Opinion: We ran a war game at UVU on political violence, and this is what we learned

More than a year ago, we held a war game at Utah Valley University (UVU) about political violence in the United States — something that would soon rear its head on campus. Now that UVU, Utah and the United States are grappling fully with the implications of Charlie Kirk’s assassination and other incidents of political violence, especially the recent shooting in a Michigan church , we thought it appropriate to share that the stakes are — amazingly — even higher than most imagine.

Our war game included students, professionals and local leaders playing the roles of domestic and international governments. In the war game, the players portraying international adversaries could clandestinely exploit tension in the United States. Unsurprisingly, they seized the opportunity and never let go.