Merle Robinson
Nuclear reactor and weapons accidents, radiological assassination tools and terrorists’ weapons of mass destruction, fallout from nuclear tests and even nuclear combat, hazards of medical waste. Radiation is real, but how much of the threat is dramatized or fictionalized by authors and screenplay writers, or demagogued by activists with agendas? Lecture discusses the history and […]
With combat raging across Ukrainian nuclear reactor sites and sites changing hands between Ukraine and Russia, with shells, rockets and missiles landing inside the sites’ perimeters, concerns of nuclear accidents spring to mind with memories of Three Mile Island, Fukushima and, ironically in the case of Ukraine, Chernobyl. Minimally-informed media personalities breathlessly proclaim gloom and […]
Discussing NSDM’s new American Revolution Crisis MegaGame variant, the NSDM game design team will discuss insights gained in creating a model of the event for roll playing purposes. What historical figures to include, to amalgamate, or to exclude? What historical events to plan as inserts, what to leave out, what counter-factual events to stimulate game […]
National Security Decision Making Game, Inc. designers discuss the American Revolution Crisis Game. The team has conducted seminar gaming since 1990, using professional techniques. As the US observes the 250th anniversary of key events, they felt it was a good time to reflect on personalities, agendas, events & energies that drove decisions. Developed in 2022 […]
Start of Cold War: US & Soviet navies need to stake claims in their respective national security constructs. Soviets can’t compete with West’s navies symmetrically, made same decision the Germans had in both world wars: make a submarine force able to cut Atlantic supply lines. US submarine service recognized where Soviets were heading, evolved existing […]
Ukraine is the second-largest country in Europe after Russia, and with a population of 43 million, is Europe’s eighth-most populous country. Ukraine has maintained own unique ethnic and cultural identity despite the fact that, throughout history, parts of Ukraine have been ruled by Poland, the Mongols, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Nazi Germany and, […]
Ryan and Elizabeth were into Chernobyl before the HBO miniseries made it cool and well before the Russian occupation, travelling there in 2013, ’15, and ’16. They will share photos, videos and stories from areas not accessible on past public Chernobyl tours, such as the hospital basement, contaminated vehicle graveyards, the unfinished Unit 5 reactor […]
How wargames assist with the advance of innovation. Evolution of wargames as tools for understanding the past and shaping the future. Presenter: Colonel Matt Caffrey (USAF, ret.), the “Dean” of Air Force Wargaming and author of “On wargaming,” a US Naval War College free publication available at https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/newport-papers/43/
An overview of modern military thought on fighting in the world’s megacities. As the global population grows and cities become ever denser, military planners are preparing for near future conflict scenarios in and around urban megacities. Particularly in the developing world, how will new technologies-UAVs, robots, AI, space-based platforms-be employed in these challenging environments? Panel […]
The invention of fixed wing aircraft led to the expansion of warfare into an additional dimension during the First World War. This seminar looks to answer your questions and examine what the history of air warfare, aerial combat, air-to-ground and air-to-sea warfare, and Isaac Newton, can tell us about the use of magic in aerial […]
Building on past War Magic seminars for the Writers’ Track, in which we have discussed how armies fight, this time we answer your questions and examine how armies are raised, organized, fed, paid, etc., the who, what, where, when and how that enable armies to do what they do, and how these functions may be […]
Negotiated between November 1921 and February 1922, the Washington Naval Treaty between the World War I allies US, Britain, France, Italy and Japan averted a naval arms race. It ended the construction of new battleships and battlecruisers, placed armament and displacement limitations on aircraft carriers and cruisers, and prohibited construction of any new fortifications or […]
Zero-point energy, ZPE, refers to energy that exists even at absolute zero. One form of this rises from quantum field theory, which cites a universe composed of continuous fluctuating fields formed from a huge amount of energy that we cannot see. Some argue this is an artifact of mathematics, not a real thing. Others say […]