The U.S. Military Rigged a War Game. It Still Lost.
The Lessons Remain Carefully Ignored.
Andrew Cockburn
Oct 30, 2024
Millennium Challenge 2002 was the U.S. military’s most elaborate and expensive war game ever, designed to showcase the “military of the next century” on full display. Three years in the planning, budgeted at $250 million, it involved 13,500 participants waging mock war in nine training sites across the United States as well as 17 “virtual” locations in the powerful computers of the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia. The scenario, on Iran, posited a “Blue” U.S. force pitted against a “Red” enemy bearing a strong resemblance to Iran.
The U.S. lost.
Unwisely, the planners had recruited a retired Marine Lieutenant General, Paul Van Riper, to lead the Red forces. In a series of brilliantly imaginative initiatives and maneuvers, Van Riper made quick work of the Blue force, sinking most of the attacking fleet in short order while circumventing his opponent’s attempts to cut off communications with his forces. Afterwards, he wrote a scathing report outlining ways in which the game had been rigged to ensure a Blue victory. Unsurprisingly, the report was immediately classified. Now, twenty years later, it has finally been released, albeit with many redactions.
https://spoilsofwar.substack.com/p/the-us-military-rigged-a-war-game
