Red Team's Triumph and Rapid Cognition

Key Insight

Paul Van Riper, leading the Red Team as the rogue commander, embodied a counter-philosophy to Blue Team's systematic approach, believing war's inherent unpredictability made 'lifting the fog of war' impossible. His strategy was informed by observing experts who make rapid, high-pressure decisions with limited information, such as commodity traders, whom he considered 'soul mates' to military leaders.

On the war game's opening day, Blue Team, confident in its data-driven analysis, poured thousands of troops into the Persian Gulf and issued an ultimatum. They anticipated Red Team's reliance on electronic communications, but Van Riper circumvented this by using couriers on motorcycles, messages hidden in prayers, and World War II-era lighting systems for aircraft, rendering Blue Team's surveillance assumptions useless.

Red Team then launched a devastating hour-long surprise attack on the second day. Employing a fleet of small boats to track Blue Team ships, Van Riper barraged them with cruise missiles from multiple directions, sinking 16 American vessels, including the aircraft carrier, major cruisers, and five of six amphibious ships. This simulated 20,000 American casualties before Blue Team could fire a shot, highlighting Red Team's effective rapid cognition and Blue Team's catastrophic failure to anticipate an unconventional response.