5 ms·

A college friend teaches at the Naval War College. Most of these "Pentagon planned for X" stories are breathless reporting on some scenario put together by a lo

by dhosek 6y ago

A college friend teaches at the Naval War College. Most of these "Pentagon planned for X" stories are breathless reporting on some scenario put together by a low-level officer as a training exercise. Often some component is something "hot" in the culture at the moment to make the training exercise more compelling for trainees. This is also why there was, for example, pentagon "plans" for a zombie apocalypse, etc.

karatestomp 6y ago
Reminds me of a story that made it onto HN some months (years maybe? how time flies) back about an entrance exam prompt to some British university program requiring the candidate to craft a message defending some unsavory deed on the part of the UK government. That kind of "gaming" is super-common and very valuable in (for example) political science circles, so wasn't, per se, a bit weird or bad or even unusual, but was made to seem so for a headline. [EDIT] specifically I think the prompt was something like "It's 10 years in the future, such-and-such party has control of government and can be assumed to hold policy positions basically the same as they do now. General world situation is X. The government has just violently put down mass protests over [something]. Craft a statement for the prime minister defending these actions as necessary for the preservation of the government and protection of general welfare." Which is a completely normal—if simple—sort of poli-sci exercise.
- arethuza 6y ago
  It was about Eton, a private high school, and the "unsavory deed" shooting by the Army of protestors: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21628900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21628900
  - karatestomp 6y ago
    Yeah, that's the one. Fake "controversy" playing on ignorance.
    - NicolasGorden 6y ago
      I though school entrance exams, particularly at the high school level, should be selecting for meritocratic principles such as competence and intelligence. The reason it's controversial to some of us is that currently schools seem to be moving more and more toward selecting for obedience. This creates a feedback loop where the system selects for those that will not want to change it, but instead will play along. It seems that when a system declares a purpose for an exam and then doesn't comply with that purpose, reasonable people would question it. It also seems the feedback loops can be so intense the system selects those so willing and desirous to submit to authorities that they categorize anyone even questioning the system as 'ignorant' without any irony. Unfortunately Chomsky is mostly ignored by people who would need to understand his point the most: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn2JZaUrMGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn2JZaUrMGM
      - nradov 6y ago
        Bill Deresiewicz made a similar point in his book Excellent Sheep. Students are rewarded for conforming and following the designated educational path. But is that really what we want? https://billderesiewicz.com/books/excellent-sheep/ https://billderesiewicz.com/books/excellent-sheep/
      - karatestomp 6y ago
        I'll continue to take the assumption that asking a (prospective) student to conduct an exercise involving a thought experiment implies support of the premises of the exercise on the part of those asking it, an expectation that the student supports them, or an attempt to shape the student to support them, as a sign of ignorance within at least the confines of what those sorts of questions are used and useful for. That the position the student is asked to assume is a bit uncomfortable is very likely part of the point. Seeing what they make of it—the tone, the message, what they choose to add or leave out, how and whether they fill in the gaps in the prompt WRT the events, circumstances, the state of mind of the prime minister, the mood of the people, and so on, which are numerous, how and whether they balance all this with the particular limitations and goals of the message itself, or hell, whether they reject the prompt and walk out in a huff (bad) or do something else by ignoring all or part of the prompt and its explicit and implied constraints (potentially very good if done just right)—can all be useful, and in ways "craft a message about how awful this was and why it should never happen again" wouldn't be.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - iso1631 6y ago
    That seems a very odd take from the paper "So Eton appears to have asked young boys how to justify police brutality against the general public…" This is for an entrance exam, Eton expects people to already be able to justify it before they even get to Eton.
morty_s 6y ago
My thoughts exactly. People do this sort of thing to spice up training that must done. This is done in other fields as well like software development, eg. “in this tutorial we will be building a game with space zombies where...” On the other hand, games are never just games there’s always a point.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  I'm waiting for the pentagon plan for "nazis from the dark side of the moon advise the president on reelection messaging."
ashtonkem 6y ago
The pentagon produces a lot of documents. It’s unsurprising that there are some silly ones in there.
openasocket 6y ago
Was about to comment with the same, the military creates all sorts of plans for all sorts of scenarios, even completely implausible ones. In the 1930s for instance, the US had an actual war plan for an invasion of Canada (War Plan Crimson, as a part of War Plan Red which was a general war with the UK) and Mexico (War Plan Green)! These plans were made not because we really had any intention of invading Canada or Mexico, but because it gave our military planners something new to work on. And as a part of this they could come up with new ideas or theories that could be applied to more likely threats, and this planning is a good way to help train officers and sharpen minds for strategic thought
- TrainedMonkey 6y ago
  Is there any reason to believe similar plans and contingencies don't exist anymore?
  - landryraccoon 6y ago
    I hope there are even more of them now. It would be pretty cool to read about a contingency plan for an insurgency against a Klingon or Cylon occupation of the earth. That would be an interesting scenario. Think about it, would it be better for the US military (not to mention the world) to spend it's money on training simulations to improve officer quality, or actual drones and bombs being used in actual wars? Scenario 1, IMHO, is much better for humanity.
  - traes 6y ago
    No, in fact there is reason to believe there's more of them.
  - WJW 6y ago
    Every new generation of officers to come out of the military colleges writes a few new ones. Nobody is born being good at planning, you have to practice.
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    The Pentagon had a plan for the invasion of Iraq that was loosely followed. The State department did not however, leasing to the mess predicted by the Pentagon's plan. Additionally, limited information is available about several North Korea plans. Canada and Mexico may still have some plans, but the US's primary strategy is just to ensure an anti-US regime can never get power. So more the CIA's area.
mrep 6y ago
Apparently a joke briefing, but the air force put some slides together about naruto running around the time of the area 51 raid [0]. [0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/cfbgj1/actual_air_force_brief_my_cousin_had_to_sit/ https://old.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/cfbgj1/actual_air_fo...

by dhosek 6y ago

karatestomp 6y ago

Reminds me of a story that made it onto HN some months (years maybe? how time flies) back about an entrance exam prompt to some British university program requiring the candidate to craft a message defending some unsavory deed on the part of the UK government. That kind of "gaming" is super-common and very valuable in (for example) political science circles, so wasn't, per se, a bit weird or bad or even unusual, but was made to seem so for a headline. [EDIT] specifically I think the prompt was something like "It's 10 years in the future, such-and-such party has control of government and can be assumed to hold policy positions basically the same as they do now. General world situation is X. The government has just violently put down mass protests over [something]. Craft a statement for the prime minister defending these actions as necessary for the preservation of the government and protection of general welfare." Which is a completely normal—if simple—sort of poli-sci exercise.

arethuza 6y ago
It was about Eton, a private high school, and the "unsavory deed" shooting by the Army of protestors: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21628900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21628900
- karatestomp 6y ago
  Yeah, that's the one. Fake "controversy" playing on ignorance.
  - NicolasGorden 6y ago
    I though school entrance exams, particularly at the high school level, should be selecting for meritocratic principles such as competence and intelligence. The reason it's controversial to some of us is that currently schools seem to be moving more and more toward selecting for obedience. This creates a feedback loop where the system selects for those that will not want to change it, but instead will play along. It seems that when a system declares a purpose for an exam and then doesn't comply with that purpose, reasonable people would question it. It also seems the feedback loops can be so intense the system selects those so willing and desirous to submit to authorities that they categorize anyone even questioning the system as 'ignorant' without any irony. Unfortunately Chomsky is mostly ignored by people who would need to understand his point the most: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn2JZaUrMGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn2JZaUrMGM
    - nradov 6y ago
      Bill Deresiewicz made a similar point in his book Excellent Sheep. Students are rewarded for conforming and following the designated educational path. But is that really what we want? https://billderesiewicz.com/books/excellent-sheep/ https://billderesiewicz.com/books/excellent-sheep/
    - karatestomp 6y ago
      I'll continue to take the assumption that asking a (prospective) student to conduct an exercise involving a thought experiment implies support of the premises of the exercise on the part of those asking it, an expectation that the student supports them, or an attempt to shape the student to support them, as a sign of ignorance within at least the confines of what those sorts of questions are used and useful for. That the position the student is asked to assume is a bit uncomfortable is very likely part of the point. Seeing what they make of it—the tone, the message, what they choose to add or leave out, how and whether they fill in the gaps in the prompt WRT the events, circumstances, the state of mind of the prime minister, the mood of the people, and so on, which are numerous, how and whether they balance all this with the particular limitations and goals of the message itself, or hell, whether they reject the prompt and walk out in a huff (bad) or do something else by ignoring all or part of the prompt and its explicit and implied constraints (potentially very good if done just right)—can all be useful, and in ways "craft a message about how awful this was and why it should never happen again" wouldn't be.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- iso1631 6y ago
  That seems a very odd take from the paper "So Eton appears to have asked young boys how to justify police brutality against the general public…" This is for an entrance exam, Eton expects people to already be able to justify it before they even get to Eton.

morty_s 6y ago

My thoughts exactly. People do this sort of thing to spice up training that must done. This is done in other fields as well like software development, eg. “in this tutorial we will be building a game with space zombies where...” On the other hand, games are never just games there’s always a point.

082349872349872 6y ago
I'm waiting for the pentagon plan for "nazis from the dark side of the moon advise the president on reelection messaging."

ashtonkem 6y ago

The pentagon produces a lot of documents. It’s unsurprising that there are some silly ones in there.

openasocket 6y ago

Was about to comment with the same, the military creates all sorts of plans for all sorts of scenarios, even completely implausible ones. In the 1930s for instance, the US had an actual war plan for an invasion of Canada (War Plan Crimson, as a part of War Plan Red which was a general war with the UK) and Mexico (War Plan Green)! These plans were made not because we really had any intention of invading Canada or Mexico, but because it gave our military planners something new to work on. And as a part of this they could come up with new ideas or theories that could be applied to more likely threats, and this planning is a good way to help train officers and sharpen minds for strategic thought

TrainedMonkey 6y ago
Is there any reason to believe similar plans and contingencies don't exist anymore?
- landryraccoon 6y ago
  I hope there are even more of them now. It would be pretty cool to read about a contingency plan for an insurgency against a Klingon or Cylon occupation of the earth. That would be an interesting scenario. Think about it, would it be better for the US military (not to mention the world) to spend it's money on training simulations to improve officer quality, or actual drones and bombs being used in actual wars? Scenario 1, IMHO, is much better for humanity.
- traes 6y ago
  No, in fact there is reason to believe there's more of them.
- WJW 6y ago
  Every new generation of officers to come out of the military colleges writes a few new ones. Nobody is born being good at planning, you have to practice.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  The Pentagon had a plan for the invasion of Iraq that was loosely followed. The State department did not however, leasing to the mess predicted by the Pentagon's plan. Additionally, limited information is available about several North Korea plans. Canada and Mexico may still have some plans, but the US's primary strategy is just to ensure an anti-US regime can never get power. So more the CIA's area.

mrep 6y ago

Apparently a joke briefing, but the air force put some slides together about naruto running around the time of the area 51 raid [0]. [0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/cfbgj1/actual_air_force_brief_my_cousin_had_to_sit/ https://old.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/cfbgj1/actual_air_fo...