War Games

The founders and supporters of the Nagen Project recognized the crisis at hand long before the massacres of October 7th. This is why Nagen was created.

 The War Games work was created and executed well in advance of the atrocities that took place in Israel on that fateful day. We were ahead of the curve and new that this was a war – not only in Israel, but as an attack against Jews in North America and particular in the educational environments of K-12 and on college and universities. We identified and implemented a war strategy that we continue to overlay against all of our work today.

The Nagen Project is not alone in recognizing the growing problem of antisemitism and being willing to devote significant resources towards tackling this troubling problem set. Indeed, many Jewish communal organizations and philanthropists are working on this issue. Those deploying successful initiatives should be congratulated and supported.

As an entrepreneurial, results-driven organization, the Nagen Project looks for areas where we can have an edge, provide unique value, and fill important gaps in the fight against antisemitism. We see our group engaging in a metaphysical battle over the hearts and minds of North American citizens. Understanding the critical importance of strategic planning and feasibility study, the Nagen Project contracted the Foundation for Defense of Democracies to lead a “war game” simulation and strategic planning discussion on antisemitism.

Simulations do not deal exclusively with warfare and battle plans; they are not necessarily militaristic. Policymakers, practitioners, and other observers discern several benefits to practicing simulations or wargaming. The benefits relevant to the Nagen Group’s desired exercise include:

  1. Making the challenge of combating antisemitism more “real” to participants.

  2. Building working connections among participants.

  3. Allowing creative outside-the-box thinking, the kind that is needed to address the thorny and complex problem like the rising scourge of antisemitism.

As Steven R. Covey noted, “Make time for planning: wars are won in the general’s tent.”

Our two-day session was led by Dr. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross (Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a scholar, author, practitioner, and entrepreneur who is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Valens Global, a private company focused on fashioning creative solutions to complex twenty-first-century challenges. Co-leading the meeting was David Benson, Valens Global’s Director of Wargaming and former Professor of Strategy and Security Studies at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. Participants included FDD’s senior leadership, philanthropists, military strategists, professors, White House personnel, attorneys, government relations experts, strategic communications professionals, journalists, a former member of Congress, and campus Israel activists. Our goal was to better understand the work being done today, blind spots that have been missed, opportunities where we can add value, how to better coordinate efforts to deploy resources quicker and more efficiently, and ultimately, how to measure success.

The key findings from the War Games were:

There is a critical need for the Nagen Project to create and adopt a 3-year strategic plan to fight antisemitism in North America. These four components are essential:

  1. Maintain support for our current impactful projects, enabling them to scale.

  2. Strategic communications leadership with both offensive and defensive capabilities designed to take the fight to our enemies.

  3. Legal leadership and coordination which optimizes the law as a weapon against those who wish to do us harm.

  4. Government relations leadership focused on undermining our enemies.

We concluded after the War Games that Nagen would continue to embark on its 2.0 Mission to develop a new paradigm to fight antisemitism in North America. We will bring this fight to all of our impact collaboration partner organizations and ensure that we are all working together to achieve the same goal – eradicating the enemies to ensure our children and grandchildren can live safe, secure, and meaningful Jewish lives. A new paradigm requires a new approach – that is what Nagen will do.