Red Teaming Iraq

[marct]

marc,your to nice and normal and decent to even try something like that, and so or the other folks on SWC that should be on the team (Tom,Jedburgh,JC,RTK,Rob Thorton and others especially SWJED and Grand Visier). In the end "decency" will be our edge if we do it right, if you need to kill them then do it clean, no psycho stuff. But out weakness will be counter measures, but we could shine if we put our minds to it. No need for decent folks to got to very dark places like our enemy lives in, just hire the real thing and learn how to beat it.

Well, quoth he quoting another great American philosopher, "you don't know me very well" (Bugs Bunny).

Slapout, thanks for the vote of confidence <wry grin>. Sometime, we'll sit down over beers and discuss the concept of "nice". You are absolutely right that, in the end, "decency" will be what wins this for us. BTW, I'd add you to that impromptu team list .

As for going into "very dark places", I've been there, as have many other people in the council. I don't think that it is going into the dark that is the problem - it's how we deal with coming into the light afterwards. All of us have seen things that would turn the stomachs of "civilians" (yeah, I know, I'm not military. Let me just say that one cannot research modern Witchcraft without running into stuff that is "beyond the pale".). It's how we deal with it, and our "selves" that is the key to why we will win.

Marc

[slapout9]

Very True! Gotta go-Later folks

[Rob Thornton]

Back in the bgining of this thread it was brought up that part of the effectiveness of such a team would be tied to how receptive the audience was to results. This mad me think first of the debate about Van Ripper and Millenium Challenge. Red Teams are often associated with experimentation, I think this is different. In an article written by a former boss (COL Bob Brown), he said he'd had his BDE (1/25th) come up with a "devious bastard" to play red during "war gaming". This guys was selected because he had big enough fingers to poke with. This was not the 2 because the 2 has competing agendas - and this was more of a manuever kid of function.

I wonder though - will the Red Team get the first "turn" (back to the simulation speak), or do they look at it different?

I think the red Team has to consider it from more then just the tactical or operational perspective. They may have to begin somewhere with a quasi-strategic context that considers the political, relgious, petro-economics, criminal, cultural aspects of what the different players are trying to accomplish, then have some other folks on their team look at the resources they have to execute the tactics which would help realize it. Even amongst the tactical players - you are going to have to inject some friction - beause not all of these folks want the same things, or even realize they might be being manipulated.

If you take a dozen guys with roughly the same background and belief systems and put them on a team - they are going to achieve a kind of natural synchronization - and they probably won't even know it. They will bond in a sort of way, and they will lose some of their objectivity. They will bring a order from something that is closer to chaos at the tactical level (my opinnion). Sometimes things change here and we say the AIF has figured out how to defeat something we're doing, but then it turns out that somebody left, or somebody (AIF) got taken out of the equation, or there was a supply or distribution plan that caused them to change, or a rift, or any number of other things.

Sometimes I think I see something coming because I see it on the local news carried in from national or regional, and I say, some smart AIF guy is going to try a variation of that, and it happens - but I can't say for sure how he decided to do that - did he see it on the news, was it a natural migration of TTP or is there somebody new in town?

There has to be more to the composition of the Red Team then just skeptics, and there has to be analysis of the red action that applies to the context of the situation. I think any group when put into an environmental box will develop a level of bias. I think its not nearly as important that they be skeptics as it is that they are objective, self - analytic and within reason argumentative about their "role's" interests. This will have to be a talented group - the observation about co-opting former actors would be a pretty good bench mark - but if that is not acheivable, it might still be better to go outside the military and retired contractor community. How about buisness men that have experience in cut-throat economics, bring in a priest or two who might be familiar with papal maneuvering, a former congressman or lobbyist, a lawyer, a doctor, an insurance broker, a real estate agent, a detective, a convicted white collar type, people who if placed in different conditions will adapt and not roll over- resourceful people who can make use of things provide them in the context of advancing their cause.

Oh- and give them a shelf life that considers what happens if they bond too close - once that's over you have a unified movement - if the Insurgency ever develops into that I guess it would be OK, but right now I'd say no (unless you want multiple teams) - or you could occassionally inject new elements into their role - i.e. if external factors start to pressure a particular faction, then the person representing that faction needs to incorporate it as it changes his decision process. I'd also ask if you absolutely have to bring them Iraq to do it? Maybe some, maybe none, maybe part at a time.

[marct]

Hi Rob,

Sorry about the short response yesterday.

I think that what we are looking at here is an attempt to institute what the Dominicans and other Orders used to call the Advocatus Diaboli (Devil's Advocate) role. In many of the Orders, the person fulfilling the role was granted a form of immunity for anything they said while in that role - similar to Canada's Auditor General.

At an institutional level, part of the problem lies in the intersection between those who are institutionally acceptable, usually measured by previous experience within the institution, and perceptual capability of thinking outside of the institution. Let me put it another way, a good, experienced SGT can spot holes in an LTs plans easily, but the way they would spot holes is based on their experience within the institution. This is a matter of an "expert" criticizing someone with less skills, and it's not what a Red Team or Devil's Advocate should be doing.

Historically, the Devil's Advocate role should be held by someone who knows some or most of the institutional experience base, but can shift to another experience base. This is why your suggestions for "buisness men that have experience in cut-throat economics, bring in a priest or two who might be familiar with papal maneuvering, a former congressman or lobbyist, a lawyer, a doctor, an insurance broker, a real estate agent, a detective, a convicted white collar type," makes a lot of sense, especially if they have served a term or been involved in an analogous institution.

But will this be enough? Honestly, I think that Red Teams are a part of a step towards a solution, but they don't go far enough. All a Red Team can do is explain "why" something didn't work and generate new options inside the institutional matrix. So, how to get beyond that?

Well, to start with, take an organizational matrix that is already familiar but not curently in use: let's say the old OSS . Seperate them out, institutionally, and use them as the institutional base for the Red Teams. Recruit people to work for them on a part-time, distributed basis as well as a full time basis. In addition to the type of people you've mentioned, I would add in hackers, cyberpunks, moderate Muslim clerics, magicians, Anthropologists, game designers, development specialists, systems analysts, web designers, etc.

Use the 'net to advantage. When I mentioned a "distributed basis" I was refering to the type of interactions that we have here. No one is getting paid for their time on this board, but there are a lot of good ideas generated. Can this be leveraged for a "new" institution? Probably.

Marc

[Merv Benson]

It is fairly common in major litigation battles for large firms to get attorney's to play the devil's advocate role to probe for weakness and help prepare rebuttal arguments. It is almost always done in cases argued before the Supreme Court. It is very helpful in preparing for those contest.

[Rob Thornton]

Originally posted by Merv Benson:

It is fairly common in major litigation battles for large firms to get attorney's to play the devil's advocate role to probe for weakness and help prepare rebuttal arguments. It is almost always done in cases argued before the Supreme Court. It is very helpful in preparing for those contest.

From Marc:

But will this be enough? Honestly, I think that Red Teams are a part of a step towards a solution, but they don't go far enough. All a Red Team can do is explain "why" something didn't work and generate new options inside the institutional matrix. So, how to get beyond that?

What if once the initial composition of the Red Team was decided -

something like -

This will have to be a talented group - the observation about co-opting former actors would be a pretty good bench mark - but if that is not acheivable, it might still be better to go outside the military and retired contractor community. How about buisness men that have experience in cut-throat economics, bring in a priest or two who might be familiar with papal maneuvering, a former congressman or lobbyist, a lawyer, a doctor, an insurance broker, a real estate agent, a detective, a convicted white collar type, people who if placed in different conditions will adapt and not roll over- resourceful people who can make use of things provide them in the context of advancing their cause.

They then had a "Green Team" who helped advise the Blue on how to counter, mitigate, prevent. Since we are talking about Asymetric enemy actions and responses - it might be good to have Asymetric counters from people who are outside both the Blue and the Red. Blue and Red will both develop bias - it is a natural tendency to fall in love with aspects of your plan or the whole plan.

It may also be worth considering augmentation of the teams with Iraqis or as close as you can get. Many US professionals might need some "environmental stimulus" type of mood music to help them slip into the role. Even if this is only for a HQs inside the Green Zone - you still have to consider how big to make it if you want it to be responsive and agile - its a trade between having what you need and getting it in time to make a difference.

[marct]

They then had a "Green Team" who helped advise the Blue on how to counter, mitigate, prevent. Since we are talking about Asymetric enemy actions and responses - it might be good to have Asymetric counters from people who are outside both the Blue and the Red. Blue and Red will both develop bias - it is a natural tendency to fall in love with aspects of your plan or the whole plan.

It may also be worth considering augmentation of the teams with Iraqis or as close as you can get. Many US professionals might need some "environmental stimulus" type of mood music to help them slip into the role. Even if this is only for a HQs inside the Green Zone - you still have to consider how big to make it if you want it to be responsive and agile - its a trade between having what you need and getting it in time to make a difference.

Hmmm, could work. There's an idea floating around that I don't want to post - I'll PM you.

Marc

[SWJED]

Originally posted by Merv Benson:

They then had a "Green Team" who helped advise the Blue on how to counter, mitigate, prevent. Since we are talking about Asymetric enemy actions and responses - it might be good to have Asymetric counters from people who are outside both the Blue and the Red. Blue and Red will both develop bias - it is a natural tendency to fall in love with aspects of your plan or the whole plan.

It may also be worth considering augmentation of the teams with Iraqis or as close as you can get. Many US professionals might need some "environmental stimulus" type of mood music to help them slip into the role. Even if this is only for a HQs inside the Green Zone - you still have to consider how big to make it if you want it to be responsive and agile - its a trade between having what you need and getting it in time to make a difference.

I'm a big fan of 'green teaming' - we had a green cell in Joint Urban Warrior 04 and 05. JUW 06 was not a 'traditional' wargame but we included green expertise during our seminars and working group sessions. Our green cell was composed of subject matter experts who injected the perspectives of the local population, host nation government, the news media, regional and international official organizations and non-governmental organizations - plus others. While not perfect - we had to use surrogates when a particular expertise was not available for example - it added a dynamic that exists in the 'real world' and one we had to capture at JUW. Of note, we would let green interact with red and there were some in the green cell who were supporting or otherwise sympathic to red. Blue had to figure that out...