Wargaming Certificate (WG)
Wargaming Certificate: Fall 2026
Ready to Think Like a Strategist?
What if your classroom became the setting for solving tomorrow's biggest defense and public policy challenges?
Virginia Tech's School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) is launching the Graduate Certificate in Wargaming in Fall 2026, bringing students into the dynamic world of strategic decision-making, simulation, and analysis.
Whether you're interested in national security, defense strategy, emergency management, public policy, or data-driven decision-making, this program provides hands-on opportunities to explore how leaders navigate complex challenges under pressure. Students will learn how wargaming and associated analytical practices can be used to test ideas, evaluate risks, anticipate outcomes, and support real-world decisions.
A wargame is more than a simulation; it's a decision laboratory where participants make choices in a realistic competitive environment, observe the consequences, and adapt strategies. Through the certificate program, students will design, execute, and analyze wargames focused on military defense scenarios and complex public policy challenges, developing skills that are increasingly valuable across government, nonprofit, and private-sector organizations.
- SPIA 5304: Introduction to Game Theory & Wargaming
Explore game theory and wargaming as complementary tools for analyzing strategic interaction, conflict, cooperation, and decision-making. - SPIA 5314: Analytical Foundations of Wargaming
Examine the analytical foundations of wargame design, quantitative modeling, assessment methods, and decision-support analysis. - SPIA 5334: Wargaming Design and Capstone (3 credits)
Requires a 1-week in-person component
- SPIA 5324: Mission Design and Human Factors in Wargaming (3 credits)
- GIA/PSCI 5514: Global Security (3 credits)
Please reach out to Faika Lore, faikalore@vt.edu, for any questions or comments.
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