4 ms·

Millennium Challenge: A corrupted military exercise and its legacy (2015)

immibis 10mo ago
The last war the USA won was World War 2. Yes, it can do enough damage to make other countries adopt DMCA anti-circumvention law out of fear, but it always manages to snatch ultimate defeat.
- collinmcnulty 10mo ago
  The USA-led coalition conclusively won the Gulf War. We don’t think about it as much precisely because it wasn’t a boondoggle that lasted years and years.
  - actionfromafar 10mo ago
    The USA-led coalition finally managed to overcome ISIS insurrectionists and helped Iran install Iranian sponsored militias in the Iraqi parliament and government.
    - lostlogin 10mo ago
      I think OP was referring to the first crack at Iraq by the first Bush.
      - actionfromafar 10mo ago
        Well, in that case, I agree. It was efficient and not immoral either.
  - lostlogin 10mo ago
    > The USA-led coalition conclusively won the Gulf War. That was a weird win with another invasion required for some reason and a toxic legacy of Gulf War Syndrome and no fly zones. Military the US crushed it but it didn’t seem to solve anything.
    - jcranmer 10mo ago
      The goal of the First Gulf War was, expressly, to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi control and (to a much smaller degree) to remove Iraq as a possible regional hegemon for the next decade or so. Which it succeeded at. Once you've succeeded at your objectives, and the enemy has capitulated, what value is there to prosecuting the war further?
      - lostlogin 10mo ago
        > what value is there to prosecuting the war further? That’s a question best handled by Bush Junior and the American people. What was the second war for?
  - nutjob2 10mo ago
    They won the war and lost the peace.
  - nl 10mo ago
    Since the Vietnam war the US has successfully (defined by "achieved the stated goals") invaded a country as part of the following conflicts: Grenada (1983) Panama to arrest General Noriega (1989) Iraq in Gulf War 1 (1991) Haiti (1994) There have been other conflicts the US was involved with that they won too, but the others didn't involve invasions (eg NATO in Bosnia
- derektank 10mo ago
  I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most countries haven't adopted US copyright standards out of a concern that the US military is going to break down their door; they're motivated by the opportunity to sell goods to the massive US consumer market.
nostrademons 10mo ago
I think the big lesson of the Millennium Challenge is that a smart, motivated adversary will always go for the weak link in your victory conditions. And that is usually your blind spots, by definition. They won't attack you where you've prepared; they'll look for the areas where you are not expecting vulnerability and attack there. All stuff Sun Tzu wrote 2500 years ago, but very hard for a bureaucracy to internalize, because by definition bureaucracies are formed to solve known problems and are blind to their blind spots.
- jcranmer 10mo ago
  There is a bigger underlying point, which is there is no trump weapon that defeats everything in war [1]. Everything has a counter, and if you're basing your entire strategy on saying that this weapon doesn't have a counter that we know of yet, well, you'll find that counters quickly get developed (see, e.g., the evolution of drone warfare in the Russo-Ukrainian War). Ripper's argument that his tactics "won" the Millennium Challenge strike me as rather similar to the thoughts behind the Jeune École school of naval warfare, which argued for the use of massed small ships (torpedo boats) to counter battleships... except that had an easy counter in the form of the (torpedo boat) destroyer, and most naval theorists generally agree that the French Navy's embrace of Jeune École ended up doing more harm than good to their navy. [1] The closest thing to a counterexample here is nuclear bombs, for which there isn't really a meaningful defense. Except that the use of nuclear bombs is predicated on the theory of strategic air bombing, which has been promising an easy-win button for wars for a century now, has been tried in every major conflict since then, and whose could-even-be-argued-as-maybe-a-successes in that timeframe can be counted on one hand, with some fingers missing. I'm galled that you still have military personnel and advisors today who advocate for its success, given its track record of the complete opposite.
  - theptip 10mo ago
    > Except that the use of nuclear bombs is predicated on the theory of strategic air bombing Aren’t ICBMs and submarine-launched warheads the other two parts of the US’s triad?
Jiro 10mo ago
Different opinions: https://www.navalgazing.net/Millennium-Challenge-2002 https://www.navalgazing.net/Millennium-Challenge-2002
TomatoCo 10mo ago
A counterpoint: https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/4qfoiw/millennium_challenge_2002_setting_the_record/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/4qfoiw/mil... and https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/la7elp/comment/glmif03/?utm_name=androidcss https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/la7elp/comment/...
poplarsol 10mo ago
The reason you "refloat" ships and continue the exercise is that determining the winner is only one part of the exercise. Training is the other component, and if you have multiple carriers out of commission immediately you lose that opportunity at vast expense.
- throwawayqqq11 10mo ago
  Training != exercise. The one builds an ability, the other tests its success.
  - cwillu 10mo ago
    “A military exercise, training exercise, maneuver (American English), manoeuvre (Commonwealth English), or war game is the employment of military resources in training for military operations.” --wikipedia
seawsurf 10mo ago
The US military always seems so focused on projecting a strong image. In these times of impending threats from the East, are there enough incentives for young people to choose the military, even after their studies are finished, over the traditional academic path of college and graduate school? Also, this reminded me of the WWI documentary from Peter Jackson, "They Shall Not Grow Old", and the british comic "Charley's War" by Pat Mills.
- nozzlegear 10mo ago
  Anecdotally, yes: I have two young cousins who both joined the US military this year.
- chb 10mo ago
  There are many young, economically disenfranchised Americans that see the military as a way out of poverty. The military understands this and positions recruitment centers in poorer neighborhoods.
- Footnote7341 10mo ago
  Creating a strong image to adversaries, aka deterrent, is a key function of all nations militaries. But the US conducts tough rigorous exercises against impossible odds constantly. All ground forces are rotated through NTC and JRTC where expert opfor units are given all the toys, home-field advantage, and usually win.
- pram 10mo ago
  I wouldn't encourage anyone to enlist myself, but the benefits are still pretty good even if the salary is crap. The GI Bill doesn't expire anymore and you can get a lot of credits easily while you're in. Subsidized housing, food, free healthcare, free college, etc. It's a pretty comfy life for someone out of high school with zero plans. I enlisted during what turned out to be the absolute nadir of the Iraq war (2005-2010) so the risk today is also a lot less ominous IMO (for now lol...)
- renewiltord 10mo ago
  Well, you're supposed to get the lifelong disability by claiming PTSD, Tinnitus, Migraine. That's why disability has skyrocketed recently. Social media has allowed spreading the game plan pretty widely and most veterans know how to get as close to 100% disability as possible. There are entire channels dedicated to gaming this. There are lots of healthy people out there claiming this (though obviously there are lots of people who do actually have the conditions as well).
neilv 10mo ago
> Van Riper was informed by the white cell, or “control,” overseeing the game [...] > When Van Riper went to Kernan to complain, he was told: “You are playing out of character. The OPFOR would never have done what you did.” That's a strict DM.
- anigbrowl 10mo ago
  I also think it's a bullshit excuse. Iran was famous for wasting manpower to gain speed, eg during the Iran-Iraq war where they had large numbers of school age children martyr themselves in human wave attacks to slow down tanks or clear minefields. Van Riper just extended that concept to the marine environment.

The last war the USA won was World War 2. Yes, it can do enough damage to make other countries adopt DMCA anti-circumvention law out of fear, but it always manages to snatch ultimate defeat.

collinmcnulty 10mo ago
The USA-led coalition conclusively won the Gulf War. We don’t think about it as much precisely because it wasn’t a boondoggle that lasted years and years.
- actionfromafar 10mo ago
  The USA-led coalition finally managed to overcome ISIS insurrectionists and helped Iran install Iranian sponsored militias in the Iraqi parliament and government.
  - lostlogin 10mo ago
    I think OP was referring to the first crack at Iraq by the first Bush.
    - actionfromafar 10mo ago
      Well, in that case, I agree. It was efficient and not immoral either.
- lostlogin 10mo ago
  > The USA-led coalition conclusively won the Gulf War. That was a weird win with another invasion required for some reason and a toxic legacy of Gulf War Syndrome and no fly zones. Military the US crushed it but it didn’t seem to solve anything.
  - jcranmer 10mo ago
    The goal of the First Gulf War was, expressly, to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi control and (to a much smaller degree) to remove Iraq as a possible regional hegemon for the next decade or so. Which it succeeded at. Once you've succeeded at your objectives, and the enemy has capitulated, what value is there to prosecuting the war further?
    - lostlogin 10mo ago
      > what value is there to prosecuting the war further? That’s a question best handled by Bush Junior and the American people. What was the second war for?
- nutjob2 10mo ago
  They won the war and lost the peace.
- nl 10mo ago
  Since the Vietnam war the US has successfully (defined by "achieved the stated goals") invaded a country as part of the following conflicts: Grenada (1983) Panama to arrest General Noriega (1989) Iraq in Gulf War 1 (1991) Haiti (1994) There have been other conflicts the US was involved with that they won too, but the others didn't involve invasions (eg NATO in Bosnia
derektank 10mo ago
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most countries haven't adopted US copyright standards out of a concern that the US military is going to break down their door; they're motivated by the opportunity to sell goods to the massive US consumer market.

nostrademons 10mo ago

I think the big lesson of the Millennium Challenge is that a smart, motivated adversary will always go for the weak link in your victory conditions. And that is usually your blind spots, by definition. They won't attack you where you've prepared; they'll look for the areas where you are not expecting vulnerability and attack there. All stuff Sun Tzu wrote 2500 years ago, but very hard for a bureaucracy to internalize, because by definition bureaucracies are formed to solve known problems and are blind to their blind spots.

jcranmer 10mo ago
There is a bigger underlying point, which is there is no trump weapon that defeats everything in war [1]. Everything has a counter, and if you're basing your entire strategy on saying that this weapon doesn't have a counter that we know of yet, well, you'll find that counters quickly get developed (see, e.g., the evolution of drone warfare in the Russo-Ukrainian War). Ripper's argument that his tactics "won" the Millennium Challenge strike me as rather similar to the thoughts behind the Jeune École school of naval warfare, which argued for the use of massed small ships (torpedo boats) to counter battleships... except that had an easy counter in the form of the (torpedo boat) destroyer, and most naval theorists generally agree that the French Navy's embrace of Jeune École ended up doing more harm than good to their navy. [1] The closest thing to a counterexample here is nuclear bombs, for which there isn't really a meaningful defense. Except that the use of nuclear bombs is predicated on the theory of strategic air bombing, which has been promising an easy-win button for wars for a century now, has been tried in every major conflict since then, and whose could-even-be-argued-as-maybe-a-successes in that timeframe can be counted on one hand, with some fingers missing. I'm galled that you still have military personnel and advisors today who advocate for its success, given its track record of the complete opposite.
- theptip 10mo ago
  > Except that the use of nuclear bombs is predicated on the theory of strategic air bombing Aren’t ICBMs and submarine-launched warheads the other two parts of the US’s triad?

Jiro 10mo ago

Different opinions: https://www.navalgazing.net/Millennium-Challenge-2002 https://www.navalgazing.net/Millennium-Challenge-2002

TomatoCo 10mo ago

A counterpoint: https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/4qfoiw/millennium_challenge_2002_setting_the_record/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/4qfoiw/mil... and https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/la7elp/comment/glmif03/?utm_name=androidcss https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/la7elp/comment/...

poplarsol 10mo ago

The reason you "refloat" ships and continue the exercise is that determining the winner is only one part of the exercise. Training is the other component, and if you have multiple carriers out of commission immediately you lose that opportunity at vast expense.

throwawayqqq11 10mo ago
Training != exercise. The one builds an ability, the other tests its success.
- cwillu 10mo ago
  “A military exercise, training exercise, maneuver (American English), manoeuvre (Commonwealth English), or war game is the employment of military resources in training for military operations.” --wikipedia

seawsurf 10mo ago

The US military always seems so focused on projecting a strong image. In these times of impending threats from the East, are there enough incentives for young people to choose the military, even after their studies are finished, over the traditional academic path of college and graduate school? Also, this reminded me of the WWI documentary from Peter Jackson, "They Shall Not Grow Old", and the british comic "Charley's War" by Pat Mills.

nozzlegear 10mo ago
Anecdotally, yes: I have two young cousins who both joined the US military this year.
chb 10mo ago
There are many young, economically disenfranchised Americans that see the military as a way out of poverty. The military understands this and positions recruitment centers in poorer neighborhoods.
Footnote7341 10mo ago
Creating a strong image to adversaries, aka deterrent, is a key function of all nations militaries. But the US conducts tough rigorous exercises against impossible odds constantly. All ground forces are rotated through NTC and JRTC where expert opfor units are given all the toys, home-field advantage, and usually win.
pram 10mo ago
I wouldn't encourage anyone to enlist myself, but the benefits are still pretty good even if the salary is crap. The GI Bill doesn't expire anymore and you can get a lot of credits easily while you're in. Subsidized housing, food, free healthcare, free college, etc. It's a pretty comfy life for someone out of high school with zero plans. I enlisted during what turned out to be the absolute nadir of the Iraq war (2005-2010) so the risk today is also a lot less ominous IMO (for now lol...)
renewiltord 10mo ago
Well, you're supposed to get the lifelong disability by claiming PTSD, Tinnitus, Migraine. That's why disability has skyrocketed recently. Social media has allowed spreading the game plan pretty widely and most veterans know how to get as close to 100% disability as possible. There are entire channels dedicated to gaming this. There are lots of healthy people out there claiming this (though obviously there are lots of people who do actually have the conditions as well).

neilv 10mo ago

> Van Riper was informed by the white cell, or “control,” overseeing the game [...] > When Van Riper went to Kernan to complain, he was told: “You are playing out of character. The OPFOR would never have done what you did.” That's a strict DM.

anigbrowl 10mo ago
I also think it's a bullshit excuse. Iran was famous for wasting manpower to gain speed, eg during the Iran-Iraq war where they had large numbers of school age children martyr themselves in human wave attacks to slow down tanks or clear minefields. Van Riper just extended that concept to the marine environment.