Playing War

"I highly recommend that military professionals read this book."—Phillip G. Pattee, Naval Historical Foundation

"Playing War successfully bridges an interwar gap in naval historiography, and would be a useful research tool for those interested in the academic side of US naval officer preparations for the Second World War."—Charles Ross Patterson II, Northern Mariner

"John M. Lillard's study of war games, aptly titled Playing War: Wargaming and U.S. Navy Preparations for World War II, dissects the players, game processes, and phases of wargaming during the interwar period."—Courtney Webb, Nautical Research Guild's Model Ship World

"This is an important book. It fills a gap in the scholarship of a period. Just as the future admirals made their mistakes on the gaming surfaces at Newport instead of the waters of the Pacific, so this book may help us prepare for future wars. It does this not by telling readers what to think, but by showing us how we can learn to think."—Matthew Caffrey, Technology and Culture

“The best compilation of information and analysis of the wargaming efforts at the Naval War College between the wars [that is] currently available. It provides a needed corrective to some of the inaccurate mythology that has come to surround this subject.”—Peter Perla, author of The Art of Wargaming: A Guide for Professionals and Hobbyists
 

“A valuable book with a lot of detail that has never been assembled in one place before, and Lillard’s appraisal of the roles of the wargames is on target.”—Capt. Wayne P. Hughes Jr., U.S. Navy, Ret., professor of practice at the Naval Postgraduate School and author of Fleet Tactics: Theory and Practice

“Playing War is an outstanding study of the U.S. Naval War College’s interwar institutional culture. More than that, this book fills a major historiographical gap when it comes to not only the college’s history but also that of the navy and its war-planning methods. . . . This book is a must-read for any historian of the U.S. Navy or U.S. national security policy history.”—Hal M. Friedman, author of Digesting History: The U.S. Naval War College, the Lessons of World War Two, and Future Naval Warfare, 1945–1947 
 

“Lillard makes an excellent case that the Pacific War was won on the game floor of the Naval War College.”—Albert A. Nofi, author of To Train the Fleet for War: The U.S. Navy Fleet Problems, 1923–1940