This book is the second part of a two-volume set that provides a foundation in operational gaming, the use of games to inform plans and sound decisions. Whereas the first volume provided foundations for theoretical understanding, this volume emphasizes practice. It establishes the influence of games on history, then gets into the grammar of games to complement the logic addressed in volume 1. As games were the principal metric for advances in artificial intelligence until recently, it traces developments in artificial intelligence and compares AI architectures with complex adaptive system algorithms, resulting in conclusions for where AI will excel and why artificial general and super intelligence can only be achieved by changing definitions of what they are. It highlights the power and pitfalls of AI and suggests uses of artificial intelligence in operational games. It concludes by presenting the theory of operational games in a nutshell and why operational gaming will emerge as a principal technique for dealing with growing complexity.

John Hanley is a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the U.S. Naval War College, where he conducts research on naval and national security strategy, operations management, complex systems, artificial intelligence, and operational gaming. Through this role, Dr. Hanley advises the World Health Network, Unpolitics.org, and Global Foresight Strategies son similar topics. He is the author of The U.S. Navy and the National Establishment: A Critical Review (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2023).