicetower.com Propaganda and media play are integral, represented through a deck of “Crisis Cards” and influence actions. | Yes: Cyber warfare is a key feature. Players can employ “cutting edge ‘Cyberwar’ concepts” for hacking, info ops, etc., to convert or neutralize opponents instead of just kinetic strikesdicetower.com. Even actions like deploying FBI cyber teams or hacker units appear as options. | Yes: Irregular forces and militias are central (it’s literally a rebels vs government conflict). Both sides recruit paramilitaries, and can seek foreign volunteer fighters or support. Proxy dynamics are present in the form of outside intervention (UN, neighboring countries) that can be called in via cardsdicetower.com. | High: Crisis 2020 is essentially a sandbox of hybrid conflict. Military and non-military strategies are deeply intertwined – e.g. one can suspend elections or launch cyber attacks as well as engage in firefightsdicetower.com. The game forces players to weigh “force vs finesse” and balance kinetic power with subtle influencedicetower.com. This holistic approach predates the popularization of “hybrid war” but mirrors its principles. Its weakness (if any) is that it’s a fictional scenario; nonetheless, it demonstrates how a game can integrate multi-domain tactics with internal conflict. |
| Next War: Poland (2017, with 2019 Supplement) – Mitchell Land, GMT Games | Hypothetical NATO vs. Russia war in Poland (near-future, high-intensity conflict) | Minimal: By default, Next War: Poland is focused on conventional operations (tanks, jets, etc.). Political or propaganda factors are mostly off-board context. There are no explicit disinformation rules; any info warfare is implied or left to scenario narration. | Yes (Optional): The 2019 Supplement #3 adds Cyber Warfare rules and countersgmtgames.com. Cyber attacks can be conducted to degrade enemy capabilities (e.g. shutting down air defenses or C2 for a turn). Electronic warfare (jamming) is also present as a factor affecting detection and strikes. These rules are optional/expanded, indicating an attempt to bolt on cyber to a classic wargame system. | Limited: The scenario includes special forces and possibly insurgents as abstract effects, but proxies are not a focus. (Belarusian units appear as Russian allies, but that’s a state actor.) The game’s scale (operational, big units) means individual partisan or sabotage operations are abstracted at best. | Moderate: Primarily a conventional war simulation, it now acknowledges multi-domain aspects through optional rules. There is talk of “multi-domain battle” in the design notes, and players must consider logistics, electronic support, etc. Still, kinetic combat dominates – the hybrid elements (cyber, SOF) function as force multipliers rather than independent axes of war. The integration is thus partial: one can tip a battle with a cyber strike or two, but you won’t be waging a propaganda campaign on this map. |
| Defiance: 2nd Russo-Ukrainian War, Vol.1 (2023) – D.B. Dokter & Mark Herman, GMT Games | The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine (focused on initial campaign around Kyiv) | Partial: Defiance builds a political layer into an otherwise conventional operational game. Each turn’s Strategic Phase features SitRep cards that shift political tracks (for Zelenskyy’s resolve, NATO cohesion, Lukashenko/Belarus stance, and Putin’s domestic support)gmtgames.com. These tracks confer bonuses or penalties depending on accomplishments, modeling the political backdrop. However, explicit info-war actions (e.g. propaganda offensives) are not player-driven; they are encapsulated in the event card draws. | Implicit (EW): The game focuses on modern warfare tools like drones, precision strikes, and electronic warfare. Headquarters units have “support, electronic, and combat enhancement capabilities” reflecting electronic/cyber warfare supportgmtgames.com. There isn’t a distinct cyber attack phase (unlike Next War’s optional rule), but one can assume things like jamming or hacking are abstractly included in those capabilities. | Limited: Since this simulates a conventional invasion scenario, irregular tactics are not central – the time frame is the initial invasion (Feb–Mar 2022) where Russia used regular units. Proxies like the Donbas militias are by 2022 integrated or overshadowed by Russian forces. The design does include partisan/insurgent potential for Ukraine in later volumes, but Volume 1 is about pitched battles. | Moderate: Defiance’s tagline is “modern multi-domain warfare”gmtgames.com, and it indeed merges military and political aspects to some extent. The Strategic, Operational, Logistics phased turn structure forces players to think about high-level political momentum (strategic phase) before fighting battles. Victory isn’t purely by terrain capture; maintaining political will (e.g. keeping NATO support) is indirectly important via the tracks. Still, the core gameplay is operational combat (maneuver, battle resolution) – thus the multi-domain integration, while present, serves as context and modifiers rather than equal pillars of gameplay. The game aligns well with real events and shows the impact of factors like logistics and morale, but it stops short of simulating a disinformation campaign or cyber strategy in depth. |
| Twilight Struggle (2005) – Ananda Gupta & Jason Matthews, GMT Games | The Cold War global geopolitical conflict (US vs USSR, 1945–1989) | Yes: Though not about modern Russia per se, this acclaimed strategy game is essentially a conflict of influence and propaganda. Each superpower competes for influence points in countries via events and operations, representing diplomatic pressure, ideological propaganda, and coups. Military confrontations are minimal and abstract. In effect, Twilight Struggle plays out an information/political war on a world map, with propaganda campaigns (via event cards) like the “Bear Trap” or “Voice of America” shaping public allegiance. | No: Being set in the Cold War, there are no cyber operations (pre-digital era). The “tech” events include the Space Race and nuclear tests rather than cyber. | Yes: The game includes the use of proxies and irregular warfare in the form of coup attempts, revolutions, and backing regional wars (e.g. card events cover the Vietnam War, Cuban Revolution, etc., where superpowers fight through proxies). It’s a high-level abstraction, but it captures the notion of indirect conflict. | Moderate: Twilight Struggle is highly multi-domain in a political sense – it spans diplomacy, economy (to some extent via events), and military posturing – but it is essentially a political influence game. It succeeds in showing how conflicts can be won without direct war (e.g. winning the “hearts and minds” in Europe, Asia, etc.). As a model of hybrid conflict, it illustrates the value of influence and subversion, though it omits contemporary domains like cyber and social media. Think of it as a grand strategic predecessor that demonstrates how a game can make information the weapon. Modern hybrid war games build on some of these concepts in a more localized and detailed context. |
Key observations from Table 1: Commercial games have started to capture pieces of hybrid warfare. Ukrainian Crisis (designed by Brian Train, a noted innovator in irregular conflict games) is a standout for modeling the 2014 events with a strong emphasis on non-military means. It effectively allows a scenario where the Kremlin’s objectives are achieved via agitation and political maneuvers – much as Crimea was taken “without a fight,” reflecting realityhollandspiele.com. Players must manage information and diplomatic fronts, which is a rare feature in wargames. Crisis 2020, though a fictional civil war, is remarkably prescient in incorporating cyber and media warfaredicetower.com; it shows that even a hex-and-counter style game (Miranda’s design) can integrate street protests, hacking, and public sentiment alongside conventional units. These designs are strong in showing synergies: e.g., in Crisis 2020, a military victory in a region can be nullified if you lose the narrative or political support there, which is true to hybrid war logic.
On the other hand, more traditional war-focused games like Next War or operational battle games have only gingerly added hybrid elements. Next War: Poland needed an expansion to include cyber warfare rulesgmtgames.com, as the base game was purely kinetic. This indicates that the hobby community does see the need to address cyber and multi-domain factors, but often as optional chrome. The integration in such cases is often siloed – e.g., a cyber phase that gives a dice-based chance to suppress enemy air defenses for one turn, which, while useful, doesn’t fully replicate the open-ended chaos of real cyber operations. These designs sometimes struggle with non-kinetic victory conditions: a hex-and-counter game typically determines victory by territory or unit destruction, which can be at odds with the hybrid war notion of achieving strategic goals without necessarily winning a pitched battle.
In summary, consumer games are experimenting: card-driven designs and COIN (counterinsurgency) series games bring in political and social factors robustly, while conventional wargames are gradually bolting on cyber/EW and political rules. The result is that no single commercial game perfectly captures all dimensions of Russian hybrid warfare, but each provides a piece of the puzzle. Together, they show a trend towards more multi-domain simulation in wargames – albeit often requiring creative mechanics (cards, tracks, umpire-like event adjudication) to handle the intangible aspects like disinformation.
Professional Military Simulations of Hybrid Warfare
Professional wargames – those used by militaries, defense colleges, and think tanks – have arguably been at the forefront of simulating hybrid warfare, out of necessity. Unlike commercial games that must be packaged for consumers and balanced for enjoyment, professional simulations can be more free-form and seminar-style, focusing on realistic decision-making and scenario exploration. In recent years, NATO and various defense institutions have run wargames specifically to grapple with Russian hybrid tactics, often involving experts in cyber, information, and regional politics. These games frequently employ “matrix” mechanics or role-play elements to capture the open-ended, multi-actor nature of hybrid conflictspaxsims.wordpress.com. In a matrix game, players argue for actions (which can be anything – diplomatic moves, info ops, etc.) and an umpire adjudicates outcomes, allowing far more flexibility than rigid rules. Such formats are well-suited to model PMESII (Political, Military, Economic, Social, Information, Infrastructure) factorspaxsims.wordpress.com. Below is a table of notable professional hybrid warfare simulations and how they incorporate the key elements:
Table 2: Selected Professional Wargames/Exercises and Hybrid War Elements
| Simulation & Format | Disinformation Focus | Cyber Focus | Use of Proxies/Irregulars | Notable Features / Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| “Bear Rising” – NATO ACT matrix game (2019)paxsims.wordpress.compaxsims.wordpress.com | Yes: A dedicated White Cell role of “Press Officer” was created to inject fake news, social media buzz, and propaganda in real time in response to players’ actionspaxsims.wordpress.com. This kept information warfare at the forefront – players had to constantly react to the narrative being formed. Winning the “battle of the narrative” was explicitly part of the game’s objectives. | Limited: Cyber was not the primary focus in descriptions of Bear Rising. The scenarios were more about info and political actions (ethnic protests, maritime incidents, etc.). It’s possible cyber actions were discussed by players, but the game write-up emphasizes media and diplomatic domains over hacking. | Yes: The scenario vignettes explicitly involved proxy and covert actions. For example, one vignette deals with ethnic Russian protests in Latvia escalating with suspected Russian backingpaxsims.wordpress.com – a classic proxy unrest situation. Another has unmarked Russian National Guard units pressuring transit through Lithuaniapaxsims.wordpress.com. These require Blue players to counter “hybrid tactics” like covert force and agitation. | Narrative-driven multi-domain play: Bear Rising was conducted over three days, with teams including subject matter experts and military officerspaxsims.wordpress.com. It challenged NATO decision-makers with ambiguous, escalating crises short of open war. A key outcome was the realization of how a well-managed information narrative (thanks to the Press Officer injecting realistic news feeds) can shape the entire conflict’s trajectorypaxsims.wordpress.com. This game closely aligned with Russian hybrid doctrine by emphasizing informational and political maneuver before military confrontation. Its strength was in forcing players to deal with misinformation and covert aggression dynamically. One weakness was that it requires skilled adjudication and is not easily repeatable as a rigid model (it’s more exercise than game in a commercial sense). |
| NATO Multi-Domain Crisis Boardgame (c.2020-2021) – NATO Science & Technology Organization (STO) projectcodeanddagger.comcodeanddagger.com | Yes: Information operations are integral. This game was explicitly developed to train against “hybrid threats,” and in a demo scenario a port city faces riots and propaganda campaigns. Players represent entities like governments, militaries, NGOs, each with influence on the information environmentcodeanddagger.com. NATO’s SecGen Stoltenberg noted it covers everything from covert troops to disinformationcodeanddagger.com. | Yes: In fact, the project originated as a cyber warfare exercise and expanded to multi-domaincodeanddagger.com. Cyber attacks are part of the crisis events that raise the “crisis level.” For example, players might contend with hacking of infrastructure while handling kinetic and info aspects. The design recognizes cyber is entangled with physical conflictcodeanddagger.com. | Yes: The boardgame features “unmarked paramilitary forces” appearing (reminiscent of the “little green men” in Crimea) as a red aggressor’s toolcodeanddagger.com. It also allows for non-state actors and irregular challenges like insurgencies or civil unrest. Essentially, proxies and ambiguous forces are a central challenge injected onto the board. | Holistic crisis management: This simulation is multi-faceted – players around a table must keep an evolving crisis under control, balancing responses in different domains. An interesting aspect is that there is no conventional victory; the goal is to manage and de-escalate the hybrid conflict, “not to be won, but to restore stability”codeanddagger.com. This reflects a realistic approach to hybrid threats – success often means preventing the adversary’s destabilization effort without blowing things up into full war. The game’s strength is its comprehensive scope (cyber, info, kinetic, civil). It aligns well with doctrine by including covert forces and propaganda as pieces on the board. A challenge, however, is quantifying success in such a broad game – it relies on an umpire or an agreed “crisis level” metric. Still, the mere fact NATO is boxing and shipping this game to commands indicates its utility in shifting mindsets “towards a more multi-domain approach”codeanddagger.com. |
| HyDRA – German Wargaming Center strategic simulation (2022)germanwargamingcenter.eugermanwargamingcenter.eu | Yes: The scenario is structured around attacks on morale and credibility of a military base’s defense. The Red team (hybrid actor) uses information attacks (e.g. spreading rumors, disinformation in local media, threatening messages to troops’ families) to erode Blue’s morale and public trust. These information attacks directly impact one of the three pillars (morale) Blue must protectgermanwargamingcenter.eu. | Yes: Although not described in detail, the “effects on military facilities” likely include cyber sabotage – e.g. hacking base communications, disabling security systems – as part of Red’s arsenal. Since operational readiness is another pillar to be destabilizedgermanwargamingcenter.eu, cyber attacks would be a logical method to reduce readiness without open force. | Yes: Red team is an amorphous hybrid actor, implying use of proxies or covert operatives. They might simulate insider threats, local extremist groups inspired to attack the base, or saboteurs – all below the threshold of declared wargermanwargamingcenter.eu. Blue must respond to these irregular challenges over a protracted period. | Focused resilience gameplay: HyDRA plays out in four rounds = one yeargermanwargamingcenter.eu. The Blue team’s task is to complete their military mission while fending off sub-threshold hybrid attacks, and Red tries to collapse at least one of Blue’s critical pillars (morale, readiness, or credibility)germanwargamingcenter.eu. This format illustrates the challenges of defending against hybrid threats: the lack of clear “war” triggers, the need for interagency cooperation, and the importance of maintaining troop morale and public support under persistent political warfare. It’s essentially a gamified training tool to raise awareness and strengthen resiliencegermanwargamingcenter.eu. This aligns with Western doctrinal thinking on countering hybrid war – emphasizing societal and institutional resilience. In terms of fidelity, HyDRA captures the defensive side of hybrid warfare well, though it abstracts the offensive side to a generic threat. It’s not about Russia per se, but the methods mirror those used by Russia (and others) in the gray zone. |
| “Commander Sisu” – HybridCoE card-based game (c.2021)germanwargamingcenter.eugermanwargamingcenter.eu | Yes: Strategic narratives and information effects are explicitly examined. This game uses narrative techniques and scenario cards to present various hybrid influence campaigns across multiple countriesgermanwargamingcenter.eu. Players must recognize and counter disinformation themes, making it an educational tool about info-war dynamics. | Yes: Cyber is one of the “range of possible threats” considered in the conceptual framework. Players might face scenario cards involving cyber attacks on infrastructure or social media manipulation (a cyber-enabled info op). The game’s conceptual model, developed with Hybrid CoE and EU researchers, explicitly covers cyber as part of hybrid activitiesgermanwargamingcenter.eu. | Yes: It spans multiple countries and actors, so proxy wars, insurgencies, or influence by covert actors are in the mix. Players might take roles of state or non-state actors. The goal is to coordinate defense against hybrid campaigns, which certainly includes dealing with proxy fighters or puppet movements orchestrated by an adversarygermanwargamingcenter.eu. | Educational, cooperative approach: “Commander Sisu” (named after the Finnish word for resilience/grit) is designed for decision-makers to learn how to navigate hybrid threat scenariosgermanwargamingcenter.eu. Uniquely, it’s a modular card game rather than a map-based war simulation. This allows it to present complex multi-country scenarios in a workshop setting. The emphasis is on identifying hybrid tactics and crafting coordinated responses, rather than competing against each other; it’s often run as a team-vs-game (or team vs team) exercise. The game highlights the fine line between war and peace and forces players to operate under uncertainty and constant political pressuregermanwargamingcenter.eu. Its strength is in conceptually aligning with hybrid doctrine – it reinforces that success is not about “winning” in the classic sense but about never giving up and maintaining resilience in the face of continuous assaultsgermanwargamingcenter.eu. The trade-off for this breadth is that it doesn’t provide the detailed military simulation a traditional wargame would; instead, it excels at strategy and policy level discussion. |
| Marine Corps “War Before the War” – MCU operational wargame (Jan 2022)warontherocks.comwarontherocks.com | Limited: This four-day professional wargame simulated a Russian invasion of Ukraine just weeks before the real Feb 2022 invasion occurredwarontherocks.com. While the planners discussed information warfare (e.g. how President Zelenskyy’s communications might affect morale) and factored it into the narrative, the actual gameplay and outcomes were dominated by conventional operations. The facilitators noted that in reality Zelenskyy’s information campaign was strategically significantwarontherocks.com, but in the game, there wasn’t a detailed mechanism for disinfo beyond player declarations. | Limited: Participants debated cyber attacks in the scenario, aware of Russia’s capabilities, but there was “very little public reporting of actual cyberattacks” in the real conflict at that stagewarontherocks.com, and the game’s focus remained on kinetic strikes. Essentially, cyber was acknowledged but not heavily simulated – perhaps a few adjudicated effects (e.g. an assumption that Russia would knock out Ukraine’s air defenses electronically, which in reality they did not fully dowarontherocks.comwarontherocks.com). | Yes (minor): The game primarily pitched regular Russian forces against Ukrainian regulars. Irregular aspects like territorial defense units or special forces were considered in a supporting role. For example, the game imagined more successful Russian special ops strikes than actually occurredwarontherocks.com. Proxy forces (Donbas militia) were likely just rolled into the Russian OB. So while present, these were not a focal point – it was more straight conventional war gaming. | Operational focus with limited hybrid: The Marine Corps University game is an example of how a professional wargame can mirror reality well in military terms (indeed, many of its combat outcomes presaged the real invasion’s coursewarontherocks.com) yet underrepresent the intangible domains. As the authors reflected, “for all the heated talk about hybrid and grey zone warfare, this [was] a fight of blood and iron… something wargames are spectacularly good at simulating”warontherocks.com. In other words, when the conflict went high-order conventional, the hybrid elements faded into the background in both war and game. The lesson here is sobering: even when hybrid warfare is acknowledged, war gamers (and real generals) can be drawn into focusing on tanks and missiles once the shooting starts. The strength of this game was accuracy in force-on-force dynamics; the weakness was that it handled the prelude (the “war before the war” of disinfo, cyber, coercion) in a perfunctory way. It highlights a gap: bridging the transition from hybrid shadow conflict to open war is difficult to simulate, as one tends to overshadow the other. |
Insights from Table 2: We see professional wargames tackling hybrid warfare in creative ways. Bear Rising showed the value of adding roles (like the Press Officer) to simulate the media environmentpaxsims.wordpress.com – a technique that injected realism by generating news updates that players had to react to, much as real commanders would face real-time information (and misinformation) flows. This approach captured the qualitative impact of disinformation more effectively than any dice roll or card could, but it relies on skilled control by the White Cell. NATO’s multi-domain crisis game embodies the integrated approach: it basically turns the theory of hybrid war into a physical game with multiple moving parts (political, civilian, military pieces on a map) and forces players to coordinate among themselves, e.g., the cyber expert with the info ops expert, to handle simultaneous threatscodeanddagger.comcodeanddagger.com. Notably, it acknowledges there is no neat win condition – an insight true to hybrid warfare, where success is often avoiding defeat and maintaining stabilitycodeanddagger.com.
The German Wargaming Center offerings like HyDRA and the Hybrid CoE’s Commander Sisu indicate a trend of scenario-specific games aimed at education and resilience. These aren’t about predicting a campaign’s outcome on a map; they’re about drilling practitioners in recognizing hybrid tactics and formulating responses. In essence, they flip the script: instead of simulating how to conduct hybrid warfare (as Russia does), they simulate how to withstand or counter it. This is a logical focus for NATO countries, and it aligns with the idea that defending against hybrid threats requires whole-of-society awareness, not just military maneuvers. In game terms, this often means victory is defined as “did we mitigate the threat and stay cohesive?” rather than “did we destroy the enemy?” – an unconventional win condition compared to traditional wargames.
One can also observe that matrix games and seminar games have become popular for exploring hybrid scenarios because they allow open-ended actions. A UK Ministry of Defence wargaming handbook even notes that matrix games accommodate the full range of political, social, and informational events better than rigid tactical gamespaxsims.wordpress.com. For example, “Bear Rising” and “South China Sea Matrix Game” (another example outside our scope) let players attempt anything – from bribing officials to launching cyber attacks – and then use expert adjudication to decide outcomes. This flexibility is crucial for capturing the unpredictability and breadth of hybrid warfare. The downside is these games often lack the crunchy quantitative detail that simulation grognards enjoy; they sacrifice detailed combat resolution for breadth of scenario.
Do Wargames Capture the Multi-Domain Reality? – Analysis
After surveying these examples, we return to our core question: To what extent do current simulations capture the interlinked, multi-domain nature of Russian hybrid warfare? The answer is mixed. No single game or simulation perfectly covers all dimensions – each tends to emphasize certain aspects and simplify or omit others. However, collectively, they show significant progress in modeling hybrid warfare. Let’s break down the assessment by elements:
- Disinformation: Most of the professional games put heavy emphasis on this, often more effectively than commercial games. Bear Rising’s live news injections and NATO’s info-centric scenarios are high-fidelity approaches – they make players feel the fog and friction of competing narratives. Commercial board games handle disinformation in a more abstract way (through event cards or influence markers). For instance, Ukrainian Crisis uses “propaganda” as a resource or action, which is quantified and thus limited – a simplification, since in reality propaganda isn’t a single expendable resource but an ongoing campaign. Yet, the mere inclusion of propaganda as a factor is a positive; it forces players to allocate attention to it. The challenge is that true information warfare outcomes are hard to quantify (how to determine if your propaganda campaign succeeded this turn?). Thus games either reduce it to die rolls/effects (losing nuance) or handle it narratively via an umpire (losing reproducibility). Despite these issues, many games do capture the qualitative impact of disinfo – e.g. in HyDRA, if Blue’s credibility pillar collapses due to Red’s rumors, that’s a direct simulation of strategic effect of disinfogermanwargamingcenter.eu. In summary, info warfare is being modeled, but often via creative proxy mechanics (cards, tracks, adjudication) rather than as a full-fledged, rules-driven domain. The interlink with other domains is depicted (propaganda often ties to morale or political tracks in games), though rarely as dynamically as real life, where media ops adapt daily.
- Cyber Operations: This is arguably the newest and trickiest domain to simulate. Designers have tried a few approaches:
- Stand-alone cyber mini-games or phases (e.g., Next War’s cyber strikes, which are essentially a special attack with specific outcomesgmtgames.com).
- Embedded cyber effects in narrative (e.g., a matrix game where a player declares “I hack the power grid” and the umpire decides what that does).
- Card events (some strategic games have “Cyber Attack” cards that impose a one-time penalty on the opponent).
- Proxies/Irregular Warfare: Here, counterinsurgency (COIN) wargames and historical precedents have provided a foundation. Many board wargames have long included guerrilla units or rules for partisans (going back to Avalon Hill’s classics). What’s new is incorporating proxies in contemporary scenarios. The examples show this being done: Ukrainian Crisis has separatist units, NATO’s game has unmarked “little green” pieces, and Bear Rising explicitly used proxy unrest as a scenario driver. These games do capture the asymmetry of hybrid warfare – e.g., Blue side constrained by law, whereas Red uses deniable proxies. One strength in some designs is allowing one side to achieve objectives asymmetrically: in Ukrainian Crisis, Russia can “win” by destabilizing Ukraine politically without ever defeating the Ukrainian army. This reflects reality, where proxies and irregulars may achieve what regular forces cannot. A weakness in simulation arises in representing how proxies are controlled. In reality, managing proxies (e.g., ensuring a local militia follows your broader strategy) is complex and can backfire. Most games simply let the proxy be an extension of the player’s will (because the player is effectively the proxy controller). Only in role-play heavy games might a proxy faction be semi-independent (perhaps represented by a separate player or an AI with its own agenda). That level of nuance is rare; one partial example is in some COIN series games, where multiple factions with different agendas operate on the same map – but those usually depict multi-sided conflicts rather than a great power covertly guiding a proxy. Thus, games capture the utility of proxies (force on the board) but less so the command-and-control dilemmas and political risks of using them. Overall, irregular warfare is fairly well represented, since insurgency has been gamed for decades. The novelty in the Russian hybrid context is combining insurgency with high-tech warfare and state actors, which few single games have done. Possibly the COIN system could merge with a conventional system in a future design to cover both simultaneously (some attempts at this exist in hobby designs, but it’s challenging).
- Multi-Domain Synergy: This is the hardest aspect – not the presence of individual domains, but their synergistic use. Real hybrid campaigns feature feedback loops: e.g., a successful cyber attack on TV stations makes disinformation more believable; a localized military victory can be magnified or nullified by how it’s spun in media; economic sanctions might spur domestic unrest, etc. Does any game achieve this kind of interplay? To a limited extent, yes:
- Matrix games inherently allow any interplay because players can connect actions (“I use a cyber attack to take down the TV, then spread a false flag story blaming the enemy, causing protests”). Whether that works is decided by consensus or die roll, but at least the game flow encourages linking domains in creative ways.
- Card-driven games simulate cross-domain effects via event combinations. In Twilight Struggle, for example, playing the “Cuban Missile Crisis” card impacts both military (nuclear risk) and political (influence in Cuba) spheres. In Ukrainian Crisis, one could play an event that boosts international support (political) which in turn raises the cost for the opponent to use force (military deterrence). These are scripted synergies though, not emergent.
- Multi-track games like Defiance have parallel tracks (political, logistic, military). If a player ignores one track, their overall strategy falters. For instance, in Defiance if the “NATO Support” track drops (perhaps due to Russian information ops or political missteps), the Ukrainian player could lose access to reinforcements or suffer morale penalties, making military defeat likelier. That’s a synergy: political domain affecting battlefield performance. The game rules enforce it in a simplified way (tracks and bonuses), but it conveys the concept that success requires tending multiple gardens at once – much like a hybrid campaign.
Despite these mechanisms, many games still compartmentalize domains for ease of play. We see this in how turns are structured (a phase for political stuff, then a phase for combat, etc.). Reality isn’t so clean; things happen simultaneously and messily. Achieving true multi-domain simultaneity in a game is difficult – it demands either real-time play or highly interactive turn structures. Some professional exercises achieve simultaneity by literally running in real time (or moderated time) and having different cells act in parallel (e.g., one team does cyber, one does media, one does military, all at once). This is more akin to a command-post exercise than a game, but it can yield realistic friction.
Limitations and Gaps: A PhD-level critique would note that wargames inevitably simplify. The Russian concept of hybrid war involves complex adaptive systems – societies, media ecologies, global audiences – that are beyond full simulation. Wargames often substitute a simpler analog: e.g., “political track at value 3 = government unstable” as a stand-in for all the myriad factors that make a government waver. Expert players or umpires can inject expertise to make outcomes credible (as in seminar games), but that depends on the facilitator’s knowledge and the participants’ immersion. Moreover, wargames can be biased by the designers’ interpretation of doctrine. For instance, if a game designer misreads Gerasimov and thinks Russia will always try cyber attacks first, they might overweight cyber in the game scenarios. Good design requires grounding in current intel and history – which is why referencing academic literature and real operations (as we have done) is vital. A well-designed hybrid warfare game should ideally allow for asymmetric strategies and not predetermine that one method will work every time; it should also allow the defender to employ counter-hybrid measures (strategic communication, cyber defense, etc.), not just passively react.
One notable observation is that once open war erupts, games (and realities) tend to pivot to conventional warfighting. We saw that in the Marine Corps simulation where once Russia invaded openly, it became a traditional wargame scenariowarontherocks.com. This can be seen as a failure to continue the hybrid model (Russia in 2022 still used propaganda and coercion, but these took a back seat to battles). Some analysts argue Russia’s hybrid approach was more prominent in 2014-2015, whereas by 2022 it shifted to a brute-force approach – meaning a game focusing on 2022 might justifiably drop the hybrid nuance once the shooting startswarontherocks.com. Still, an ideal simulation would carry through some hybrid elements even during conventional fighting (for example, modeling how continued information operations might sap an enemy’s will or invite outside diplomatic pressure during the war).
Finally, we should consider fidelity to doctrinal developments: Do these games stay up to date with how Russian hybrid warfare is evolving? Russia’s tactics are not static; they learn and adapt (for instance, after 2014, Ukrainian resilience to propaganda improved, so Russia adjusted its info tactics). Professional wargames like those run by NATO COEs are updated frequently with new lessons (e.g., observations from the ongoing Ukraine war about how effective or not certain hybrid tactics were). Commercial games have longer development cycles and may lag – e.g., a game published in 2017 might not reflect a 2022 understanding of cyber or the role of drones in disinformation (like how footage of strikes is used for propaganda). Academic input and iterative playtesting with subject matter experts can help keep them aligned. The games we reviewed by Brian Train or Mark Herman do show evidence of research (citations in the rules, historical notes) and an attempt to model real events accurately, which strengthens their doctrinal alignment.
Conclusion: Towards More Effective Hybrid Warfare Simulations
Wargaming Russian hybrid warfare is undeniably challenging, but the efforts surveyed here demonstrate meaningful strides in capturing the essence of multi-domain conflict. Early doctrinal thinking from Moscow stressed that “the very rules of war have changed” – with non-military means often eclipsing firepower – and many of these games oblige the player to internalize that reality. A gamer cannot win Ukrainian Crisis by tanks alone; they must win the political war. A NATO officer in Bear Rising learned that even a militarily superior force can be outmaneuvered if it loses control of the narrativepaxsims.wordpress.com. These are powerful lessons aligned with real-world observations.
That said, no simulation is perfect. There remains a tendency to silo domains and resolve them sequentially, whereas true hybrid operations are concurrent and dynamic. The next generation of wargames could build on experiments like combining a matrix game with a kinetic simulation in phasespaxsims.wordpress.com – for example, first play out a political stratagem in a matrix session, then fight a battle on a map, then feed the outcome back into the political context. This kind of hybrid wargame-of-wargames was actually tested by defense researchers to marry the strengths of strategic matrix play with tactical resolutionpaxsims.wordpress.com. It mirrors how hybrid wars play out: a constant back-and-forth between battlefields and bargaining tables. Such approaches, aided by digital tools (perhaps AI moderating some interactions), might further enhance realism.
Moreover, incorporating new domains like the information sphere requires thinking beyond traditional victory conditions. How do you “score” an info-war victory? Some games use tracks or points to represent population support or international opinion. It’s abstract, but at least it translates soft power into game terms. Continued collaboration between game designers, military analysts, and academics is needed to refine these mechanisms. Encouragingly, organizations like the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats (Hybrid CoE) have actively sponsored game development (e.g., Commander Sisu) to ensure the game models reflect up-to-date hybrid threat frameworksgermanwargamingcenter.eugermanwargamingcenter.eu.
From a grognard’s perspective, one might lament that adding all these layers dilutes the pure wargame experience – indeed, managing Twitter trends and cyber packets is a far cry from calculating Panzer divisions’ odds on the plains. But warfare itself has evolved, and so must our simulations. Even the most hardened conventional wargamer can appreciate that if you ignore the “soft” factors, you’re not really simulating modern war – as the old saying goes, the enemy gets a vote, and in hybrid warfare that vote might be cast via a viral fake news story or a blackout caused by malware. The best contemporary wargames remind us of this by weaving those factors into play.
In conclusion, while no single game reviewed can fully capture Russian hybrid warfare in all its complexity, each offers valuable insights and learning experiences. Together, they cover the spectrum from the clandestine prelude to the climactic combined-arms fight. They show that it is indeed possible to simulate key elements of hybrid warfare – disinformation, cyber, proxies, irregulars – in a meaningful way, though often requiring innovative mechanics and a willingness to depart from traditional win/lose conditions. As hybrid warfare continues to feature in global security, we can expect wargames to continue evolving. The ultimate measure of success for these simulations is not just whether they align with doctrine on paper, but whether they prepare decision-makers and analysts for the messy reality of conflicts where, as Gerasimov wrote, “each action is part of a unified whole” and the frontlines extend from the soldier’s trench to the smartphone screen. In that regard, the trend in both hobby and professional circles is promising – wargaming is adapting, just as warfare is.
Sources: Academic and doctrinal insights have been drawn from Gerasimov’s writings and analyses by Western scholars to ground the discussion of Russian hybrid warfare doctrine. The specific games and simulations referenced are documented in accessible reports and articles (as cited throughout), including developers’ notes from GMT Games for Defiancegmtgames.com and Next Wargmtgames.com, a PAXsims review of Bear Risingpaxsims.wordpress.com, a Code&Dagger news piece on NATO’s hybrid boardgamecodeanddagger.comcodeanddagger.com, the German Wargaming Center’s description of HyDRA and Sisugermanwargamingcenter.eugermanwargamingcenter.eu, and a War on the Rocks commentary on the Marine Corps Ukraine wargamewarontherocks.com, among others. These sources underline the points made and exemplify the current state of the art in hybrid warfare simulation. They are preserved in the references above for further reading and verification.
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