Man Writing a Letter - Gabriël Metsu
Who’s behind these lines?
I am an independent researcher and the co-founder of the Strand Simulations Group, a professional wargaming company. I earned a BA in Political Science and an MA in International Security from Sciences Po Paris, as well as an MA in War Studies from King’s College London (valedictorian).
I specialise in the study of Strategy, and more specifically its ties to Wargaming and Artificial Intelligence. I already have published a couple of articles related to this topic, while a few more are on their way.
Still, I very much consider myself a generalist, with a very wide range of interests in both arts and sciences. Besides those academic interests, I am a passionate chess player and formerly fairly active player, reaching National Master level at 17. You will notice I often use insights from chess for this reason. I also played and still play many strategy games, and will compete in the next Mind Sports Olympiad this year.
Finally, I am an avid reader of SF and poetry. I also write some and might post some extracts or small pieces here from time to time.
Detailed professional bio here.
Why this, why now?
For a long while, I have been looking for the right space where I could publicly disclose my writings and ideas. I do enjoy publishing in academic journals, and won’t stop doing so anytime soon, but I needed something a bit less constrained and more accessible where I could write freely and easily discuss with my readers. Substack seemed to be the right fit for that, and the rising amount of scholars starting to write here seems to confirm this thought.
I also believe Strategy is still a very young field of study (in terms of academic research) as well as being often misunderstood. And yet, its relevance and importance seem to rise continuously, alongside the quick development of novel technologies. I am certain there are still incredible leaps to be made, in particular by making use of findings in other disciplines such as neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and machine learning, and hope the pieces I present here can inspire fellow researchers in their works. To read more about my perspective on Strategy, please see the dedicated article [coming soon].
Content
Most of the pieces I will be writing here are aimed at digging into particular notions and concepts I mention in my past, ongoing, and future academic articles. The idea is to introduce those concepts in a very neat way, so as to play and meddle with them later. You will see I often make use of references coming from sometimes very different domains, hence why I attach a lot of importance to defining those concepts and unfolding their meaning so as to not get lost in this journey. Please do keep in mind many of these definitions only constitute the result of my specific understanding of Strategy and my global perspective on things. Even though they are all methodically argued and come from serious research, I encourage my readers to explore other alternatives and will regularly come up with suggestions of authors and readings to complement the content you will find here. A list of references will also be provided at the end of each piece.
On top of these articles, I will also write about the games I or my fellow colleagues design at Strand Simulations Group (SSG), and do some reviews of wargames/strategy games I have played. I might also write about chess.
My goal is to upload at least one post per week and make it constant. This schedule might occasionally be slightly impacted by my professional activities but these disturbances shall hopefully remain limited.
Community
I do not have a specific target audience as my aim is to make most of my pieces simple, diverse, and accessible enough, hence everyone will probably find something that might fit their interests. Of course, scholars and Strategy practitioners will most likely find what they are looking for here.
Yet, I would really like to build a diverse community here, so feel free to comment and get in touch, whatever your background is. If I can make people exchange with each other, then this substack will really have succeeded in pursuing its goal.
Subscription
The large majority of the content I will be publishing here will be accessible for free, including every single academically-related piece. This is because I stand by the belief knowledge should be as accessible as possible.
Hence, subscribing is really all about supporting my work, and I will of course very much appreciate it if you enjoy my content and can afford it.
I intend to provide a short weekly newsletter including AMAs/QnA and lists of recommendations on various themes for paid subscribers.
Languages
I write in British English only (studying in London leaves marks!). As a native French speaker, I might make some small mistakes and inaccuracies from time to time, in which case - if you survived the read - you are more than welcome to signal those to me by sending me a direct message.
I might translate some of the pieces I write here in French at some point, in which case I will add a link to the French version at the top of the concerned posts.
That’s all for this introduction. Stay tuned for the first article that should arrive this week, which will focus on defining Strategy!