North Sea

 Pete put on a contemporary matrix game covering the potential for hybrid warfare in the North Sea. As a committee game, not hugely photogenic I'm afraid, but a fascinating subject. The globalised west is extremely vulnerable to hybrid warfare as so much of its economic and social infrastructure is exposed to disruption and deniable attacks from hostile state actors using vast range of methods. Given President Putins zero sum view of the global order (what is bad for the west is good for Russia etc), this does not bode well.

The North Sea is a critical geographic region in Europe, primarily for economic reasons. Back in the good old days of the Cold War, it was a NATO lake. Nowadays, it is a bit of a free for all. 

Pete provided lots of background material including a bunch of useful maps. 

I was cast as Putin, having just survived the Wagner mutiny, and trying to reassert authority . My aims were:

Stay in power

Avoid NATO triggering Article 5 (aka avoid World War 3!)

Humiliate the UK economically, politically or militarily

The main naval access route for Russia into the region is obviously via the North Cape from Archangel and Murmansk.  Given the strategic criticality of Norway, Norway was represented in the game. In this case played by Tim. 

I was supported in my efforts by the Russian Armed Forces, played by Russell. 

This map shows the main economic zones in the North Sea. By and large it is divided up between Britain and Norway. Another reason to have Norway in the game, rather than a composite "Scandinavia" role. 

Britain is obviously a a key player. The UK government and UK armed forces were represented by John and Micheal respectively. 

Oil and gas fields. Lots of money made here historically. Invested in a vast Sovereign Wealth Fund by Norway, blown on tax cuts by Britain. 

So, a sixth role was "Business Interests", played by John B.  Interested in economic exploitation of the area. 

Money and energy security for the future. Current and planned offshore wind farms, the equivalent of 200 nuclear power stations of generating capacity. Just look at all that infrastructure. 

More infrastructure. The oil and gas pipeline network. Is that really just the one gas pipeline going to England? The government very cleverly allowed most of our strategic gas storage facilities to close to save a few quid as well. I'm sure that won't cause any problems will it? 

And even more infrastructure, undersea cabling for telecoms traffic. This is actually a bit more resilient, with diverse pathways etc. Well, it is the Internet, designed to survive nuclear war etc, but there is still an awful lot of physical infrastructure an attacker could target. How on earth do you defend all this stuff? 

The assembled reprobates. 

Pete ran the game using the standard, action:result and three reasons format. The running order was adjusted by the success of previous arguments, and players could support or oppose another argument instead of making their own. In the event, we were all so absorbed in dealing with the vast range of potential threats, that this option was seldom used. 

Pete resolved all the arguments at the end of each round, and hearing the outcomes was rather like listening to News night. 

As there isn't much to see, I won't bore you with a blow by blow account. Some highlights of the game were a vast trawler fleet sailing around the North Sea, a very successful Trollfest music festival in Norway, a Russian bomber flying down the entire length of the east coast of Britain, considerable debate about the price of fish and chips, and numerous political scandals emerging about His Majesties Government, most of which were simply real events. 

On a more kinetic level, the incredibly vulnerable UK gas pipeline mysteriously exploded causing economic turmoil in the UK, and a Russian trawler sank, while apparently the SBS were on hand to assist the Russian survivors. The Oil companies had all sorts of interesting and very expensive suggestions to improve Britain's energy security. 

The final outcome was the fall of the British Government after repeated political, economic and military disasters. Rishi Sunak was replaced by Boris Johnson, or "Agent Johnson", as the FSB calls him, who would once more lead Britain to division and disaster. 

So, a very satisfactory game for President Putin and Big Oil. Tbh it was trivially easy to attack the UK on multiple fronts, particularly via information warfare, as the current regime is so mired in criminality, incompetence and corruption while the national infrastructure has been so run down by decades of privatisation . The physical attack on the pipeline took rather more setting up to avoid WW3 starting, but with a plethora of available targets, it was quite feasible. The west only really brought hybrid offensive operations against Russia in the last couple of turns as they were distracted by everything else going on, but authoritarian regimes are far more resilient against this kind of thing. 

A very thought provoking and rather terrifying game.