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Wargaming and Crisis Simulations Lab

Wargaming and Crisis Simulations Lab

Wargaming is the simulation of military, security, or strategic scenarios in which participants engage in decision-making exercises to predict outcomes, analyze strategies, and assess tactics in a controlled environment. The Wargaming and Crisis Simulations Lab at Virginia Tech was founded in 2025 with the mission of making wargaming accessible to the Virginia Tech community through events, resources, courses, and more.

The Wargaming and Crisis Simulations Lab at Virginia Tech serves as a hub for exposing users to teaching, research, and collaboration centered on experiential learning through wargames and crisis simulations.

The Lab promotes academic courses across the university that incorporate roleplaying, competition, and decision-making to explore complex challenges in security, policy, technology, business, and society.

This website catalogs Virginia Tech courses that employ wargaming and crisis simulations, highlights ongoing faculty and student research aimed at advancing these methods, and connects visitors to related wargaming and simulation programs at peer institutions.

Together, these efforts strengthen Virginia Tech’s commitment to innovative pedagogy, interdisciplinary learning, and real-world problem solving.

  • Integrated Security Education and Research Center (ISERC): https://pamplin.vt.edu/research/iserc.html
    • Housed in the Corps Leadership and Military Science Building on Upper Quad, the ISERC is a purpose-built, multi-room facility that is ideal for hosting wargaming and crisis simulations. The ISERC has been used in wargaming-related classes, such as Professor Brantly’s Security Studies courses, as well as cyber competitions and the annual wargame for the Corps of Cadets’ senior class. The ISERC features state-of-the-art audiovisual and computing capabilities and reconfigurable, interactive spaces highly conducive to this type of experiential learning.
  • VTNSI CREATE Range: https://hume.vt.edu/engagement/create-range.html
    • The Virginia Tech National Security Institute hosts the Cyber Research Environment and Threat Evaluation (CREATE) Range, which was established to: (1) host cross-institutional student cyber exercises, competitions, and applied training; (2) enable cyber-related and data-intensive national security research; and (3) advance student-faculty-DOD collaboration. As such, it is ideal for enabling wargaming and crisis simulations--especially cyber-related simulations and competitions--at Virginia Tech.
  • Tech for Humanity Lab: https://techforhumanitylab.clahs.vt.edu/
    • Led by Associate Professor Dr. Aaron Brantly, the lab provides access to resources including High Performance Computing; mobile and IoT technologies; servers, software and simulations for modeling infrastructures; augmented and virtual environments; and a range of digital devices.
  • CyberVT Club: https://cybervt.org/
    • The cybersecurity club at Virginia Tech (CyberVT) and the associated Corps of Cadets Cyber Team both participate in and host cyber competitions and simulations as part of their goal to advance cybersecurity education at Virginia Tech. In 2025 and 2026, the Corps Cyber Team took third place in a national cyber competition sponsored by the National Security Agency, besting all other senior military colleges and two service academies.

  • SPIA Graduate Certificate in Wargaming
    • Virginia Tech’s new graduate certificate in wargaming is the first of its kind and the only wargaming certification offered by an institute of higher learning in the United States. This is a unique 12-credit, four-course graduate certificate yielding official, accredited academic credit rather than a simple certificate of completion.
  • Professor Aaron Brantly, "Gateway and Captsone Courses"
    • Course: Security Studies: Theories and Concepts (IS 3104, CRN 86782)
  • Professor Jerry “Jay” Burkette, “Global Conflict and War”
    • Course: Global Conflict and War (PSCI 3134, CRN 89598)
    • Course: Global Security (PSCI 3114)
    • Course: National Security (PSCI 3734)
  • Professor Chris Price, “Global War in Conflict”
    •     Course: Global Conflict and War (PSCI 3134)
  • Professor Robert Hodges, Diplomacy Lab
  • Professor Paul Avey, "Nuclear Strategy & Politics"
    • Course: Nuclear Strategy & Politics (IS 3194, CRN 21728)
  • Course: Introduction to Game Theory & Wargaming (SPIA 5304)
  • Course: Analytical Foundations for Wargaming (SPIA 5314)

Virginia Tech Senior Military College Cyber Institute (SMCCI) has hosted various cyber simulations and exercises such as capture-the-flag (CTF) events. In November 2024, the SMCCI hosted “Cyber Brawl” in the ISERC, which was a CTF and pilot exercise using the recently installed CREATE range (server) hosted at the VTNSI in Blacksburg, VA. Seven teams, both in-person and remote, took part in a Jeopardy-style CTF that covered several tasks in three categories of challenges: network reconnaissance, cryptology, and web exploitation. Some of the individual challenge exercises included an insecure file upload, port scan, plaintext leak, and cracking a Vigenère cipher. Separately, in October 2024, the SMCCI hosted DECIDEX 2024--a virtual cyber tabletop exercise--in the ISERC. Other cyber events include the annual Summit CTF, an annual CTF competition hosted by the Cybersecurity Club at Virginia Tech (CyberVT).

  • Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets Annual Senior Class Wargame (2027)
    • Date(s): TBD
    • Location(s): ISERC, CLMS Building, and multiple locations
  • CIA wargames led by Gary Dodson
    • Date(s): TBD
    • Location(s): CLMS Building, TBD
  • Annual Hume Center Colloquium on April 14, 2027 (this year with a special focus on wargaming)
VTCC Warpaths Wargame
VTCC Warpaths Wargame
CIA Wargames Led By Gary Dodson
CIA Wargames Led By Gary Dodson

Wargaming Efforts in Other Institutions:

For more information, contact: 

  • Jamie Cogbill, Wargaming Research Faculty Advisor, jbcogbill@vt.edu
  • Peyton Coleman, Wargaming Research Student Lead, peytoncoleman@vt.edu
  • Michael Mazikin, Wargaming Student Researcher, mmazikin8@vt.edu
  • Xander Epperson, Wargaming Student Researcher, xander21@vt.edu
  • Cameron Cook, Wargaming Student Researcher, cameroncook@vt.edu
  • Rahil Ross, Wargaming Student Researcher, rahilr@vt.edu
  • Antonio Ko, Wargaming Student Researcher, antoniok@vt.edu

Wargaming in Action

The 2025-2026 Wargaming Research Team presenting at the Hume Colloquium
The Annual Corps of Cadets Wargame
Wargaming Excercise
Wargaming Excercise
Wargaming Excercise
Wargaming Excercise