You may have read about the war games held last summer against an Iraq-like opponent, and how the leader of the oppo Red Force in that exercise, a retired Marine general, raised a stink that the games were "fixed" to yield a Blue Force victory. Here's the end of one recent article (with a useful link or two) on the episode:

Finally, the paper quoted a retired Army officer who has played in several war games with Van Riper. "What he's done is, he's made himself an expert in playing Red, and he's real obnoxious about it," the officer said. "He will insist on being able to play Red as freely as possible and as imaginatively and creatively, within the bounds of the framework of the game and the technology horizons and all that, as possible. He can be a real pain in the ass, but that's good. ...He's a great patriot and he's doing all those things for the right reasons."

Clearly, the Pentagon needs to encourage obnoxious Red commanders, not suppress them. Scripted war-game enemies may roll over, but, as we're seeing, real enemies sometimes think of tricky ways to fight back.

[link|http://slate.msn.com/id/2080814/|http://slate.msn.com/id/2080814/]

A more detailed account from the Army Times last August:

[link|http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1060102.php|http://www.armytimes...92925-1060102.php]

cordially,