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

A counterpoint: https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/4qfoiw/mil... and https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/la7elp/comment/...

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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

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.