A wildfire knocks out a major substation, triggering rolling blackouts across three counties. Disinformation spreads online blaming a foreign power. Hospitals switch to backup generators as an unexpected cyber intrusion hits their networks. Within hours, federal, state, and private-sector responders are entangled in a crisis none of them envisioned.
This is the new normal: a world where threats do not unfold cleanly, and no agency can afford outdated training.
To manage this complex security environment, the United States needs a homeland security workforce that is nimble, creative, insightful, and wise. How do we accomplish this? We recently concluded a two-year study that leads us to believe that it’s possible to rely far less on the traditional training methods of online webinars, linear courses, and tests, and increasingly look to immersive games and simulations to train our workers.
Tabletop exercises and “war games” have been used for decades as tools for national security planning and decision making. But today it is possible for learners, students and professionals alike to take part in something very different from these one-off experiences that are usually narrowly constructed to address a single issue. One vital way to train our workforce is to provide them immersive experiences in deeply complex simulated environments, require them to develop and implement strategies and tactics to address the challenges they confront, and then challenge them to react and recalibrate when the game environment changes in unexpected ways.
Our two-year study yielded evidence suggesting that engaging in immersive exercises provides the educational experiences that our national security workforce needs. With support from the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center (NCITE), our study identified the educational outcomes for participants in a homeland security-focused immersive exercise called Acceleration that was run as a standalone course at Duke University. The results: participants showed measurable objective gains in critical-thinking skills and perspective-taking, and measurable self-reported gains in national security knowledge and teamwork skills—exactly what our national security workforce will need in the coming decades.
The study examined undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in a half-credit, seven-week long course at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University called “National Security Simulation.” Within that span of two semesters, over 60 students played Acceleration, which was designed by Valens Games (now ExpertTheory).
In this multifaceted game, the student teams (the United States, Russia, Germany, the State of California, and Google) sought to act to advance their strategic interests in a world in which white nationalists were taking political control of a city in California, a liberal dissident was stirring an anti-Russian separatist movement in Kaliningrad, tensions were rising between Egypt and Ethiopia over water rights as Ethiopia was filling its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), and France threatened to bolt the European Union (a possible Frexit!).
Each week teams would make moves, answer “decision point” memos posed by their leadership, and attempt to negotiate agreements with other teams. The plot then evolved each week in response to the teams’ actions and other developments in this game world. After the conclusion of game play, teams were ranked on their performance based on the extent to which they advanced their strategic interests.
While the learning outcomes of games have been the subject of academic study before, this study made an important contribution by relying not only on self-reported student surveys but also on objective measurements (designed by our colleague Jessica Sperling at the Duke Social Science Research Institute). Her work found increases in participants’ perspective-taking and causal reasoning (their ability to identify second- and third-order effects).
Also significant was students’ qualitative feedback on their experience in the course, which was extremely positive. “It was so different from all the other courses I’ve taken at Duke in that it was much more hands-on,” one student told Sperling’s team. “Instead of just reading about foreign policy or national security issues, we got to actually influence them and address them and then see the consequences of our actions play out.”
Another student told the researchers that when participants walked into the building for class, “we were immersed in the game world until we left later that night. I think that the creation of this environment was extremely beneficial in the development of critical analysis, time management, and teamwork skills.”
The results of this study paint a picture of how simulations could play a critical role in future homeland security workforce development. The post-9/11 cadre of federal workers will soon be retiring, and we will need to transition to a new generation of leaders who are equipped to manage multifaceted challenges. Participating in immersive simulations can, and should, be a key tool for training national security leaders of the future.
Our study also showed that the benefits of participating in games are not only applicable to young minds. The students in our class included graduate students with over a decade of military experience, and two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents studying at Duke on fellowships. These professionals reacted positively to the immersive game experience, not only because they found it exciting and enriching, but also because it compared it favorably to the static, dull, and often unrealistic training programs in which they had participated in the workforce.
The artificial intelligence (AI) revolution will make this type of training affordable for the government and educational institutions. Traditionally, immersive games like the ones we ran at Duke required extensive time, resources, and expertise to create and run. But, with AI, customized simulations can now be developed and executed more rapidly and affordably. AI-driven platforms like ExpertTheory’s Providence now make it possible to design and run customized simulations on virtually limitless topics without a dedicated wargaming team. Providence automates worldbuilding and turn-by-turn scenario evolution. For the first time, immersive training can be delivered consistently and at scale.
The daunting challenges of our times require new approaches and new thinking. Continuing to educate and train our security workforce the same way and then expect them to be able to operate in this new environment is the very definition of insanity. Simulations have proven educational value, are affordable, and can be implemented at scale. The homeland security enterprise should put them to use.
The study “Assessing the Benefits of Simulations and War Games for the Homeland Security Workforce” (2025) can be found here.