> Happened again recently There is no suggestion in the article that the non-US forces were required to operate with their hands tied after the reset in order

> Happened again recently There is no suggestion in the article that the non-US forces were required to operate with their hands tied after the reset in order to allow a US victory. More generally, many exercises consist of multiple 'phases' anyway, which are in effect wholly separate parts of an operation set within the same broad scenario. They might separately test (e.g.) advancing to contact, a contact situation and then some sort of holding operation. Resets are wholly expected: each phase usually starts in a pre-planned state independent of the previous phase. E.g. if a force fails it's objective in the first phase and gets wiped out it will start the second phase in a refreshed state so that the force can train for the second type of activity rather than waste the sometimes significant cost of assembling the exercise in the first place.