İçindekiler
As more and more political and armed conflicts with humanitarian consequences happen before our eyes, researches show that women and children are the ones that get hurt the most because of poor crisis management, oversight or pure neglect by decision makers. It is proven that the only way to prevent this is by employing women as managers, coordinators, advisers; in short, as decision makers who are taken seriously. It is clear that there is a substantial need for women in the defense, security and peace industries.
Increasing the place of women not only in the defense and security sector, strategic decision making roles or domestic and foreign policy table in Turkey, but also to ensure peace and security permanently and inclusively within the leadership of women.
Funded by the US Embassy of Ankara, the Women in Command Project brings to life the first wargame of Turkey, called “Women in Command: Hybrid Threat Rising”, which is the first civil wargame of Turkey with the theme of hybrid warfare and was developed for the purpose of directly training female leaders. The project aims to support the education of learning outcomes gained by playing the Hybrid Threat Rising wargame through workshops and additional education material.
This team represents the core of the project and works continuously to bring more success and connect with more women. It is composed of:
With the idea of continuously updating the game and project, as well as providing the Leader Women with the latest information on defense, peace and security related learning outcomes, a group of women who are student and researchers who are part of domains such as:
The research team works on researching updates considering recent international developments and related sources.
Having tested the game between the project team with tournaments before opening the project to outside, the project team recruited +15 playtesters which include the target demographic, experienced playtesters, casual gamers etc.
The team works with an experienced play test Czar to monitor the playtests from a professional point of view as well as an additional playtest assistant to track timetables, feedback reports and assigned tests.
The Playtest Team has an average of +2 weekly playtests, providing feedback on cards, boards, the teachability and learnability of the learning outcomes, the game time, graphics, mechanics balance and many more variables of the game.
At the end of every month, the outputs are evaluated by the project team and processed for necessary changes considering card texts, rules, graphics etc.
The Women in Command: Hybrid Threat Rising game creates an armed conflict scenario in a realistic way with accurate/close to real-life events and consequences to be played through a 3h period.
In order to achieve the most realistic outcomes, the project team has used various documents and reports written by NATO, DSTL, Institute for the Study of War etc. The game demonstrates different aspects of hybrid war such as ISR, multi-domain operations, cyber-attacks, media influence, international organizations’ effect, and kinetic war itself.
The Leader Women is composed of women between the ages 18-30 who aim to pursue a career in defense, security or peace related industries.
Throughout the project, they participate in workshops presented by experts, on subjects such as crisis and resource management, foreign policy (and many more). The workshops are supported with the Hybrid Threat Rising game where they learn about international armed and political conflicts through decision-making mechanisms modeled by real life events.
They will enhance their knowledge and build an international network through joint game events with various international universities from America to England.
So far, the project team has presented at:
Connections UK Wargaming Conference as game presenter and Panel Speaker in Diversity&Inclusion Panel
ConnectionsOz Wargaming Conference
UK Fight Club’s Special Women’s Day Webinar on Successful Game Design as panel speaker.
Women in IT Webinar organized by the US Embassy of Ankara
Hybrid Threats and National Defense Symposium of Turkish Land Warfare Academy
NATO STO’s Tide Sprint Spring Conference in Sopot, Poland as Game Presenter
In order to reach more women of the target demographic, the project team has conducted joint events with:
Georgetown University Wargaming Society
UK Fight Club Parent/Daughter Wargaming Even
Central Michigan University
Land Warfare Academy of Netherlands