If you have ever watched the Soviet film "In the Zone of Special Attention", which is dedicated to large-scale military exercises, then you probably imagine how any maneuvers of this magnitude work.
Despite the fact that the division into “good” and “bad” during any such events is only conditional, the “bad guys” almost always get the most interesting thing - to predict the actions of a conditional enemy, whose role is played by brothers in arms.
The armed forces of the United States of America are also satisfied with such maneuvers: various attacks, communication outages, sudden strikes - the list of situations that are possible in a war is huge.
However, of all American measures to test their own army, the Millennium Challenge exercises, unique in all respects, are undeservedly forgotten, during which an American general, commanding conditional "bad guys", "destroyed" his own navy.
Census regulations
Particular attention was paid to the complete impotence against terrorists in the US law enforcement agencies immediately after the tragedy: the work of the special services was reformatted, the methods of collecting information, processing and analyzing it were reworked. Serious changes awaited the army - the main instrument of US foreign policy. The armed forces of the country were given an ambitious and difficult task - to test how effectively advanced technologies can be used in the management of hostilities.
The Millennium Challenge exercises, which started on July 24, 2002, were supposed to streamline the use of electronic warfare, aviation, bombing and help the US Armed Forces command identify weaknesses and eliminate vulnerabilities that adversely affect the performance of a combat mission. Before the start of the exercises, a detailed scenario suggested that the United States, conditionally called "blue", was to carry out a massive landing from the sea on the territory of a certain Middle Eastern country, called "red" and having access to the sea.
Experts say that the MC02 exercise was largely conceived as a dress rehearsal for a military invasion of Iran, a country known for its anti-American sentiment. The troops were commanded by experienced American military leaders: the Blues were commanded by General Peter Pace, and the Reds by General Paul Van Riper.
Naval Surprise
Experts note that in each country that is a member of NATO, military maneuvers are very peculiar. Almost all participants in the command and staff exercises know in advance what scenario events will develop: points on the map are marked in advance, everyone is warned and is waiting to be transferred to a predetermined area.
In this sense, the order of the American exercises of the 2002 model did not differ much from others, although it involved the study of different approaches to the implementation of the training task. Having received information that the fleet of the “blues” was approaching the area of the state border of the “reds”, the commander of the latter decided not to use all available means of radar control and made an extremely non-standard decision. On the second day of the exercises, the Blue fleet was discovered by the forces of several small ships for radar patrol, and a massive missile strike was immediately delivered to the conditional aggressor.
Military experts note that the abundance of radio-electronic systems, rocket and artillery weapons during the attack did not help the Blue fleet much. “Due to the fact that the shipborne electronic systems of the US Navy are not designed to repel a massive attack, many of the conditional missiles were simply not intercepted. Of course, some of them were able to “destroy” the air defense systems of ships, but the system could not keep track of all air targets at the same time.
Many people believe that there was some kind of system overload, but this is not so: the system was simply working at the limit of its capabilities and detecting as many targets as it could. I missed the rest, ”explains Oleg Gonchar, a programmer, Candidate of Mathematical Sciences, an expert in the field of control automation systems, in an interview with Zvezda.
The loss of warships infuriated the command of the Navy: if a clash actually happened, about 20 ships would go to the bottom, including an aircraft carrier, a dozen destroyers and several universal landing ships. It is noted that the loss of personnel in this case would be estimated at more than tens of thousands of people.
Feeling of self-importance
The secret behind Van Riper's kick was not immediately revealed. For a long time, the military advisers and tactics experts who followed the exercises could not understand why, or rather, why the conditional enemy was observing the regime of complete radio silence.
It is rather difficult to grasp the fact that the lack of constant radio traffic, the refusal to use sophisticated electronics and detection systems allowed Paul Van Riper to provide his own troops with a tactical advantage. A little later it turned out that instead of high-quality radio communications, the general decided to use ... messengers on motorcycles with a written order, delivering papers to advanced units, light signaling and wired radio communications in separate areas.
The World War II method used by the American general so shocked the command of the US Armed Forces that the exercises were suspended, and the conditions of the "battle" were hastily rewritten. The command also took note of the explanation of General Pace, who commanded the Blues, who complained about the rapid destruction of his own fleet and landing on board, risking spending the rest of the military maneuvers writing reports.
After the forces of both sides took their starting positions, General Van Riper received a new introductory one: the “reds” were ordered to strictly follow a pre-written scenario, according to which the military that prevented the landing of the landing force were required to use all available electronic systems - from air defense radar systems to simpler radar equipment and communication systems. The piquancy of the situation is added by other restrictions suddenly imposed on the Reds: for example, air defense systems were forbidden to shoot down the Blues military transport aircraft delivering troops and supplies to the landing area.
The exercise, which cost the US military a quarter of a billion dollars, ended in vain: the Blues, with the support of the irate coordinator of the exercises, Vice Admiral Marty Meyer, did not win, and General Van Riper, squeezed in the grip of impossible demands, said he was not going to participate in mock hostilities . Later, the general noted that instead of simulating a real clash with a well-prepared and motivated enemy
The Pentagon is busy cultivating a sense of self-importance and worshiping the theory of one's own invulnerability. Military experts note that almost no practical conclusions were made during the three-week exercises, and the US military doctrine, as well as the tactics of the ground and naval forces, have not undergone significant changes.
Despite the breach that General Van Riper made in national security, now, as almost 15 years ago, the command of the US Armed Forces denies any possibility of defeating its own army, citing the "unrealistic" of such a scenario.
Over the holidays, I read a book by Christopher Meyer and Stan Davis, The Living Organization: The Company as a Living Organism. IMHO - one of the best business books published over the past few years in Russian. In America, the book was 56 weeks on the New York Times book review bestseller list. Now on Amazon its second electronic edition is on sale.
The foreword and reviews of the book were written by executives from companies such as Google, the SAS Institute, Black Rock, and Johnson & Johnson. A book about why the most successful companies "have abandoned the development of rigid plans for the future, abandoned futile attempts to influence the business environment and instead adopted a revolutionary paradigm of "adaptive management" based on the principles of self-organization of complex, primarily biological systems ".
The transition to adaptive management changes not only the strategy and tactics of business, not only approaches to personnel, but also imposes new requirements on search, analytical and intelligence work in business, its tools and technologies.
Let's briefly talk about adaptive control using the example of one of the heroes of the book, US Marine Corps General Paul Van Riper. Moreover, this year marks exactly 10 years since the largest maneuvers in the history of America - the war game Millennium Challenge 2002. The scale of the maneuvers is evidenced by the fact that almost 14 thousand people participated in them and their budget amounted to 235 million dollars.
During the maneuvers, the Pentagon was going to work out the most effective methods of invading one of the Persian Gulf countries. It is not difficult to guess that Iraq and Iran were meant. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the analysts assigned to it played for the United States in the maneuvers. The enemy was assigned to lead one of the most respected military leaders in the country, Paul Van Riper.
As usual, the Pentagonites immediately activated all the means of satellite, electronic and Internet intelligence, took both the real territory and the virtual space of the enemy under surveillance. Van Riper understood that the power of electronic surveillance is such that not a single movement, not a single message by phone, email, etc. will not go unnoticed. Therefore, information began to be transmitted through electronic channels, where objective information with disinformation were mixed in strictly metered proportions. To control the troops and maintain communications, the Marine chose real interactions through motorcycle couriers, and brought information to the groups through prayers. Accordingly, the mullahs were instructed to insert certain code words into prayers that do not violate the vocabulary of the prayer, but have a very specific signal meaning.
As a result, the Pentagon lived its own life, and Van Riper's forces lived theirs. Naturally, the attacking side had information about enemy missile systems and aircraft. Accordingly, vigilant control was established over all airfields, missile launchers. Van Riper simulated active activity at these sites, leading analysts to conclude that active measures were being planned to attack the ship-based American Expeditionary Force.
In parallel, Van Riper armed a huge number of small ships with small launchers. A significant part of them daily approached American ships and immediately retreated before reaching the danger zone. As a result, these approximations became commonplace and observers simply got tired of them.
On a certain day, the Marine did not wait for the landing, but continuing to imitate preparations at airfields and launch complexes, he transmitted a signal to battle through motorcyclists and mullahs. Countless boats with weapons and suicide bombers attacked the American flotilla, unprepared for a surprise attack and unaware of the possibility of such an unusual strike. Three hours after the start of the attack, the judges of the war game found that the American fleet and expeditionary force had suffered losses incompatible with the further conduct of the operation.
However, the people playing for the side of the attackers decided not to stop the maneuvers, but raised the sunken ships from the bottom of the bay and continued preparations for landing on the coast.
The landing party was landed. Against expectations, the defending side offered no resistance. The troops calmly captured the coast, nearby oil fields and refineries and moved inland. In parallel with the landing, the airfields and launch complexes of the defenders were destroyed. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and prepared to enter the enemy capital and end the game.
At that moment, again, according to a prearranged signal, the special forces in the guise of workers and technicians who remained in the oil fields and refineries, as well as facilities responsible for water supply, simultaneously produced massive explosions. As a result, the expeditionary corps was separated from the supply bases simply by a wall of fire, burning and water from the blown-up reservoirs that poured into the swamps, along which the bulk roads passed. At the same time, the amount of burning and dust that rose into the sky made it difficult to fly at low altitudes. As a result, the troops found themselves without helicopter support. This completely disorganized the advancing units, which were attacked in various places by small, well-armed and well-versed battle groups. Cut off from their bases, deprived of air support, and attacked along the entire perimeter, the weakened, counting on a victorious march of part of the attackers, found themselves in a trap.
The Pentagon officials, again, in violation of all the rules for conducting maneuvers, and in conflict with the laws of physics, decided that the cinder settles and the fire immediately goes out. After that, Van Riper refused to continue the war game. From that moment on, both the attackers and the defenders were played by the Pentagon generals. The game naturally ended with the victory of the attackers. But a month later, the whole story hit the pages of leading American newspapers and television news, and a huge scandal erupted.
What is interesting for us is that linear and non-linear strategy and tactics collided in this war game. In the first case, the traditional means of ensuring superiority and maximizing the efficient use of resources were used. These methods are common to both military and business. Actually, the vast majority of large, medium and small companies operate on them.
Paul Van Riper applied a non-linear strategy and tactics based on the so-called adaptive control, which is inherent not to mechanical, but to biological systems. After the story of the maneuvers hit the press and television, the Marine gave a large number of interviews in which he spoke in detail about his approach to non-linear strategy and tactics.
I have taken the trouble to extract from these materials and present Van Riper's approach in the form of seven principles, which I will discuss in the second, final part of the post.
Before you is General Paul Van Riper - the man who inflicted the most severe defeat on the American Navy in the entire history of its existence.
Asymmetric advantages, net-centric warfare, capability-based strategy - everyone has heard these smart and pretentious phrases that should ensure American dominance over any adversary. What is the problem? The alleged adversary is spherical in a vacuum, technologically backward and without a military education. About the case when the enemy has brains - read on.
So, in 2002, the United States is conducting the largest military exercise in history to test network-centric capabilities, electronic warfare and other things, the Milennium Challenge 2002.
The exercises lasted 3 weeks and cost $ 250 billion. The likely enemy was not named, but everyone understood that it was Iran - a technologically lagging coastal state that the US Navy is forcing into democracy by mass landing from the sea. He commanded the "Reds" - that is, the conditional enemy, General Paul Van Riper. "Blue", that is, the American fleet was commanded by Peter Pace.
Having refused the demand to lay down their arms, the Reds, having learned about the approach of the fleet, did not use radar and communication systems, as the Blues had assumed. To clarify the coordinates of the enemy ships, they sent a flotilla of small boats, messengers on motorcycles were used to transmit signals from headquarters to the front, and the planes took off in complete radio silence using World War II light signals. Therefore, the blues, who relied so much on their radio interception capabilities, were completely unaware. At this time, a massive blow was dealt to their fleet by not so hot, but cheap anti-ship missiles. The blue missile defense system, despite its technical excellence, could not cope with such a DDoS attack of incoming targets and tritely glitched, standards and gatlings physically did not have time to shoot down everyone. The final chord was an attack by a horde of small kamikaze boats, which the blues were also unable to repel. As a result, 16 ships were conditionally destroyed, including an aircraft carrier and 5 UDC.
From the current situation, everyone was so stunned that the exercises were suspended, and the commander of the blue began to whine, they say, “I died conditionally at the very beginning of the exercises, now I can’t learn anything, because I don’t have to fight anymore”
As a result, the scenario started anew, all conditionally sunk ships were "resurrected", but the rules have changed. The Reds had to activate the radars so that the Blues could destroy them. In addition, the Reds did not even have the right to shoot down transport planes and blue helicopters that were delivering forces to the landing site (!).
Realizing the unrealistic nature of the exercises, Van Riper refused to command the Reds. It became obvious that the troops are learning not to react dynamically to an unpredictably changing combat situation, but to act according to a pre-written scenario. Instead of any gratitude or joint analysis of what happened, Reaper received only a wave of ridicule from other generals, who said that the exercises went like clockwork and confirmed the correctness of American strategic concepts.
As a result, we (but not some high-seated military bigwigs) come to the conclusion that technology is insanely cool and easy, but no amount of technology outweighs overwhelming numerical superiority and smart heads on the shoulders.
The Man Who Inflicted the Heaviest Defeat on the American Navy
Looking at you from the photograph is General Paul Van Riper, the man who inflicted the worst defeat on the American Navy in its entire history.
Asymmetric advantages, net-centric warfare, capability-based strategy - everyone has heard these smart and pretentious phrases that should ensure American dominance over any adversary. What is the problem? The alleged adversary is spherical in a vacuum, technologically backward and without a military education. About the case when the enemy has brains - read on.
So, in 2002, the United States is conducting the largest military exercise in history to test network-centric capabilities, electronic warfare and other things, the Milennium Challenge 2002.
The exercises lasted 3 weeks and cost $250 million (a quarter of a billion!). The likely adversary was not named, but everyone understood that it was Iran, a technologically backward coastal state that the US Navy is forcing into democracy by mass landing from the sea. He commanded the "Reds" - that is, the conditional enemy, General Paul Van Riper. "Blue", that is, the American fleet was commanded by Peter Pace.
Having refused the demand to lay down their arms, the Reds, having learned about the approach of the fleet, did not use radar and communication systems, as the Blues had assumed. To clarify the coordinates of the enemy ships, they sent a flotilla of small boats, messengers on motorcycles were used to transmit signals from headquarters to the front, and the planes took off in complete radio silence using World War II light signals. Therefore, the blues, who relied so much on their radio interception capabilities, were completely unaware. At this time, a massive blow was dealt to their fleet by not so hot, but cheap anti-ship missiles. The blue missile defense system, despite its technical excellence, could not cope with such a DDoS attack of incoming targets and tritely glitched, standards and gatlings physically did not have time to shoot down everyone. The final chord was an attack by a horde of small kamikaze boats, which the blues were also unable to repel. As a result, 16 ships were conditionally destroyed, including an aircraft carrier and 5 UDC.
From the current situation, everyone was so fucked up that the exercises were suspended, and the commander of the blue began to whine, they say, “I died conditionally at the very beginning of the exercises, now I can’t learn anything, because I don’t have to fight anymore”
As a result, the scenario started anew, all conditionally sunk ships were "resurrected", but the rules have changed. The Reds had to activate the radars so that the Blues could destroy them. In addition, the Reds did not even have the right to shoot down transport planes and blue helicopters that were delivering forces to the landing site (!).
Realizing the unrealistic nature of the exercises, Van Riper refused to command the Reds. It became obvious that the troops are learning not to react dynamically to an unpredictably changing combat situation, but to act according to a pre-written scenario.
Instead of any gratitude or joint analysis of what happened, Reaper received only a wave of ridicule from other generals, who said that the exercises went like clockwork and confirmed the correctness of American strategic concepts.
As a result, we (but not some high-seated military bigwigs) come to the conclusion that technology is insanely cool and easy, but no amount of technology outweighs overwhelming numerical superiority and smart heads on the shoulders.
In 2002, the US Army conducted an unprecedented exercise, called the Millennium Challenge 2002 ("Millennium Challenge"), which cost the country's budget $ 250 million.
The exercises were supposed to show the visual superiority of networked combat technologies that provide the American army with greater flexibility in tactical decisions and the effectiveness of the use of weapons.
The opposing sides were divided into the US Army - the "blues" - and its opponents - the "reds".
The military did not want to fail in the eyes of the political elite, on which the size of the army budget depended, so the conditions for the exercises were edited as much as possible in favor of the “blue”, which had a huge military-technical advantage over the enemy.
According to legend, the "Reds" were a third world country armed with obsolete equipment, and they were put in command of a general who had already retired for ten years.
old guard
U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant General (ret.) Paul Van Riper was one of those times when it was not customary to laugh at the American military. These soldiers fought off Viet Cong attacks in the jungle for days, were able to make quick decisions in the heat of battle and stand to the last.
During the first deployment to Vietnam in 1966, Officer Van Riper was literally riddled with a Vietnamese machine gun, while Paul wanted to shoot an enemy shooter in a rice field. Two years later, Van Riper returned to Vietnam, where he won the respect of his subordinates, who made legends about him.
“He was a real fighter,” recalls another soldier from Mike Company. - He did not sit at a desk, but he himself led people into battle. I remember once I was with the squad in a night ambush and received a radio call from the company commander. He informed me that one hundred and twenty-one little men, in the sense of the Vietnamese, were advancing towards my position, and my task was to repel the attack. I say: "Commander, I have nine people." He said he would bring in reinforcements if I needed them. That's how he was. The enemy is there, there are nine of us, and there are one hundred and twenty-one of them, and he had no doubt that we should join the battle. Wherever our Rip fought, the enemy retreated before his tactics.
Another officer recalls: “As a young lieutenant, it never occurred to me that you could do physical training in the jungle. But we did. And who would have thought of doing tactical training or practicing bayonet attack in the jungle?”
During his military career, Van Riper managed to visit Iraq, Israel, Lebanon and Okinawa, take part in the Desert Shield and Desert Storm operations and rise to the highest positions in the US Marine Corps.
Side forces
The Blues had a huge military-technical advantage - they had a powerful intellectual resource at their disposal, which, probably, did not exist in the entire history of the US armed forces. Especially for them, a method of systematic assessment of the operational situation was developed, which makes it possible to break the enemy forces into a number of systems and find his weakest points.
The Blues commanders received a complete picture of the combat situation in real time and had the tools of joint interactive planning, that is, they had all the capabilities that the Pentagon had.
Such awareness was perfectly in line with the goals of the Millennium Challenge - to demonstrate that with the help of powerful satellites, sensors and supercomputers it is possible to dispel the fog of war - to constantly know about all the movements and plans of the enemy.
Plus, the "blue" received three full-fledged strike aircraft carrier groups and a landing force of marines.
What happened to the Reds? Several diesel submarines, a mosquito fleet of missile boats, several coastal anti-ship systems and ballistic missiles, and obsolete aircraft. It's no secret that the "Reds" imitated the armed forces of Iran, and all the fighting took place in a place remarkably similar to the Persian Gulf.
We give you permission to surrender
Confident in their superiority, the Blues landed tens of thousands of soldiers on the very first day in the Persian Gulf and deployed a combat aircraft carrier off the coast of the Reds. This was followed by an eight-point ultimatum, the last of which ordered the Reds to lay down their arms and surrender.
And what else was left for them: a powerful computer system calculated the possible actions of the enemy and told the Blues where the Reds had vulnerabilities, what their likely actions would be and what the range of their possible reactions would be.
In addition, the Blues destroyed the Reds' radio antenna masts, cut their fiber-optic communication lines and believed that the enemy would be forced to use cell phones, which were quite easy to tap.
It should be noted that Paul Van Riper did not like all the points of the ultimatum, and especially the last one.
Van Riper strikes back
The numerical and technical superiority of the enemy, as well as the loss of communications, did not in the least embarrass the retired lieutenant general.
“They said it would be a surprise for the Reds,” Van Riper recalls. - Surprise? Yes, any even slightly informed person understands how dangerous it is to rely on technology. And the “blues” seem to have fallen from the moon, who will use mobile communications after what happened to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan?”
The commanders of the "red" formations transmitted messages with motorcyclists and disguised them as prayers. Commands to combat aircraft were given with the help of light signals. Computers couldn't calculate this, and when Van Riper decided to attack first, his blow turned out to be unexpected and crushing.
On the second day of the war, he sent small missile boats into the Persian Gulf to monitor the ships of the Blues, and then, without warning, attacked the enemy and bombarded his positions with cruise missiles for an hour. Not only ships fired, but both aircraft and coastal installations launched missiles at the enemy fleet, plus kamikaze attacks on boats filled with explosives were added to this.
The massive rocket attack overwhelmed the Blues' air defenses and destroyed an aircraft carrier, 10 cruisers, and 5 out of 6 landing ships. Such losses in a real war would have resulted in the death of 20,000 personnel.
Who does not risk does not sink an aircraft carrier
After the fight began, Van Riper explained to his subordinates that he did not need theories, reasoning, long meetings, explanations:
"The first thing I said to my staff officers: you will be under my command, but not under my control."
Also, the lieutenant general was against long meetings:
“I told my headquarters that we would not use the terminology of the “blues” and that I did not want to hear about a systemic assessment of the operational situation. Don't get tangled up in all these mechanized processes when you need to use wisdom, experience and common sense."
Such a management system, of course, involves some risk. This means that Van Riper did not always know for sure how his troops were going to act. But the calculation of the talented commander was fully justified - while the "blues" were drowning in a sea of information, trying to coordinate it with the authorities and deduce a common plan of action, the "reds" acted almost autonomously, at their own peril and risk, and won.
Instead of an epilogue
The unexpected attack of the "Reds" and the subsequent defeat of the "Blues" led their commanders to despair: the war was lost. Then the leadership of the exercises intervened in the matter, which played everything back: the sunken ships were resurrected, all 12 ballistic missiles fired by Van Riper at the ports in the bay area were shot down by an unknown heavy-duty air defense system of the “blues”.
Also during the exercises, Van Riper destroyed the leaders of the pro-American countries in the region - he was told that the assassination attempts were unsuccessful. And in the future, with any successful move by the retired lieutenant general, everything was immediately replayed.
Van Riper bitterly recalled: “When I went to the checkpoint, I saw how amazing instructions were given to my team - like: “Turn off the radar, otherwise you are interfering with the blue”. Withdraw the infantry so their marines can safely land."
When Van Riper asked if he could shoot down at least one V-22 (an American tiltrotor that combines the separate advantages of an airplane and a helicopter), he was told that it was forbidden.
Under such conditions, the Reds could not resist for a long time, and the Millennium Challenge in the new version ended in a triumphant victory for the Blues.