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| 7/10 |
| 2006/5/26-28 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:43196 Activity:low |
5/25 http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,95496,00.html Lt. Gen Paul Van Riper sank half the American fleet in a wargame using unconventional tactics like motorcycle messengers and converted speedboats. The Navy's response was to make him do it again with convential tactics. \_ I saw a documentary about this and Van Riper claimed the enemy country was supposed to be Israel, not Iran. \_ Saying bad things about Rummy? Someone won't be asked to the next war game! \_ This sounds like business-as-usual for the Bush administration: make the facts fit the desires. \_ I don't understand one thing. He achieved his results by a surprise attack. I think this is useful in a war game, because it alerts commanders to the possibility (and the results if one were to occur). However, it was hardly military genius to fire a bunch of missiles off at ships steaming into the Gulf preemptively and would probably be incredibly stupid in a real situation were you, say, Iran. For all he would know, it wasn't a preemptive strike at all but an exercise and now he started a war against a more powerful opponent who has world opinion on his side. In short: they make too much of his apparent success in this war game. I'm sure the US wasn't too concerned about rehearsing to prepare for an Iranian preemptive strike, because that would be the best possible situation for the US. Hell, maybe they should strike Right Now. So it's fair for the people running the war game to want a "do over" with some rules in place. \_ Does the U.S. have world opinion on its side, even acknowledging how Ahmadinejad has been lately? \_ It would if Iran launched a bunch of missiles at US naval warships preemptively and sunk half of them, killing thousands. \_ You would have U.S. opinion, but you still sure about world opinion? \_ At that point who cares about world opinion? It would be an unquestionable act of war requiring an overwhelming military response, not a UN vote. \_ the guy below said it better than me \_ if our fleets are attacked and ships are sunk we'll respond militarily. we will not seek UN approval or worry about world opinion. world opinion and 5 bucks gets you a cup of coffee. \_ I'm not so sure. If we keep up with the "all options are on the table" rhetoric and showed up w/ a fleet in the Gulf, somehow I doubt Iran striking military targets would elicit much sympathy for us from countries that weren't already our allies. \_ I disagree strongly. I think only Iran's close, close allies (probably not even China/Russia) would side with them. Look at who sided with the US when the US launched a preemptive strike against a despised dictator - practically no one. If Iran launched a strike then every developed nation would oppose them, much as when Saddam struck against Kuwait. \_ I'm not the guy you responded to, but the question is, is it realistic to imagine a case where the U.S. would go in for a full-scale invasion on Iran a la Iraq? Iran may perform a preemptive strike if it's convinced the U.S. is coming for them, but not otherwise, since they're getting everything they want right now without firing a shot. The most I see in the near-term, and even that is highly doubtful, is conventional surgical strikes. Much more likely is sloppy sanctions while China and Russia reap all the benefits. \_ What's telling here is not his use of lo-tek to achieve his goals but the Fleet's utter inability to counter it. Even in a wargame, it makes sense to be prepared for this level of attack. \_ You would have U.S. opinion, but you still sure about world opinion? \_ At that point who cares about world opinion? It would be an unquestionable act of war requiring an overwhelming military response, not a UN vote. \_ Yes, I agree, who cares. But you still sure about what you originally said about world opinion? \_ What I wonder is what they're doing about it. The article implies they "cheated" and forced artificial constraints on the "red" outfit (isn't that what US war games call the bad guys?) However, it also mentions that further outcomes are classified. One can only hope that part of that classified info is "oh shit, let's fix this." -John \_ Nice try, classify is the new buzzword for "We don't want this to be publicly known because it is rediuclous and we're never going to fix it." -mrauser |
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| www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,95496,00.html World War II and that mistake resulted in two disasters -- Korea and Vietnam. "My great fear is we're off to something very similar to what happened after World War II, that is getting it completely wrong again," the general said of the course in Iraq. Van Riper told Knight Ridder that in looking at Rumsfeld's leadership he found three particular areas of inability and incompetence. First, he said, if any battalion commander under him had created so "poor a climate of leadership" and the "bullying" that goes on in the Pentagon under Rumsfeld he would order an investigation and relieve that commander. "Even more than that I focus on (his) incompetence when it comes to preparing American military forces for the future," Van Riper said. There's none of the Scholarship and doctrinal examination that has to go on before you begin changing the force." Third, he said, under Rumsfeld there's been no oversight of military acquisition. "Any military man who made the mistakes he has made, tactically and strategically, would be relieved on the spot." One event that shocked Van Riper occurred in 2002 when he was asked, as he had been before, to play the commander of an enemy Red Force in a huge $250 million three-week war game titled Millennium Challenge 2002. It was widely advertised as the best kind of such exercises -- a free-play unscripted test of some of the Pentagon's and Rumsfeld's fondest ideas and theories. Though fictional names were applied, it involved a crisis moving toward war in the Persian Gulf and in actuality was a barely veiled test of an invasion of Iran. Navy warships and Marine amphibious warfare ships steamed into the Persian Gulf for what Van Riper assumed would be a pre-emptive strike against the country he was defending. Van Riper resolved to strike first and unconventionally using fast patrol boats and converted pleasure boats fitted with ship-to-ship missiles as well as first generation shore-launched anti-ship cruise missiles. He packed small boats and small propeller aircraft with explosives for one mass wave of suicide attacks against the Blue fleet. Last, the general shut down all radio traffic and sent commands by motorcycle messengers, beyond the reach of the code-breakers. Navy's much-vaunted defenses based on its Aegis cruisers and their radar controlled Gatling guns. When the figurative smoke cleared it was found that the Red Forces had sunk 16 Navy ships, including an aircraft carrier. The referees stopped the game, which is normal when a victory is won so early. Van Riper assumed that the Blue Force would draw new, better plans and the free play war games would resume. Instead he learned that the war game was now following a script drafted to ensure a Blue Force victory: He was ordered to turn on all his anti-aircraft radar so it could be destroyed and he was told his forces would not be allowed to shoot down any of the aircraft bringing Blue Force troops ashore. It classified Van Riper's 21-page report criticizing the results and conduct of the rest of the exercise, along with the report of another DOD observer. Pentagon officials have not released Joint Forces Command's own report on the exercise. He was furious that the war game had turned from an honest, open free play test of America's war-fighting capabilities into a rigidly controlled and scripted exercise meant to end in an overwhelming American victory. Joseph L Galloway is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and a nationally syndicated columnist. One of America's preeminent war correspondents, with more than four decades as a reporter and writer, he recently concluded an assignment as a special consultant to Gen. Galloway, a native of Refugio, Texas, spent 22 years as a foreign and war correspondent and bureau chief for United Press International, and nearly 20 years as a senior editor and senior writer for US News & World Report magazine. In 1990-1991 Galloway covered Desert Shield/Desert Storm, riding with the 24th Infantry Division (Mech) in the assault into Iraq. General H Norman Schwarzkopf has called Galloway "The finest combat correspondent of our generation -- a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend." |