War and game, a way of interpreting the world

“Game is combat and combat is game”, affirms Johan Huizinga in his famous work Homo Ludens written in 1938. This chiasmus serves as the background to the essay War and game. Cultures of a paradox in the modern era (1) completed under the direction of Achim Küpper and Kristine Vanden Berghe who are both researchers at the University of Liege. Using the work of the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga as a reference, the book explores the links that exist between these two terms that are generally accepted to be opposites but which nonetheless have much in common. Could it be that there is an unholy alliance between them? The work develops what may appear to be a paradox, in our present era of modern warfare and its consequences of massacres and extreme violence. It also offers us an analysis of the respective evolution of these notions and attempts to shows how war and game have tended to become abstract terms over the course of the centuries. The essay deals with the following questions: In what way is war game and vice versa? What kind of war and what kind of game is involved? Chance and staged events are highlighted as essential links in the chain connecting the two notions thereby providing authentic historical, political, literary and media clarity.

The term war as used here should not be understood in its traditional sense but rather as denoting “conflict”. It is as much about the First World War and the Mexican revolution as it is about deadly confrontations between mere individuals. The term war should be “taken to mean complex multifaceted conflict”, states Achim Küpper, a postdoctoral researcher at the FNRS in the Modern German Language and Literature department of the University of Liege. Neither should the reader expect to read only about actual examples taken from history. In this way, it can be said that certain contributions to the present work ‘game’ with the reader to the extent that the staged conflicts emerge totally from the imagination of the author, or are used as narrative background. Conflict therefore enters the universe of the fictional or the virtual, much like game-playing.

In addition, a choice was made regarding the period to be studied. “We began where Johan Huizinga left off, with modern, systematic warfare which is itself much like game-playing”. Indeed, Huizinga concentrated more on archaic war opposing equal adversaries who had mutual respect for each other. This form of warfare has clearly nothing to do with so-called modern ‘asymmetric’ warfare which is to be distinguished from war between states and for which there are no ‘rules’. This essay gives us several significant examples of this type of war: The First World War and the different strategic plans imagined by Von Schlieffen by means of his Kriegsspiele (war-games); the Mexican revolution (1910-1917); the Second World War through representations of the Shoah as a game; the war in Iraq in 2003 not to forget the nuclear ‘game’ which, while not a war in itself, only has two possible outcomes: the success of the strategy of deterrence or failure. The result of the latter would be the outbreak of a new conflict.

The characteristics of game according to Huizinga

What is game? If we refer to the etymology of this word, we must associate the word game with entertainment. Game is different to war in that it is universally understood. It is as though the two phenomena are intrinsically opposite. Yet the first lesson to be learned from Johan Huizinga is the fact that game-playing and war are similar. In his work, he lists their common points.

Therefore, for example, game-gameing is based on “freely consented yet imperious rules”. It must be remembered that Huizinga concerned himself with so-called ‘archaic’ war which involved the observation of very specific rules. Therefore, Huizinga, a specialist of the Middle Ages, presents the war of yesteryear, primitive war, as ‘recreational’, leading to the supposition that while game-gameing may indeed be amusement, this does not rule out a fatal conclusion. Death can indeed be part of game-playing on condition that the two sides consider themselves as equals and have mutual respect for each other. A particular example of this would be jousting during the Middle Ages or gladiatorial combat. Kristine Vanden Berghe, professor at the University of Liege (Spanish and Hispano-American Language and Literature) revisits Huizinga’s reasoning on this subject in her contribution dedicated to the book Cartucho, by the Mexican authoress Nellie Campobello: “Archaic war respects all the characteristics of the game, it is embellished with all the decorative material of the tribe and therefore functions in accordance with categories of aestheticism. In addition, it is a free activity separate from everyday life: it is brought about by a declaration of war and ends when there is a peace agreement. The space within which it occurs is also a separate terrain which may be a clearing in a forest in the case of a duel, or a battlefield, etc. Finally, archaic war was regulated by a series of rules which had to be observed”(2). Conversely, Brigitte Adriaensen(3) reminds us of the incompatibility that, according to Huizinga, exists between ‘total war’ and game. She summarizes Huizinga’s thinking by the following sentence: “Total war is a sign of the general decline of human civilization, a decline that is particularly visible in the fact that game has become more and more marginalized in our culture.»

If we look at game in isolation, Huizinga attributed the following characteristics to it: firstly, game has an agonistic dimension, and what is agonistic is recreational according to Huizinga; game, then, is freedom and spontaneity. Certainly, there are rules but these are not immutable. On the other hand, the rules have to be understood and accepted by the other gameers. Game is also recreation and contentment. It is fiction too, in the sense that it is not ‘ordinary’ or ‘real’ life. The way we use the verb ‘play’ (game-playing) is significant from this point of view. We play a musical instrument, we play in a theatrical production or in a film, we play tennis just as we play cards, chess, parlor games, etc. Different examples are developed in War and game on this subject. Therefore, several works of literature or cinema are cited. Huizinga also highlights the fact that game in itself is neither good nor bad, “it is situated outside the sphere of moral norms” while also making it possible to somehow moralize society because it “channels the lives of human beings and avoids excesses, in war, for example, where the rules of the game prevent us from descending into total barbarity”. In short, the aspiration of game is beauty and culture emanates from this. This idea is the subject of the utopian novel, The game of glass beads by Hermann Hesse. In Hermann Hesse’s book, the game of glass beads is the pinnacle of culture. It constitutes “an effective remedy against war”(4) and war can also itself be “a means of fostering true culture”. The 20^th century, ‘the era of pages of varieties’, is presented as the dawn of creative culture. In these conditions, war is no longer considered a state from which one should flee but rather as a useful means of radically transforming the world order into a new culture.

War and game evolve according to the vagaries of chance and randomness

A chess board is something that is often used as an illustration of strategic military or geopolitical thinking. Yet, what could be more random than the geopolitical situations and conflicts it leads to. What could be more transparent than a game of chess? The rules are precise, the pieces can only be moved in accordance with pre-ordained rules, and the adversaries face each other and advance openly. Nothing in this even remotely corresponds to reality. The game of chess leaves nothing to chance, nothing about it is simulated or staged. However, these last two points, the simulated and staged, are precisely what links war to game and game to war, as Achim Küpper reminds us. Some see chess as a symbol of traditional war. “This form of war excludes any kind of unexpected development following the example of chess where what is not allowed does not happen”, explains Achim Küpper. However, “it is a utopian vision that has long since disappeared”. Indeed, chess should rather be considered as an integral part of every war, representing only phases of combat but never taking account of what happens behind the scenes, political decisions and negotiations, strategic thinking, unexpected developments, etc. This is why Huizinga’s work devotes only a few lines to the game of chess.

On the other hand, card-games in all their various forms such as poker, for example, make it possible to better understand the real face of war. Certainly, cards are dealt randomly; none of the gameers knows his opponent’s ‘hand’. War results from a planned and premeditated construction but cannot escape the vagaries of human and other factors. “The notion of clarity is being lost. The entire system depends on chance”, suggests Achim Küpper. How many examples from history do we have that illustrate this fact? How many unforeseen factors have affected a well-oiled military machine and have totally changed the course of history?(5) War is a very real situation which confronts human beings with realities and many more chance happenings than those to which apply to game.

Certainly, the maximum number of chance elements in a war or any other combat operation will be taken into account during the preparation of a strategy. Such was the case with the famous ‘Von Schlieffen plan’ which is analysed in War and game by Christophe Bechet and Christoph Brüll. It is to be noted that the German Kriegsspiele (war game) is a very old practice and is of capital importance in the training of a German officer. It is like a didactic game the aim of which is to prepare as well as possible for and to predict the different possible configurations in time of war. This meant that Von Schlieffen tried to integrate as many unknown elements as possible that could occur into his Kriegsspiele (see article The Von Schlieffen plan). This meant obliging the officers to “manage the unexpected” in accordance with the formula of Christophe Bechet and Christophe Brüll so that as surprising as that may seem, the German war game touches on the notion of freedom that was so dear to Huizinga. Faced with an unforeseen situation, the Chiefs of Staff must be able to react with spontaneity in their strategic and tactical choices. But however ambitious they may be, the Kriegsspiele cannot be exhaustive. For example, the number of kilometers covered in a day by an army is a fixed notion at the outset. The same applies to the valor of troops. Christophe Bechet and Christoph Brüll notably refer to a commentary by Von Schlieffen concerning his Kriegsspiele of November-December 1905 in which “the valor of Belgian and Dutch troops was very under-estimated”. This was so even though their participation during the game turned out to be a determining factor for German victory.

Evidently, over the course of different eras, epochs and military confrontations, war games have evolved and have been inspired by military strategy manuals and lessons have been learned from the history of great battles. Guy Debord, for example, sought to perfect the war game by “by taking cognizance of a system that was no longer hierarchical and repressive but flexible and organized into a network” as Frédéric Prot(6) explains in his contribution devoted to the war games of the former. This game is directly inspired by the theories of Clausewitz for whom war is a ‘chameleon’. This was not sufficient to discourage Debord who wanted to confer on his game “the power to model war”(7). He would even go so far as to affirm that the war game “reproduced exactly the same list of factors that act in war […]” and that “The surprises offered by this Kriegsspiele seem inexhaustible”. This is jumping to conclusions somewhat because three deficiencies of this war game must be highlighted, three deficiencies which confine this game to a fictional space, far from the battlefield of ‘the real war’. Indeed, he is seemingly indifferent to weather conditions and the alternation between night and day; relatively indifferent to the moral force of the troops and their fatigue; he offers “a panoptical omniscient vision of combat positions and the deployment of the enemy’s units which is impossible in a war situation”. The principles of uncertainty, ignorance and the random are therefore not integrated.

Consequently, and this is an extra link with game as seen by Huizinga, war games remain fictional. Chance, itself, definitively separates the ‘gameed war’ from the ‘experienced war’ even though “no winner believes in chance”(8).

Simulation and event staging shape both war and game

“There is a central point which links the two concepts as the nuclear weapon issue has shown us and the communication question which surrounds it. It is necessary to persuade the other party of something that is either true or false”, Achim Küpper reminds us. What is real, what is false, the illusion of both. Once again, let us refer to the etymology of ‘illusion’ which is a derivative of the Latin word ‘illudere’ which literally means ‘game’. The universe of game is therefore a universe of illusion. This universe can be transposed to the area of war.

The best example of this is the nuclear question. This is developed by André Dumoulin, a lecturer at the University of Liege and an attaché at the Royal Military School of Brussels. The ‘nuclear game’, and the illusion that it leads to, really lies in a dialectical game, a psychological duel. This game is based on the strategy of deterrence. This involves a subtle balance between risk and high stakes; between cost and benefit. The opposing party must be convinced that the cost of aggression is disproportionate to the stakes. Nonetheless, it is a game that becomes more complex because the nuclear gameers are more numerous than in the past. Furthermore, the above assertion represents the game of nuclear war declaration. The aim of the game for other states will be to succeed in proving that they do not have the weapon and/or conceal its existence. The final objective consists of ensuring the balance of forces because two equal forces pitched against each other can only result in a negative outcome. This is why nuclear weapons are always presented as a political weapon.

The illusion also stems from the way a decision is made to stage the real, the ‘experienced war’. The observation point adopted to take account of a conflict will in this sense determine the construction of a clear opinion on the part of the reader or spectator in relation to this same conflict.  This issue is analysed in a very original way in War and Game by Renaud Grigoletto(9). He shows an interest in the issue in his contribution to the documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad. The first part sets the tone: “Heavy Metal in Baghdad, a documentary filmed (and partially non-filmed) between 2003 and 2006 in the freedom-starved context that exists in a country at war, during Operation Iraqi Freedom and its aftermath, uses the gameful and jubilant pretext of the long-established hidden and inexhaustible affinities that exist between music and war as the driving force of a staged event that is shaken by the clashes and counter-clashes of undifferentiated contemporary images”. While Renaud Grigoletto returns to the subject of the documentary, the Iraki heavy metal group Acrassicauda, his actual objective here is to show how the theatre of conflict in Irak can be staged in a realistic way, while maintaining an illusion of reality at the same time. This is primarily because the director must remain within the boundaries of certain rules that apply to conflict zones and he finds himself limited with regard to the images he can film. The director’s view is therefore biased from the outset. Renaud Grigoletto clearly demonstrates how, under the pretext of the safety of the film crew, the focus is placed on the authors and not the field. This results, firstly, in a sense of proximity and of realism which is really “an illusory construct, because they (and the spectator too) remain constantly at a distance, confined, justifying this hidden threat”. Finally, the event-staging is also based on the illusion that is given of placing oneself at a distance from the American occupier by tricks of the camera therefore suggesting “logistical independence and independence of thought which does not exist in reality: the logic remains that of the production of a point of view". This is not insignificant if we consider the power of suggestion that images have by nature, all the more so when they present themselves as the representation of reality which is not the case with works of fiction.

From the ‘gameed war’ to the ‘experienced war’

What is very interesting with the notion of staging or of simulation is that it works in two different ways. Either it is inspired by the real ‘the experienced war’ to result in a game or it is the game that serves as the first step in staging a war or conflict.

Valérie Leyh(10) illustrates this idea in her contribution to the short-story by Arrigo Boito, l’Alfier Nero (The black madman). In this work, the staged situation becomes real and brings death with it. The end of the chess game is not the victory of Tom, the black gameer, against the white chess champion Anderssen, but the death of the black man killed by the white man. The game is blurred because while death may be a defeat, it is not certain here that the killing of the black man represents check mate in terms of the much greater dimension of his death. From the beginning of the story, Valérie Leyh shows how the narrator, a spectator of the game, represents the game of chess as “the fight between the white race of America and the black race of African origin”. Anderssen seems to be at an advantage from the outset: he is a chess champion and he is white which confers a double advantage on him in the environment and context in which he finds himself. Things could not be more different for Tom, the former slave. The tragic unravelling of the plot occurs only after Tom had succeeded in winning in the regulated space provided by the chess game and otherwise abandoning all the traditional strategies in order to impose his own game, the reflection of “forces of confusion and inspiration”. The game ends at this point, with the victory of Tom; the madness begins at this point with the murder of Tom by the disgruntled Anderssen. The empire of reason could not be maintained because the sphere of the game ended up becoming confused with reality, notably with the personification of the pieces of a chess game. The black madman therefore became Tom.  

Event-staging can also be the precursor to the outbreak of a conflict. So game becomes war power. The famous Kriegsspiele imagined by Von Schlieffen was mentioned above. We can also come back to the war game of Guy Debord. In fact, Frédéric Prot explains that “Debord’s game is above all a didactic tool in the service of tactical and strategic activism. It involves training in the tactical and strategic military lessons of Clausewitz through game. Here the gameer exerts himself which, for Clausewitz is the same as virtually starting a war through powerful confrontation”.  However, it will be universally admitted that the context is different to that which surrounds the didactic games practiced by the German army. Nobody is surprised by the sight of soldiers preparing for combat, and officers of the Chiefs of staff reflecting on the strategies to implement. Training activists is more particular on the other hand. Guy Debord’s war game has seen a resurgence of interest recently which may be due to the economic systemic and political crisis raging in Europe. Guy Debord speaks of his game as “an exercise preceding all useful purposes”. We learn from Frédéric Prot that ‘Class-war games’ are organised in England and Russia; that there are websites(11) devoted to these games where it is possible to read “insurrectional anti-bourgeoisie propaganda texts”. It involves training the militants involved in the game for the next revolution against the neo-liberal world: “you will need this military knowledge to thwart the deadly plans of bankers and bureaucrats […]. A militant who is not trained can only be a source of embarrassment to the vanguard”.

Another example where event-staging ‘precedes all useful purposes’ would be the interest that the American army holds for video-games. These games constitute an efficient way of training soldiers. What could be considered as far-fetched is in fact the result of a study carried out by the Defense Department of the United States(12) which shows that soldiers who have gameed video games video “have cognitive abilities that are 10% to 20% higher than other military personnel”. Since 2002, the American army has also made available on the market the free download of a game called ‘America’s army’(13) the objective of which is to improve the image of the army and the American soldier and, consequently, to encourage members of the public to enlist. The game in this case is presented as a preparatory phase for war, like a power war. The difference between this and the didactic games of the German army is evident and points to a certain (irreversible?) evolution of war and game “Which tend to become more and more abstract”, as Achim Küpper points out.

Can limits be set to the staged event?

The staged event therefore links war and game. Is this limitless? Can any ‘experienced war’ be transformed into a ‘gameed war’. Where does the simulation end?

In his day, Huizinga formulated a reply to the question. For him, even though game remained outside every moral sphere it loses its meaning and recreational character from the moment “justice and grace enter the equation”, that is to say, from the moment when the point of view of the victim is adopted. This is the starting point in the thinking of Brigitte Adriaensen in answer to the following problem: “What function could game have in the artistic representation of so-called ineffable experiences, that is to say, of an extreme atrocity”? Brigitte Adriaensen chooses to develop her argument using examples involving the Shoah. She focuses on three staged events: the ‘Gestapo Simulation Game’, the film La vie est belle by Roberto Benigni which was released in 1997 in Italy and finally the Lego bricks product known as the ‘Lego Concentration Camp Set’ by the Polish artist Zbigniew Libera. This is a set of three representations of the Shoah which gave rise to a lot of controversy and which raised the question as to whether any staged event is acceptable under artistic or didactic pretexts.  With regard to the three items cited above there is no ready answer because, even though they have been the subject of much criticism, they have not been subjected to any legal process. The public, on the other hand have often given much clearer answers.  

In the case of the ‘Gestapo Simulation Game’ the criticism was initially levelled at the random factor that supposedly games an important role in survival, which the game attempted to translate.  The result of this was that “the gameers survived in much greater numbers than in actual historical reality”(14). On the other hand, through the strategy of the game, it became possible to repeat the existence of the Shoah an infinite number of times, having the effect of reducing it to a banal event. Brigitte Adriaensen concluded from this that “the uniqueness of the Shoah is diametrically opposed to the repetition of the game”. Trivializing the unutterable. This is the accusation that was also levelled at the film La vie est belle, which purports to be a comedy. The key word here is comedy. The aim is to make people laugh because, in the words of Benigni himself, “life is beautiful, and the seed of hope is to be found even in the depths of horror; there is something that resists everything, that resists any kind of destruction that may occur”. This point of view is far from being unanimous. The critics of the film saw in it “a disrespectful and painfully optimistic view of history”. Brigitte Adriaensen notably mentions the scene where Guido, the father, declares his love for his wife by gameing a love song that can be heard all over the camp. Apart from being scarcely credible, this type of scene may seem to be in very bad taste if we think about the ‘experienced war’ and its victims. This opinion did not prevent the film from enjoying great success both on the part of the film critics and the public.

Finally, we come to the work of the artist Libera, the ‘Lego Concentration Camp Set’. In this case the staged event takes the gameer hostage. This is all the easier as the ‘game’ is intended for children, Libera’s installation is part of ‘the art of toys’. It is necessary to confront the “apparent innocence of the toy, associated with the world of children” with its “perverse objective”: playing at building a personalized concentration camp. Contrary to what was asked of the Spectator in La vie est belle, the ‘Lego Concentration Camp Set’ leads the gameer to identify himself with the executioners by constructing a concentration camp and therefore participating in atrocities. The logo of the Lego Company featured on the work which led the firm to take several cases against Libera. None of these were successful and no case was found against the artist as he was given a grant from the company at the start.

A last point needs to be made with regard to the limits to be applied (or not) to the staged event. This point is intimately linked to the question as to who is the intended audience: to whom is the staged event addressed?  Certainly, it is always aimed at a public. The public will be a reader, spectator or gameer. The individual concerned will also be a citizen. Is he or she the master of his or her own identity or merely the object in a game of puppets? Gabriel Naudé in his day answered yes to this last question. The king does not fight against his people. He fights against adversaries that are on the same level as himself and from whom he supposedly has something to fear. The king’s advisor but also the philosopher has the power to subvert. In the words of Sara Decoster(15) the people are only “an element with which something must be composed but which can also be manipulated”. The best way to control the people is to manipulate them.

Naudé evidently thinks within the context of his era. Today a people are no longer made up of subjects but of citizens. Modern asymmetric warfare calls a soldier into duty who is part “of a game whose basic rules he has learned, the rules of combat and survival but which he cannot control”, explains Achim Küpper. He is therefore only a pawn.

(1) Guerre & jeu. Cultures d’un paradoxe à l’ère moderne, under the supervision of Achim Küpper and Kristine Vanden Berghe, Tours, Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, 2014. The work brings together nine contributions from an international conference organized at the University of Liege in 2011.
(2) Kristine Vanden Berghe, ‘Primitive war, aesthetic primitivism and a child view’, in War & game, p. 127
(3) Brigitte Adriaensen, Game as a staged event of the ineffable. Recreational representations of war in didactic games, cinema, art and current literature in in War & game. Brigitte Adriaensen is a professor associated with Hispanic literature at the University Radboud de Nijmegen (Holland).

(4) Anne Staquet, ‘Hermann Hesse or game as a strategy against war’, in War & game, p. 142. Anne Staquet is a doctor of Philosophy and a professor at the University of Mons.
(5) On this subject see the collective work What if, Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been, 2001, published by Macmillan, under the direction of Robert Cowley.

(6) Frédéric Prot is head lecturer at the Michel de Montaigne University, Bordeaux 3, for the languages and civilizations department. Frédéric Prot is specialised in Romance languages and literature with a preference for the Iberian and Latin American countries.
(7) Frédéric Prot, “The Game of war by Guy Debord and its adaptation into the computer game of the same name: A Situationist restoration”?, in War & game.
(8) Friedrich Nietzsche, Le Gai savoir, 1882.
(9) Renaud Grigoletto is a researcher at the FNRS in the Department of Arts and Communication Sciences of ULg. His doctoral research is focused on three-dimensional cinema and visual arts. His contribution in War & game is entitled: “Heavy Metal in Baghdad: war drums and other recreational considerations”.

(10) Valérie Leyh, “L’Alfier nero by Arrigo Boito. An anthropological and poetical lecture on a chess game” in War& game. Valérie Leyh is specialized in Germanic languages and literature and she is a researcher at the FNRS at the University of Liege.
(11) http://www.classwargames.net/
(12) See the press release published on this subject of the American defense website: “Researchers examine video gaming’s benefits”.
(13) See website : http://www.americasarmy.com/

(14) Brigitte Adriaensen, “Game as a staging of the ineffable. Recreational representations of war in current didactic games, cinema, art and literature”, in War & game.
(15) Sara Decoster is head of the Germanic and Romance languages sections of the library at the University of Liege. She presents a contribution in War & game entitled: “The double libertine game. From the game by Blaise Pascal on Political considerations on coups d’Etat by Gabriel Naudé”.