Re: Fighting the Next War
Instead of a monolithic enemy, there are often several Red teams, fighting against each other as well as the Blue team. This complicates things for Red team players like me, but frankly, it's a fascinating way to make a living.
It's not just the Red teams that are changing; so is the definition of victory.
The outcome of many games is determined by a new addition, the Green team. Green represents the civilian population, the media and the international community — once bystanders, now the ultimate arbitrators.
We use a similar process for wargaming in my classroom -- rather than just wargaming with a "Red" and "Blue" side going through the process of action - reaction - counteraction, we frequently use multiple "Red Cells" (representing various adversary groups which may or may not act together), multiple "Blue Cells" (representing various coalition partners which may have different objectives or end states), multiple "Green Cells" (representing local government, NGOs/PVOs, media, and other actors), and a "White Cell" for arbitration. This process makes the wargame enormously complex and tedious, but the results are also closer to reality.
At the end of each wargame move, we also analyze each of the logical lines of operation for second and third order effects of the actions - reactions - counteractions of each of the players... This helps to identify potential branches to the plan that may need further planning or synchronization.