Slate: Why the Army shouldn't be so surprised by Saddam's moves

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Paul Saffo <psaffo () iftf org>
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 22:29:35 -0800
To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: Slate: Why the Army shouldn't be so surprised by Saddam's moves

Hmmm...
-p
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Slate: Why the Army shouldn't be so surprised by Saddam's moves

http://slate.msn.com/id/2080814

War-Gamed
Why the Army shouldn't be so surprised by Saddam's moves.

By Fred Kaplan
Posted Friday, March 28, 2003, at 1:55 PM PT

Much has been made of Thursday's remark by Lt. Gen. William Wallace,
commander of U.S. Army forces in the Persian Gulf. Talking about the fierce
and guerrilla-style resistance  of Iraqi militia groups, Wallace said, "The
enemy we're fighting is a bit different than the one we war-gamed against."

In fact, however, militia fighters did play a crucial role in a major war
game designed to simulate combat in Iraq’Äîbut the Pentagon officials who
managed the game simply disregarded or overruled the militias' most
devastating moves.

The war game, which was called Millennium Challenge 02, took place over
three weeks last July and August. Planned over a two-year period, at a cost
of $250 million, the game involved 13,500 personnel from all four
services’îArmy, Navy, Air Force, Marines’ who waged mock war in 17
simulation locations and nine live-force training sites. The scenario
envisioned a war in a fictitiously named Persian Gulf country that resembled
Iraq.

The objective was to test (and, if all went well, to validate) a set of new
combat theories based less on massive force and more on speed, agility,
highly accurate weapons, and supremely coordinated command and control.
These theories’Äîknown as "military transformation" and "effects-based
operations"’Äîwould serve as the underlying strategy of the real war against
the real Iraq that's happening now. (Read this.)

Officially, the war game was a great success; the theories were proven
sound. However, on Aug. 12, as the game was winding to a close, a retired
three-star U.S. Marine Corps general named Paul Van Riper wrote an e-mail to
some of his friends, casting grave doubt on this  conclusion.

Pentagon war games pit "Red Force" (simulating the enemy) against "Blue
Force" (the United States). In this war game, as in many war games over the
years, Van Riper played the Red Force commander. In his e-mail (which was
promptly leaked to the Army Times then picked up, though in much less
detail, by the Guardian and the Washington Post), Van Riper complained about
Millennium Challenge 02, writing that, "Instead of a free-play,
two-sided game ’Ķ it simply became a scripted exercise." The conduct of the
game did not allow "for the concepts of rapid decisive operations,
effects-based operations, or operational net assessment to be properly
assessed. ’Ķ It was in actuality an exercise that was almost
entirely scripted to ensure a Blue 'win.' "

For instance, and here is where he displayed prescience’ Van Riper used
motorcycle  messengers to transmit orders to Red troops, thereby eluding
Blue's super-sophisticated eavesdropping technology. He maneuvered Red
forces constantly. At one point in the game, when Blue's fleet entered the
Persian Gulf, he sank some of the ships with suicide-bombers in speed boats.
(At that point, the managers stopped the game, "refloated" the Blue fleet,
and resumed play.) Robert Oakley, a retired U.S. ambassador who played the
Red civilian leader, told the Army Times that Van Riper was "out-thinking"
Blue Force from the first day of the exercise.

                         Yet, Van Riper said in his e-mail, the game's
managers remanded some of his moves as improper and simply blocked others
from being carried out. According to the Army Times summary, "Exercise
officials denied him the opportunity to use his own tactics and ideas
against Blue, and on several occasions directed [Red Force] not to use
certain weapons systems against Blue. It even ordered him to reveal the
location of Red units."

Finally, Van Riper quit the game in protest, so as not to be associated with
what would be misleading results. As he explained in his e-mail, "You don't
come to a conclusion  beforehand and then work your way to that conclusion.
You see how the thing plays out." He added, somewhat ominously in
retrospect, "My main concern was we'd see future forces trying to use these
things when they've never been properly grounded in any sort of an
experiment."

The Army Times quoted some game managers who disputed Van Riper's version of
events. However, it also quoted a retired colonel who was familiar with the
game and supportive of the theories being tested. "I don't have a problem
with the ideas," the colonel said. "I do have a problem with the fact that
we're trying to suggest somehow that we've validated them, and now it's time
to pay for them."

Finally, the paper quoted a retired Army officer who has played in several
war games with Van Riper. "What he's done is, he's made himself an expert in
playing Red, and he's real obnoxious about it," the officer said. "He will
insist on being able to play Red as freely as possible and as imaginatively
and creatively, within the bounds of the framework of the game and the
technology horizons and all that, as possible. He can be a real pain in the
ass, but that's good. ’Ķ He's a great patriot and he's doing all those
things for the right reasons."

Clearly, the Pentagon needs to encourage obnoxious Red commanders, not
suppress them. Scripted war-game enemies may roll over, but, as we're
seeing, real enemies sometimes think of tricky ways to fight back.



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