This post was originally given as a talk at the Urbanomic event Simulation, Exercise, Operations held in Oxford on the 11^th July 2012. Thanks to Robin Mackay for the transcription of the talk that served as a basis for the present version.

Upon reflecting on the meaning of simulation and the role it occupies in war, it strikes me that it is possible to distinguish between two distinct, if perhaps complementary, significations. There is a first signification which refers back to an older understanding of simulation and is a more etymologically faithful meaning of simulation in terms of deception, in terms of pretence, illusion, and false appearance that refers us back to the classical idea of the simulacrum as formulated by Plato. This conception of simulation invokes the notion of surface resemblance – a simulation is something that appears to be what in fact it is not. The history of the…