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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5577068" data-attributes="member: 4937">The Japanese Imperial high command was quite a big fan of Well's little rules, and almost continually played variations on his games.  It has often been argued that one of the contributing factors in Japan attacking in the USA during WWII, is that that had gamed the attack so many times that it seemed just like a natural and logical thing to do.  In fact, part of what contributed to their euphoria was that the very first few days of the war played out just like their most optimistic and biased projections, which thereafter - because of the many war games they'd played - kept them always believing the most optimistic outcomes were the most realistic and always dismissing any scenarios that ended up not in their favor as unrealistic.  It was this, combined with a belief in their racial superiority, that kept the Japanese high command from ever considering surrender.  The games that they played always showed them that victory was always possible with just a little more commitment and sacrifice.Did the their games solely contribute to a situation where the USA felt it had no other choice but to use an automatic weapon to end the war?  No, there were many other cultural factors on both sides that led up to the logic of annihilation; but, I don't think you can examine the influence of the war games on the mentality of the Japanese High Command and claim that they had no influence in determining that ultimate outcome.Also, I've often observed that as a war gamer I have a certain unseemly fascination with 'war porn'.  That is to say, sometimes I find myself 'loving the sword for its sharpness, and not only for the things it defends'.</blockquote>

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