US Defense Intelligence Agency uses games to train
By Ryan Burns
A recent article on Wired.com reveals that the U.S Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s equivalent of the CIA, is using three custom PC games to teach critical thinking. The games, titled “Sudden Thrust,” “Rapid Onset” and “Vital Passage,” will train DIA analysts around the globe.
Each and every current and potential DIA analyst will eventually play the games, whether for initial training or a refresher course.
"It is clear that our new workforce is very comfortable with this approach," said Bruce Bennett, chief of the analysis-training branch at the DIA's Joint Military Intelligence Training Center.
The DIA will also use the games to train an additional 2,000 analysts in the U.S. military’s combat commands.
All three games put players in the shoes of a DIA analyst (big surprise) who must use analytical processes to discover who the enemy is and what they want. They aren’t exactly action-packed thrill rides, but they get the point across.
In “Sudden Thrust,” the player must determine what terrorists are doing with a hijacked natural gas tanker in New York Harbor.
In “Rapid Onset,” the player’s character dreams about climbing up a rope after an old guru threw him off a cliff. The only way to the top is to recite the Eight Questions of Intelligence Analysis. Then the character wakes up and has to put those questions to the test to discover why China has just bought an ex-Soviet aircraft carrier.
“Vital Passage” is set in 1988, during the Iran-Iraq war. The player must figure out who attacked a tanker in the Persian Gulf and how, all using the analytical skills from the other games.
According to Wired.com, “The titles may conjure images of blitzkrieg, but the games themselves are actually a surprisingly clever and occasionally surreal blend of education, humor and intellectual challenge, aimed at teaching the player how to think.”
Bennett said that the next step is training to work with other departments.
“Maybe it's pie in the sky, but can we link multiple computers, so that I can have eight or 10 people in the room playing the same game," Bennett said. "I can be the DIA guy, someone else in DIA can play the CIA guy, and somebody else can be an FBI or a DEA person. If we don't share information, we lose the game."
Originally Published: Issue 648 - May 14, 2008
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