OT - any opinions...

[oaltinyay]

I have recently come on to this bit, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

Maybe most of you know this but , I sort of believed it could be done and it seems someone actually 'simulated' it.

The whole thing when put in perspective , and if all told here actually happened as told , seems to be a history repeats itself; Bill Mitchell's sining of the Ostfriesland, and 'One touch of armoured sleeve' in the Japanese wargaming of Midway; trenched groups in military not accepting , ruling out, ironing out possibilities.

[Oberst_Klink]

ORIGINAL: oaltinyay

I have recently come on to this bit, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

Maybe most of you know this but , I sort of believed it could be done and it seems someone actually 'simulated' it.

The whole thing when put in perspective , and if all told here actually happened as told , seems to be a history repeats itself; Bill Mitchell's sining of the Ostfriesland, and 'One touch of armoured sleeve' in the Japanese wargaming of Midway; trenched groups in military not accepting , ruling out, ironing out possibilities.

Efandim

I heard about it, tried to find the documentary broadcasted by PBS< but only found the German ZDF version - Der perfekte Krieg - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Ww5mT ... 76E93F6081

Klink, Oberst

[crsutton]

Don't want to sound like a scold but it is a good idea to label the beginning of your post title with OT- when discussing an off subject topic. Perfectly OK to post it but using OT is the common etiquette here.

[wdolson]

I changed the title of the first post...

Bill

[Anthropoid]

Here's a transcript of a long Nova interview with the retired USMC LGen who threw the monkey wrench into the works

The Immutable Nature of War

[oaltinyay]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

I changed the title of the first post...

Bill

thx .. with friends like you, I can never fail

[oaltinyay]

So - any opinions ? Or did I just land in the middle of conformists ?

[wdolson]

I'm far from a conformist, but I need to recuse myself from any topic that might turn into a modern political thread and this has a high potential.

Bill

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

I'm far from a conformist, but I need to recuse myself from any topic that might turn into a modern political thread and this has a high potential.

Bill

Same here. Still I tend to side with LGen Van Riper, more or less.

I can appreciate that they wanted to test their fancy high-tech command and control and did a 'restart' after he showed them that their fancy high-tech command and control was useless. But you'd think they would have cared that he had shown them their fancy high-tech command and control was useless, and based on the dialogue they just seemed to have shrugged off the lesson as "Ah well, that couldn't possibly be relevant. We all know that high-tech is what wins wars."

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

ORIGINAL: wdolson

I'm far from a conformist, but I need to recuse myself from any topic that might turn into a modern political thread and this has a high potential.

Bill

Same here. Still I tend to side with LGen Van Riper, more or less.

I can appreciate that they wanted to test their fancy high-tech command and control and did a 'restart' after he showed them that their fancy high-tech command and control was useless. But you'd think they would have cared that he had shown them their fancy high-tech command and control was useless, and based on the dialogue they just seemed to have shrugged off the lesson as "Ah well, that couldn't possibly be relevant. We all know that high-tech is what wins wars."

According to this, that is not quite what happened:

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002)

At approximately the same time that Red had located Blue forces, operators of the Blue naval simulation were directed incorrectly to turn off all self-defense capabilities by a senior Naval Officer who was not in command of the simulated forces nor current in the scenario. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that destroyed sixteen warships while the JSAF simulator operators sat and watched without responding defensively or offensively[citation needed].

So I think it is fair to say that judging of numerical results is not useful. The notion of then scripting certain things after the restart sounds wacky at first but the real point is just what is one trying to get from the exercise? If you are only seeking something on the level of 'who wins?' then you want no interference. If you have a long list of things that you want (need) to get exercised, then you might have to script some things once the course of events has deviated to the point that those things would not be exercised otherwise.

[Anthropoid]

Well, the point of command and control is to effectively use a military force to accomplish a goal. In the original run through, Blue submitted an ultimatum to Red at which point Red ravaged blue causing so much damage that it had been a real conflict, Blue would've been faced with a politically if not practically untenable position.

In sum, Riper showed them that their fancy COC was useless because their blind over-reliance on it and high-tech guided weapon systems made them oblivious to their weakness to asymmetrical tactics.

That is my take on it. Don't bring a laser-guided, satellite-networked multi-billion dollar fleet to a modern geurilla warfare equivalent of a "knife fight."

ADDIT: I can definitely see how after Riper 'sank their battleship,' the directors would've felt like "okay lets do a restart, we paid $250m for this, so even though the whole point of our program has been shown to be misguided and useless, we might as well use sripting to test it the way we expected it would go down."

Instead, the response seems to have been: "Well, that was irrelevant. Even though our force just got ravaged, our program is not the least bit misguided or useless, so we need to prove that it is effective and useful by doing a restart and imposing scripts to prevent this unruly USMC maverick from causing us problems."

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

Well, the point of command and control is to effectively use a military force to accomplish a goal. In the original run through, Blue submitted an ultimatum to Red at which point Red ravaged blue causing so much damage that it had been a real conflict, Blue would've been faced with a politically if not practically untenable position.
The bit about someone not involved in the exercise issuing an order to shut off all defense systems and basically order the participants to sit while being ravaged clearly had a lot to do with that. While outside the parameters of the exercise, that was still a valuable lesson.

In sum, Riper showed them that their fancy COC was useless because their blind over-reliance on it and high-tech guided weapon systems made them oblivious to their weakness to asymmetrical tactics.

That is my take on it. Don't bring a laser-guided, satellite-networked multi-billion dollar fleet to a modern geurilla warfare equivalent of a "knife fight."

ADDIT: I can definitely see how after Riper 'sank their battleship,' the directors would've felt like "okay lets do a restart, we paid $250m for this, so even though the whole point of our program has been shown to be misguided and useless,
This is a very unwarranted conclusion, very much akin to throwing out babies with bathwater. The value of those - you seem to imply - useless laser-guided gizmos and satellite networking has been proven over and over again. That does not mean it is magic and solves all problems. Exercises are conducted, in large part, to show problems so they can be addressed and appropriate and effective measures devised and implemented. I am quite glad those in charge did not reach the conclusion that you have reached.

we might as well use sripting to test it the way we expected it would go down."

Instead, the response seems to have been: "Well, that was irrelevant. Even though our force just got ravaged, our program is not the least bit misguided or useless, so we need to prove that it is effective and useful by doing a restart and imposing scripts to prevent this unruly USMC maverick from causing us problems."

I think it's easy to see it as a personal issue for the parties involved, but it's important to see the rest of it. If they let such things become all about 'you sunk my battleship!' or 'you took away my victory!', then they miss the actual, needed, real-world objectives of the exercise. It is much easier to criticize than to perform. Second guessing the decision to restart the exercise - and with some scripting - presumes that one thinks there was no value in the remaining items they were seeking to test. Did they 'get it' concerning the lesson about asymmetrical tactics is a separate question. Expecting everything they learned to be public and/or publicly paraded is unrealistic.

I don't know Riper or any of the others involved or what they actually said and the context in which they said it. I do know that reporters/journalists/et al most definitely emphasize any conflict and many, many times quite readily enlarge and even create the notion of conflict. They misquote, they quote out of context, they start with a story and craft the subject's answers via careful questions coupled with the techniques already mentioned. Just for example, I've read and heard multiple journalists describe the very standard technique of calling up one 'independent expert' after another - sometimes 30 of them - until they get the answer they want. That one, and only that one, goes into the story. Of course this does not mean that every bit of every news piece is false, but there is a real pile to dig through to find that pony. Be skeptical!

As for your assessment that (in my words) they learned nothing and only seek to cover up the whole mess, there is ample evidence to the contrary. There are many public sources where naval professionals discuss such matters and they are very concerned about asymmetrical warfare. There is robust debate, in public. If 'the brass' (to use an old term) were really taking home their toys and pulling up the drawbridge, then they would also have to be engaged in a spectacularly successful disinformation campaign to the contrary. Or a bunch of stuff leaked out of Hanger 19 at Area 51. [;)]

[oaltinyay]

My point was US militart managed to acquire its current position because it was the more realistic, and better run management of the situations at hand (compared to its opponents) and was backed by a strong industrial and population base. It was the 'smarter' and more 'pragmatic' of the lot but when I read stuff like ( and if they are not maskirovka ), seems to me next time there a conflict they may perhaps ( I hope not ) get a very expensive lesson.

[Anthropoid]

How many Persian or Arabic speakers much less cultural experts are non-comms attached to companies (or even better platoons) of US services? From my standpoint, every single platoon in country should have such an expert, and they should work closely with the other staff who shape tactics and other interactions with locals. How much of U.S. doctrine can be pointed at as specifically reflecting "use" of Central Asian or Islamic cultural norms to further our goals? Any? One would think that, given Afghanistan is famous as the "graveyard" of Empires, we would've gone into it with something more novel and innovative than the same old thing, no? Figure out how they think, use it to defeat/pacify them, no? I'm familiar with Human Terrain Systems, and I'm guessing nothing like 5% of the available expert base on such topics has ever been attempted to be tapped by JSOC much less by JCS or UCC; they are stuck in a Cold War mentality, and when it comes to defeating conventional armed forces, it works wonders. Nonetheless, how many wars in the last 50 years has the U.S. Empire won using its technological superiority? I for one would have preferred that we had won them ALL, hands down.

I agree that advanced stuff has utility; it clearly dominated in the Gulf War and in the conventional early portion of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The problem is when it is fetishized to the point that other low-tech or old-school or highly innovative non-tech stuff is completely ignored, either as a potential tool we will contend with from an adversary or as a potential tool for use by us. I've tried to offer my own expertise (applied for positions and what not) and I know what they want: a background that reflects a template right off the standard doctrine shelf.

If the high-tech approach favored by USN, USAF, and by degrees US Army and USMC had led to a clear trend of decisive victories where military force were used to pursue specific geopolitical goals, then I could go along with you. I agree the media likes to create conflict or highlight it. But in this case, I don't think Riper, a Vietnam vet who watched the U.S. make largely these same mistakes in the late 1960s is wrong and I don't think the media has hyped his complaints. He considered it to be $250m wasted, which is about the same thing as saying that "the whole point of [the] program [was] shown to be misguided and useless."

Bill might be correct and this topic is just too likely to go in out of bounds political directions, but I've seriously tried not to lean it that way here. Apologies if I failed.

ADDIT: Witpqs, here is the part where Riper pretty much states the position I stated on this, "that the whole program was useless and a waste of money."

I linked to the article (a long interview with the retired LGen) up above. If you skim through it, I think you'll see that some of your concerns about the actual issues having been exaggerated, conflated, cherry-picked or confused by the media do not seem to be what is going on here. If anything, the veritable ABSENCE of this story from mainstream media suggests quite the opposite to me.

So do you think Millennium Challenge 2002 was a waste?

I'm angered that, in a sense, $250 million was wasted. But I'm even more angry that an idea that has never been truly validated, that never really went through the crucible of a real experiment, is being exported to our operational forces to use.

What I saw in this particular exercise and the results from it were very similar to what I saw as a young second lieutenant back in the 1960s, when we were taught the systems engineering techniques that Mr. [Robert] McNamara [Secretary of Defense under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson] had implemented in the American military. We took those systems, which had good if not great utility in the acquisition of weapon systems, to the battlefield, where they were totally inappropriate. The computers in Saigon said we were winning the war, while out there in the rice paddies we knew damn well we weren't winning the war. That's where we went astray, and I see these new concepts potentially being equally as ill-informed and equally dangerous.

ADDIT*2: I think that whole interview is really worth a read to anyone reading this thread who takes interest. But another little blurb from about 1/3 way through it, and slightly before the above quoted part, I think this gets at where Riper takes a different philosphical view to the directors who have never come out to say "Wow, he caused THAT much mayhem using low-tech COC, we really should rethink this and try to learn as much as possible from it."

You're talking about the difference between the art and the science of war.

Yes. The art of war and the science of war are not coequal. The art of war is clearly the most important. It's science in support of the art. Any time that science leads in your ability to think about and make war, I believe you're headed down a dangerous path.

The art is the thinking. It is the intellectual underpinnings of war. It's understanding the theory and the nature. It's understanding how it is you want to bring combat power to bear, and what the operating concepts are. The science is represented by the weapons. It's represented by the ammunition. It's represented by the command and control, and by the communications, the space-based systems, for example.

[witpqs]

I don't think you are making your case. You are jumping around and making unsubstantiated assertions/recommendations. Suppose you tell me how many Arabic speakers were with US platoons? Why 'Persian' (the language is called Farsi) speakers with every platoon in Iraq or Afghanistan? Afghanistan is indeed called the graveyard of empires, yet it has been successfully conquered many times. And the US did not "go into it with the same old thing", not even close. What is "the U.S. Empire"? Sound bites don't carry much weight with me.

I did skim the article, and pointing to an article to show that same article is spot on is a circular reference.

Won't make time for this one. My point was that the narrative about the exercise is suspicious and the precipitous conclusion that all high-tech is useless is unfounded.

[Anthropoid]

OP asked for opinions [:D]

[wdolson]

I only skimmed the article, but it appears the ships were sunk in large part because the defensive systems were turned off due to an accidental order. I may have misread that part, but if the naval ships had their defensive systems operating, losses probably would have been reduced.

I think it would have been better to restart the simulation with the same attack, but with the defensive systems operational and see what happens.

But we don't know the whole story or the actual objectives of the exercise. When testing, you want to run particular scenarios and see what happens. Only later in testing do you want to see how the system responds to something unexpected.

Bill

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

I only skimmed the article, but it appears the ships were sunk in large part because the defensive systems were turned off due to an accidental order. I may have misread that part, but if the naval ships had their defensive systems operating, losses probably would have been reduced.

I think it would have been better to restart the simulation with the same attack, but with the defensive systems operational and see what happens.

But we don't know the whole story or the actual objectives of the exercise. When testing, you want to run particular scenarios and see what happens. Only later in testing do you want to see how the system responds to something unexpected.

Bill

If we take the retire LGen at his word, the way it was handled should I argue be an issue of concern for all Americans, even if we do not have all the facts at hand. Especially given how things have turned out these past 13.5 years or so.

Not to mention the fact that "accidental orders" are not something that ever be avoided in any real conflict with 100% certainty, and moreover, one would think that, the cutting edge of networked command and control would be the least likely to to commit such errors.

I can recall sitting down on a bench on Yale campus on the morning of Sept 11, 2001 and weeping. I wept because I realized all the hope about a new world order be ushered in by the "end" of the Cold War was likely going to prove to be wishful thinking.

I have maintained, from the very beginning, that we had two viable options: (1) seek total and unconditional victory using total war, on a scale that met or surpassed the mobilization and action of WWII (750,000 troops deployed "Schwarzkopf Style" to Iraq and initially 500,000 followed by an additional 250,000 to Afghanistan and Pakistan might have done the trick); (2) pull back out of all our overseas involvements by a factor of about 85%. Getting into THAT is likely to take this discussion far into the 'out of political bounds' imposed by Matrix (quite understandably and legitimately); so I'll ask that no one respond to that comment by me.

If any one wants to discuss these kinds of things in an environment were political discussion is openly welcomed, head over to the Doghouse [;)]

http://www.maddogdrivethru.net/index.php

We have had plenty of detailed, discussions on this stuff for years over there.

[wdolson]

If I was a ship captain in an active war zone and got an unexpected order to shut down all my defensive systems, I would ask for clarification of the order before doing so. I think most other captains would do similar.

Anyway, Matrix doesn't tolerate discussion of modern politics here.

Bill