On The Third Hand

10 November, 2001: "Wargamers"

I've been wargaming on and off for over two decades, so I was very pleased when the inimitable Instapundit directed me to an article. Wargames article, by Dave Kopel and Glenn Reynolds (the aforementioned Instapundit), said that the US public may actually have more military expertise now than at any other time. I do agree, but as usual, not completely.

They seem to be trying to leave women out of things, as evidenced in two mentions; once as: "Wargaming, like chess, has always been an activity mainly for intelligent males." and once as: "While the official American culture around, say, 1977, was revolted by anything military, a bunch of the nation's smartest young males -- the "leaders of tomorrow" -- were reading Panzer Leader and Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart's Strategy, and of course Sun Tzu's Art of War -- which wargamers were reading long before it became a business-school cliché."

These gentlemen may wish it so, but it ain't so. Admittedly, female chess players and wargamers are less common then men, but we are a significant minority. Don't try to leave us out of this, gentlemen, there are a lot of us "bellicose women" geeks who have as much knowledge as any male geek.

We too, will do our best to educate those around us. We probably won't second-guess our military's tactics either, because we know we don't have the whole picture. We'll just sit back and watch, and perhaps recommend some good new wargames to the military.

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