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War game exposed U.S. vulnerability to low-tech warfare
- KnuthIsGod 5mo ago"Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships: one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of Blue's six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected."
- protocolture 5mo agoInteresting. This is exactly what Trump would do too. "The biggest most massive assault is coming tomorrow. Complete Destruction."
- KnuthIsGod 5mo ago"The simulated U.S. Navy battle group was defeated in ten minutes by an enemy that launched its attacks from commercial ships and using other unconventional means. The findings of the newly released postmortem from the $250 million Millennium Challenge 2002 exercise foreshadowed “the very challenges the United States would face in... other conflicts since then,” according to Jones, who is FOIA director at the Post."
- JumpCrisscross 5mo agoWe reacted to this late. But it isn’t a coïncidence that low-cost munitions are now receiving, in the U.S., other countries’ decadeslong weapons budgets.
- marshray 5mo agoDid you have to press a special key to get that diacritical, or are you a writer for the New Yorker?
- JumpCrisscross 5mo agoLong press on a Mac.
- 1over137 5mo agoCool. Gives hope to Greenland, Canada, and other places threatened by the USA.
- dmix 5mo agoThe US has started investing in low cost cruise missiles and drones https://www.twz.com/sea/10000-low-cost-cruise-missiles-in-three-years-procurement-plan-laid-out-by-pentagon https://www.twz.com/sea/10000-low-cost-cruise-missiles-in-th... For ex $300k antiship missiles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-mission_Affordable_Capacity_Effector?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-mission_Affordable_Capac...
- CSMastermind 5mo agoThis war game has been discussed many times. One thing to consider is that Van Riper summoned assets unrealistically he used small boats to avoid detection but then attributed load outs that they couldn't realistically carry. He also moved information unrealistically assuming that his units could communicate as efficently with paper moved by hand as they could with radios. There are real, valid criticisms of the lessons we should have learned from the exercise, but it's not as simple as most analyses make it out to be.
- marshray 5mo agoIKR? "from a 2002 war game" Have there really been no other more interesting war games in the last quarter-century, or did all the negative attention this got just result in us never hearing about another one?
- Teever 5mo agoThere have been far more interesting war games in the last quarter century.[0] This one shows the the US narrowly winning against China in a conflict over Taiwan. The US wins but with tremendous losses -- specifically in the form many munitions that take years to decades to replace. And it just so happens that we witnessed a conflict play out just a few months ago and that resulted in a similar depletion of munitions albeit with minimal losses of American ships and aircraft. What's very troubling about this is that in response the US moved munitions from the pacific into the middle east, leaving Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan in a very vulnerable position. This may explain why the current US president was unusually obsequious to the leader of China when in the past he had been particularly bellicose. Also, cool fact: While researching this subject I learned that the engines for most American cruise missiles come from a single company.[1] [0] https://chinaselectcommittee.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/CSIS%20Simulation%20Results.pdf https://chinaselectcommittee.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/se... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_International https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_International
- hn_throwaway_99 5mo agoFeels like the title needs some sort of "2002" notice - the reporting is recent but the actual wargame was done in 2002 and only recently declassified. So, of course, the US military's vulnerability has only increased in spades since 2002 due to drones. All those bases in the Middle East that were supposed to help protect the countries where they were based were just ripe targets. I think more critically, most of the US Navy feels like it's now more for show than an actual fighting force. A new aircraft carrier costs about $13 billion unit cost, but $120 billion total program cost. An Iranian Shahed drone costs about $35,000. So at about 2-3% of just the unit cost of an aircraft carrier, I could buy 10,000 Shahed drones. I don't even know how an aircraft carrier would begin to defend itself against an onslaught of thousands of drones. In the joke of "Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses", clearly the 100 duck-sized horses is the winning strategy.
- pfisch 5mo agoIt is about force projection though. Ok, you have a bunch of drones in the US, now how do you use them to attack Iran or in the pacific theatre? Yes, aircraft carriers aren't nearly as unstoppable as they were in WWII, but they are still the most versatile mobile platforms the world has for projecting force around the globe.
- jandrewrogers 5mo agoA Shahed is only useful against stationary soft targets, which an aircraft carrier is not. It also doesn’t have the kind of heavy warhead or terminal guidance required to defeat the armored structure of naval ships. Shahed doesn’t have any kind of countermeasure avoidance. Adding these would massively increase the cost. Naval anti-ship drones have been around for many decades. This is a highly evolved area of military technology with a long history of real-world engagements upon which to base design choices. The standard naval anti-ship drones are Harpoon, Exocet, and similar. These are qualitatively more capable than a Shahed and you still need a swarm of them to get through.
- chasil 5mo agoHow is this dissimilar to the Ukrainian "Spider Web" attack on the Russian TU-22M and TU-95 aircraft? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spiderweb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spiderweb
- b65e8bee43c2ed0 5mo agoIran doesn't have real-time spy satellites and Starlink. it can only launch their shitty shaheds at stationary targets in impotent rage like Russia does.
- mandeepj 5mo agoIt’s ok to be patriotic, but underestimating your enemy could be foolish or even fatal. https://www.google.com/search?q=iran+launched+spy+satellite+with+help+of+china https://www.google.com/search?q=iran+launched+spy+satellite+...
- codedokode 5mo agoAnyone can buy a StarLink terminal though. Also, you can use a friend's spy satellite if you don't have your own.
- amanaplanacanal 5mo agoExactly! That's why the US won so decisively in Afghanistan! ;)
- amtamt 5mo agoAnd now a dozen times in Iran?
- b65e8bee43c2ed0 5mo ago>the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom on 7 October 2001, alongside the United Kingdom. The two countries were later joined by a large multinational force, made up of multiple NATO members and two of their major non-NATO allies, as well as Afghanistan's local Northern Alliance. The invasion effort made rapid progress for the next two months as the coalition captured Kabul on 13 November and toppled the Taliban by 17 December, after which international military bases were set up near major cities across the country. >13 killed (including 1 CIA officer and 4 non-combat deaths)[11] if that was not a decisive victory, then I don't know what is. the rest of the so-called war was a low intensity insurgency during 20 years of which the US lost fewer soldiers than Russia loses in 20 hours.
- Haven880 5mo agoEven high tech drone and DF missiles also America will 100% lose. Why? No rare earth and magnets. Consistently dreaming of past glories like fighting Japanese in Midway and fighting Saddam. Remember USA lost to goat herders. I am 100% sure those Talebans have no J10C or Oreshnik missiles.
- JoshTko 5mo agoWar game is not needed. The war with Iran has already proven that a relatively tiny but sophisticated opponent can have massive asymmetric impact on USA.
- apelapan 5mo agoRelatively tiny? It is a 92 million person organisation with a 1.7 trillion dollar turnover, 2500+ years of continuous operations and covering an area 1/6th the size of USA.
- breppp 5mo ago"2500+ years of continuous operations" I see it repeated a lot, but Iran is not a direct descendent of some Persian empire, it was conquered by Greeks, Arabs, Turks and Mongols and ruled by Arabs and Turks for most of its history. These nationalist myths are not taken seriously for western countries but that criticism usually does not extend to foreign myths
- fmajid 5mo agoMore like 5000 years, Susa is nearly as ancient as Sumer. Also the Iranians have cultural continuity going back that far, unlike the Egyptians, Iraqis or Indians. Only the Chinese rival them in that respect.
- breppp 5mo agoWhat is cultural continuity? Is France, a far more coherent nation is cultural continuous to the Gauls? Even though completely subjugated by the Romans? Is the Islamic Republic more culturally similar to the Arab Khalifate it professes to emulate or Cyrus? Also you brought up Sumer, how is Iran related to Sumer more than it is related to the actual Mesopotamian empires? I never heard someone claim that
- fmajid 5mo ago
- notepad0x90 5mo agoI think they know that the military is mostly a grift in spending at times of peace. It keeps the military and benefactors happy. the defense industry employs people , which helps with support for the military. In times of war, they expect mobilization will mean different things. But I don't think it works that way. You can't suddenly go low tech, the mindset and the skills pipeline can't just be developed within a few months. It doesn't matter how much willpower or money you have. The way tech and warfare is going, it's a volume game. Both sides have drones, both sides have anti-drone systems. Which side can get enough drones past defenses to cause harm? Which side can keep producing enough drone swarms and sustain enormous casualties and keep fighting? The new supply line is the one you need to keep drones fueled up, and within line-of-sight and other comms requirement boundaries, since the other guys will be jamming, and the deeper you string from further away, the more difficult the other guys will find it to fight back, or defend. I focused in on drones/UAV, but I think it applies to all forms of warfare today. Not just UAV, but even infantry. The US has been at war regularly for a long time now. On one hand, it means a well trained and prepared fighting force. On the other hand, what it takes to win a war against the US has been figured out by all its serious adversaries. Undermine its soft power, alienate it from its network of allies, and attack the political will of the American public. That last bit is how Korea, Afghanistan, and now Iran were a loss for the US. It goes for any country, it's never about the superiority of technology, or arms alone. The Manhattan project didn't win the war in the pacific theater of the second world war for example, at least not ultimately. ultimately, the fact that the japanese leadership accepted that there would be more nukes, and that american leadership, and public alike are more than willing to keep killing hundreds of thousands of civilians did. All serious enemies of the US now know that they must get the american public on their side, or get the american public to simply not care about fighting them at such high costs. I can't imagine a good way to solve that ultimate weakness...other than to reduce costs. Instead a million dollar UAV, use a $99 kimikaze UAV, and send 10k of them at a time, constant waves of attacks that are impossible to defend. demoralize and destabilize the enemy very quickly at low cost before opinions waver. I only said all that purely for intellectual curiosity though. War is a filthy thing. There is no realistic prospect of homeland warfare for the US. I would prefer to not be prepared for war at all. A constant state of readiness for war is inviting war. It needs to be written into law that peacetime defense spending cannot exceed more than a certain portion of the GDP to national debt ratio, and never above like 1% of revenue.
- vatsachak 5mo agoEverything in this country can afford to be a grift if everyone treats the treasury as an infinite source of capital. This is a systematic issue which very few people care about.
- smarm52 5mo agoI thought this was common knowledge? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002 > The Red force, led by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, used numerous asymmetrical tactics unanticipated by the Blue force; a pre-emptive cruise missile attack sank sixteen Blue warships and led to the exercise's suspension. The simulation was restarted with Blue forces fully restored, and Red forces heavily constrained from free-play "to the point where the end state was scripted" More of a political exercise than anything else. But this has been cited as an indication of the effectiveness of modern drone-based warfare.
- paleotrope 5mo agoIt gets endlessly recycled whenever it's needed for political reasons.
- cwillu 5mo agoBecause the point of the wargame is that it's a training exercise for everyone involved, right down to the crews of the ships involved, not an nfl game. If the free-play portion ends up not exercising a bunch of expected scenarios because of an unexpected tactic, it would be monumentally wasteful to not make a note of the lesson and then reset with a script.
- AnimalMuppet 5mo agoRight. Did they make a note of the lesson? Did anything change? I mean, I guess they noticed enough to classify the results for 25 years...
- cwillu 5mo agoThey have sang lalalala with their fingers in their ears instead of noting the lesson, and it still would have been a monumental waste to not reset and continue the exercise.
- jjk166 5mo agoWell in the recent Iran war they kept their major ships far from Iran and didn't try to do any major operations in the area where small Iranian boats like those used in the wargame would be a threat. Indeed none of the vulnerabilities exposed by the Millennium Challenge were actual issues in the recent conflict. Whether that means the lesson was learned or the red team tactics were exploiting issues specific to the wargame is not clear.
- giantg2 5mo agoWe're still vulnerable to low tech warfare. We keep developing expensive systems that can't be manufactured quickly. One of the main reasons for success in WW2 was the fact that we could produce decent weapons in great volume. Japan had limited resources (draw a parallel to our rare earth situation). Germany had many advanced weapons, but couldn't produce enough (draw a parallel to our missiles).
- fmajid 5mo agoWe could because we had an industrial base that knew how to make stuff, not MBAs with delusions of grandeur who are belatedly discovering that they are easily dispensed with once the Chinese have acquired the manufacturing know-how.
- fmajid 5mo agoThe details may have been classified, but I had read about the conclusion of the exercise back then, shortly before the Iraq War. Fortunately, Saddam's generals were not as competent and resourceful as General Van Riper USMC.