No. 1 (2026): Not a game. Wargaming and serious gaming in the age of AI

Can war be learned through play? Is it ethically justifiable to train in the combat of enemy units within a gaming scenario while consistently abstracting from the suffering and death experienced in reality? Does the presentation of realistic training as a ›playful simulation‹ carry the risk of blurring the categorical distinction between simulated scenarios and real conflicts?
These questions are not merely theoretical in nature but reflect an already established practice. Worldwide, military and civilian organizations are increasingly turning to game-based learning and serious gaming to train complex and critical skills without exposing people or equipment to real risks. Military organizations use wargaming to enhance ›combat readiness‹ and to make decisions under conditions of uncertainty. This development raises ethical questions that concern peace policy, military, technological, and civil society aspects alike and require interdisciplinary examination.
The articles in this special issue address both ethical considerations regarding the moral quality of such simulations and their epistemological, phenomenological, and ontological status. The central question is whether what is often claimed – particularly by military organizations and actors – actually applies to wargames: that the decisions, negotiation processes, and actions carried out in the game have no impact on reality outside the game. Wargames would thus take place in a kind of sandbox. The texts in this volume demonstrate that the ethical-normative distinction between simulated and unsimulated reality is hardly tenable.
From various perspectives - metaethical, peace and military ethical, as well as sociological and philosophical perspectives on technology - the contributions critically examine this assumption. The critique of the epistemological, phenomenological, ontological, and practical foundations of wargames leads to a variety of different deliberative processes intended to critically and constructively accompany the use of wargames.
Another focus lies on the question of the extent to which the use of AI systems not only changes the nature of wargaming but also leads to a more nuanced ethical assessment of wargame deployment—especially against the backdrop of technical transformation, expansion, and automation. This also touches on questions of digital sovereignty.
The game is not an ethical vacuum. Whether for preparing for law-enforcing force, reflecting on digital control, or learning the logic of peacegames are ethically relevant practices because, by their very nature, they always point beyond themselves and help shape the unplayed reality.

Editors: Kathrin Bruder, Lukas Johrendt, Gerhard Schreiber

This issue’s review section features new publications in theology, philosophy, sociology, and political theory, including an international study on the (non-)transmission of religion within families, a new anthology on political theologies, and a commemorative volume honoring the Catholic theologian and social ethicist Marianne Heimbach-Steins. Three additional reviews examine the topics of “Theological Ethics and AI,” the understanding of freedom in early papal social teaching, and interdisciplinary networking in systematic theology—while ethical questions of knowledge and ignorance, as well as the intellectual histories of liberal democracy and solidarity, are at the center of monographs that are also reviewed. Reviews of Hans Joas’s *Genealogy of Universalism*, the recently published *Philosophical Writings* by Susan Taubes, and the latest monograph by French historian Pierre Rosanvallon round out the review section.

Editors: Tim Eckes and Hermann-Josef Große Kracht