The scenario is simply terrifying and sadly all too plausible even if not highly likely. It’s January 6th, 2025 – a date now less than three months away – and a major party presidential candidate has responded to his opponent’s victory with false allegations of widespread election fraud. The losing candidate’s supporters – joined by militias and some members of the National Guard and active-duty U.S. military – are moved to violence by disinformation. An American General rises against the Commander-in-Chief and rallies other troops to join him. The attackers breach the U.S. Capitol and interrupt the counting of electoral votes. They seize the Arizona State Capitol and take half its state senators hostage, amass threatening crowds in other state capitals, and take over a major military base.
A high-level simulation of White House management of this scenario is what producer Jesse Moss and co-director Tony Gerber chronicle in their documentary film, War Game, now streaming and in theaters.
Overall, War Game is impressive. But the film also has confusing elements and leaves key questions unanswered.
The scarring events of Jan 6, 2021 were especially terrible because of the risk of repetition – including the prospect of next time being even worse. How would – and how should – our most senior government leaders respond?
Seasoned former government officials and other experts have participated in table-top exercises in recent years that have explored a range of similar post-election day scenarios. These simulations have echoed table-top exercises and discussions held in 2020, when a good many of us warned of Jan. 6-like calamities or worse. In the wake of Jan. 6, 2021, these exercises have continued, informed by dire warnings from close observers, including retired generals.
In one hour and 34 minutes, War Game chronicles a six-hour table-top exercise that was staged on Jan. 6, 2023, the two year anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. The simulated presidential administration in the movie has enough bipartisan talent to staff a real one. The President is convincingly role-played by former Montana Governor Steve Bullock. Other players include former U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp as senior White House advisor, General Wesley Clark (ret.) as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former U.S. Senator and former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones as Attorney General, and former CIA presidential intelligence briefer David Priess as the Director of National Intelligence, among others. Behind the scenes, extremism expert Kristofer Goldsmith and Vet Voice Foundation CEO Janessa Goldbeck work with former Trump National Security Council (NSC) staffer Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (ret.) and conservative thinker William Kristol to present the players with a first-order constitutional crisis.
War Game, like the exercise it documents, is excellently crafted. Anyone who cares about democracy in America and is concerned that we are sleepwalking into another Jan. 6-or-worse should watch it. As a scholar of the relevant law and processes, advisor to senior leaders in the three branches of the federal government, and having staged similar exercises at Yale, Georgetown, and Ohio State, however, it is also my impression that the documentary depicts a remarkably inactive White House. It also insufficiently explains its surprisingly happy outcomes. Those impressions, however, may be the result of two constraints that possibly shaped War Game in significant ways: mistaken assumptions about the Insurrection Act statute that is central to the scenario at issue, and most of the game-play ending up on the cutting room floor.
Simulation Design and Execution
I will start with the positives – and lay down at this point a spoiler warning. War Game cannot be analyzed carefully without engaging key plot points.
A first success is the impressive design of the exercise. Depicted in the documentary is a well-conceived, well-resourced, and well-executed table-top simulation of cabinet-level decision-making. The storyline (sketched above) is all too plausible.
The simulation presents the players with realistic dilemmas and tough decision points. High-quality injects – mainly social media posts and high-production video clips – are ably deployed by the exercise’s string-pullers behind the curtain (think of them as Wizards of Oz, Architects from The Matrix movies, or the Gamemakers of The Hunger Games franchise). Realistic injects help keep players in their roles and War Game viewers in their seats. The Control Team’s designers and controllers are staffed by experienced people who keep the initiative. (And I can tell you, that is not always easy; complex scenarios can overwhelm the controllers as easily as they do the players). We see the team capably monitor player decisions and promptly respond with both pre-written injects and new ones crafted on the spot. Their moves to escalate the threat are especially impactful.
Player Quality
Another big win for War Game is player quality. As I have discovered designing and running The Ohio State National Security Simulation, having seasoned practitioners, and especially politicians, in the top roles adds so much depth in terms of modeling professionalism and realism. (And here, our larger Ohio State biennial exercise and War Game overlap: Senator Heitkamp is one of several former federal legislators and other distinguished practitioners who have role-played in our simulation). Practitioner players help everyone involved appreciate the unforgiving realities that they have navigated during their careers.
One such reality is the lack of clear, accurate, and relevant information in crisis situations. A solid grasp of the facts is integral to good decision-making. And yet, especially in crises, policymakers are often met with a blizzard of too much information, too little high-quality information, and a great deal of bad information. The latter includes inevitable simple misunderstandings. Sadly, too often organizational decision-making comes close to resembling the grade-school telephone game. Overload and quotidian confusion combine with viral falsehoods – misinformation and disinformation – to disorient decisionmakers. War Game expertly replicates these information challenges.
Another problem the star players in War Game understand is time pressure. Information gathering and analysis, discussion about what to do, decision-making, memorializing decisions in writing, and bureaucratic implementation are each their own challenges. Combined, these organizational tasks can easily take more time than is actually available. The harsh reality is that the decision-making process tends to lag the pace of real-world events so badly that top officials can become irrelevant in the process. In the best of times, defeating that default is a constant challenge for leaders. In a fast-moving crisis, it becomes profoundly difficult.
The Bullock Administration looks pretty swamped, but to its credit does do several timely things. Here, a good comparison is the George W. Bush White House on 9/11. The War Game White House, like the Bush Administration, does a reasonably good job of keeping current and issuing timely public statements.
The Bullock team tracks the Bush team in another respect: in haste it may have exceeded its authority. One longtime question about crisis management on 9/11 is whether Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the shoot-down of an airliner thought to be hijacked and heading for Washington, D.C. The problem is that the Vice President is not in the chain of command. Bush says that he authorized it in a call with Cheney, disputing credible concerns that the order initially lacked legal basis. (Ultimately, the shoot-down question was overtaken by events: the courageous passenger uprising aboard Flight 93 that brought the airliner down before it reached the White House or the Capitol). Questions can similarly be raised about the War Game White House’s efforts to surveil the insurrectionists. Although we are not shown all deliberations, the Bullock Administration also with the best of intentions similarly appears to go down a path that is not legally available: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The FISA statute allows surveillance of suspected U.S. agents of foreign powers with a purpose of collecting foreign intelligence information, but from what we see the War Game scenario lacks any of those foreign aspects.
Missing Pieces: Crisp Framing of the Issues
In addition to showing how easily pressure to act can result in top officials exceeding their authority, the designers and its players of War Game clearly do a lot right. Additionally, the film is a very effective wake-up call about the peril to the rule of law presented by the mainstreaming of extremism in recent years.
All of that said, there is also a good deal here that left me frustrated and concerned.
To begin, the deliberations depicted in War Game were tough to watch for me as a practitioner and teacher of decision-making processes and briefing skills. At several points throughout the Situation Room deliberations there should have been moments when top advisors set the agenda and manage deliberations: cut through the fog to concisely identify the pending policy questions, appraise the available information, and frame the legal issues. I counted four core issues for decision-making by the President and NSC. But, at no point do we see anyone doing the National Security Advisor’s work of listing issues for decision, setting out options for discussion, and guiding the process. Intelligence, military, and law enforcement advisors acknowledge confusion, but are not shown distinguishing mere reports or raw intelligence from known facts, or saying “here is what we know, and here is what we do not know,” as they would in a real-life event like the one depicted in the film.
What’s more, no legal issue is effectively briefed on-screen for the benefit of the other players or the public audience. That includes FISA, and the law that is central to their deliberations: the Insurrection Act (more on that below). True, the statutory text of both laws is a challenging read. But, any competent legal adviser could have been shown crisply and (for non-lawyers in the room and watching at home) identifying, in accessible language, each law’s key authorities and dangers in 30 seconds. Instead, over 94 minutes, the viewer hears about the law in dribs and drabs, ranging in quality from accurate to quite misleading (a game designer is not accurately describing the Insurrection Act, for example, when he tells the audience that it “suspends certain civil rights and liberties”).
Deliberation, Inaction, and a Deus Ex Machina
Crisis decision-making is hard. Even so, when colleagues and I screened the documentary we all agreed that the players were slower to react to this hypothetical Jan. 6, 2025, than would be realistic, especially with their background knowledge of Jan. 6, 2021. The players appear astonishingly reluctant to direct the federal government to take action, even though the simulated Jan. 6 was worse in multiple ways than the real one. Even more surprising is how well inaction worked out in the end.
Start with the assault on the U.S. Capitol. When the players learn about 20 minutes into the film that the constitutional electoral count process had been interrupted, the president’s cabinet talks a lot but its only decision is a public statement. They are told that additional National Guard forces are ready in nearby states, and hear that the loyal Guard troops at the Capitol are trying to deal with the faction of Guard mutineers. But, from what the audience can see, this second attack on the U.S. Capitol falls off the White House agenda for quite some time. It takes sharp words from Heitkamp about half-way through the exercise to refocus the team on the realities that the constitutional vote-counting process is still suspended and Congress is still in hiding. The response? Again, to prepare troops in nearby states (this time the active-duty 82nd Airborne Division) and release another statement telling the attackers to stand down. Again, no on-the-ground federal action is directed. Law enforcement and loyal National Guard for hours now have failed to protect the U.S. Capitol with the resources they have, and apparently are left on their own.
The War Game White House is even more stunningly passive in the face of the first U.S. military insurrection since General Robert E. Lee and other troops took up arms for the secessionist states in the U.S. Civil War. A serving general (identified as a fictitious Lieutenant General Gabriel King) mutinies, announcing in public that the armed forces should not follow any orders from the still-serving but allegedly “illegitimate” Commander in Chief. Some other active-duty and retired generals and admirals express support. All of this comes after a retired General earlier called for a military revolt and the defeated presidential candidate promised pardons to military mutineers if they desert and help elevate him to power. The media tells the public that “the military is now split,” for the first time since the Civil War. Some personnel from the National Guard and active-duty military assault federal and state capitol buildings. The response this time? The simulated Army Secretary says that General King has been suspended pending investigation.
Yes, of course, suspend him – and then take a slate of other really urgent steps, starting with immediately ordering all of the mutineers to disarm and then promptly arresting every one of them for profound violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Many of the insurrectionists can also presumably be charged under the criminal laws used to successfully prosecute and convict Jan. 6, 2021 attackers (seditious conspiracy, trespass, etc.). Heitkamp forcefully warns of a coup that demands action, and we hear the Attorney General say that Lt. Gen. King has committed a crime. Good. And yet, we learn of no orders issued to bring the real strength of the law to bear.
The situation further deteriorates. The military mutineer-aided violence in state capitals continues. The White House also learns that the mutineers have seized weapons and taken control of MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. The players note that two four-star generals are at the base. This vital installation in Florida is home to two Air Force wings and headquarters of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), which have primary responsibility for day-to-day counter-terrorism operations in the Middle East and worldwide. This stunning victory by the military insurrectionists prompts an unidentified voice in the Situation Room to advise, “I would let the [military police] deal with that.” Again, we see no orders given.
From all we know, the President never directs the federal government to take on-the-ground action of any kind. If you track the issues with a notepad, at the end of War Game you see that the simulated White House team has discussed a wide array of potential actions, put out some statements, readied federal troops and encouraged a couple states to activate their National Guards, but otherwise (with the exception of the FISA misfire and administratively placing Lt. Gen. King on leave) has issued zero orders.
Amazingly, inaction works, partially. After the President, late in War Game, decides not to send active-duty troops anywhere, the sun starts to come out. The media reports that the U.S. Capitol has been secured by D.C. National Guard and law enforcement. The counting of electoral votes resumes. Things seem to get better in several states. It is not clear why, because circumstances everywhere were trending so terribly just a moment ago. The President indicates in his closing statement of the simulation that state officials are still held hostage by militants and insurrectionists, and Lt. Gen. King and some number of his fellow military mutineers remain at large, but the Commander-in-Chief and his team seem guardedly upbeat. Ultimately, War Game wraps with a sense that on this simulated second Jan. 6, the White House notched a win and the nation dodged a bullet.
The Insurrection Act and Worries of Civil War
As we watched the credits, a couple colleagues and I tried to make sense of this evident deus ex machina. What had (partially) saved the day? How did the dots connect to reach this result?
Much of the answer probably lies in the pleased wrap-up observation of retired General Wesley Clark, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman role-player, that the President did not invoke the Insurrection Act. Clark here reflected what was clearly a shared assumption by many in War Game: invoking the Insurrection Act would backfire and spark the very civil war that both the controllers and players repeatedly emphasize is an endpoint that the Bullock Administration must prevent. When the players decide against invoking the Insurrection Act, the next thing we see is the controllers rewarding them with good news at the U.S. Capitol.
In War Game, several arguments are surfaced against invoking the Insurrection Act, which is a set of statutes that allow the President to deploy active duty armed forces and the National Guard on federal duty to enforce the law against assemblages that infringe on civil rights (such as the right to vote) and otherwise defy the rule of law. Domestic use of the armed forces disrupts usual civil-military relations by turning to the military rather than civilian authorities for law enforcement purposes and otherwise solve problems. The U.S. armed forces’ training is optimally designed for use of military force, not law enforcement. As the Framers of the U.S. Constitution understood, the use of military forces on the home front inevitably imperils liberty. In this simulated scenario, the controllers and players were concerned that federal armed forces on the ground would be precipitous and would play into the election deniers’ false narrative of federal oppression and only provoke more violence. Another concern of the players was that it would set a precedent for a future president to make unnecessary, repressive use of the Insurrection Act, along the lines contemplated by then-President Trump and others during civil unrest in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd.
These are all legitimate concerns. Constitutionally rooted in Congress’s powers over calling forth of the militia (and, in our times, the National Guard) and to make rules for the armed forces, the text of the Insurrection Act is ripe for abuse. As many experts have observed, the law’s text is ambiguous and overbroad. It includes too few limitations on presidential discretion to use military force against Americans. It urgently needs to be reformed and narrowed by Congress. A wicked President could even invoke the Insurrection Act to put extremist militias on federal duty to carry out political violence, as requested by Jan. 6, 2021 militia leader Stewart Rhodes.
Even so, the Insurrection Act, if wisely used, can be a vital tool against violent civil disorder and rebellion. Indeed, that is the stabilizing purpose for which it was designed. Provisions of the modern law were enacted to suppress the Confederacy and deal with white militia violence against African Americans after the Civil War. In the 1950s and 1960s, several presidents invoked it to deploy the U.S. Army to enforce federal civil rights laws in the U.S. South and take National Guard troops away from segregationist states defying federal law. Those were explosive times, but none of those invocations led to civil war. On the contrary, the Act was used to enforce the law and uphold constitutional values.
All controllers in simulations must have a theory of their scenario’s central dynamics and decide when to reward players, but, the simulation participants in War Game did not need to assume that invocation of the Insurrection Act in the circumstances depicted would be the wrong move. Violent interruption of constitutional processes, raids on capitol buildings, taking governors and legislators hostage, overwhelming state and local authorities, and especially a military mutiny are clearly sufficient circumstances. Indeed, at one point, five states were requesting federal help via the invocation of the law. Civil war did not follow the Act’s use in the Civil Rights Era, and it is not clear that would happen now. (Indeed, perhaps the game designers and players thought it would have deleterious results because of a mistaken belief that invocation of this authority would suspend civil rights and liberties.) Invocation, in short, would have been a warranted step if the Bullock Administration decided to take it. Additionally or alternatively, the administration could have directed a wide variety of other helpful actions, using other existing authorities to enforce military justice and make use of the U.S. military in support of civil authorities.
The Cutting Room Floor
For all we know, President Bullock did issue such orders and they were instrumental in the happy turn of events at the end. An appropriate legal basis for surveilling the insurrectionists may have been found. The policy, factual, and legal questions may well have been framed crisply by the seasoned professionals at the War Game White House. It is quite possible that these moments, or at least a good portion of them, were in the four and a half hours of the simulation left on the cutting room floor. Indeed, the producer in a recent interview noted that they removed a deep dive into legal issues.
Even a half dozen clips of concise, real-time framing of the issues by presidential advisors, totaling no more than two or three minutes, would have made a considerable difference. These moments would have brought greater clarity (and reality) to 94 minutes of meandering deliberation. They would also have performed a public service: showing the general viewer about what “good process” looks like at the highest levels of government.
It Could Have Been Worse
A final thought on missed opportunities: the scenario in War Game focused on a Jan. 6, 2021 repeat plus a partial US military mutiny that I believe are highly unlikely but in our extraordinarily polarized times are all too plausible. Left unaddressed is where I thought the scenario was heading.
What I expected was something even worse in some respects, along these lines. State officials either interfere with the presidential election in their home state, for example after falsely claiming widespread voter fraud. Or, they poorly manage disruptions to the election such as militia or partisan violence at the polls. Next, a wicked governor uses their National Guard or state defense forces in ways that muck up the election outcome even more, or defy federal authority (or, the legislature tries to exploit all the confusion to appoint its own slate of electors on a partisan basis).
What I have just sketched would be a complete nightmare for the nation, and is horrifyingly conceivable. It would tee up consequential decisions for the President about federalizing the National Guard and the small but appreciable risk that some National Guard forces, including commanders, would refuse the federalization order. Another awful prospect is armed resistance to federalized Guard and active-duty federal forces by state defense forces. Under federal statute, those state forces cannot be federalized along with the National Guard, setting the stage for another horrific storyline.
Such developments would further fuel the civil war fantasies that have excited and radicalized too many Americans in recent years and that have become a threat to public order and our republic. Active-duty federal troops would quickly prevail, perhaps at great cost to long-term domestic tranquility and to public faith in American democratic institutions. But War Game – for all of its many virtues as a simulation and a documentary – does not go there. I hope the real world does not either.