A US general has revealed that the US military
“ailed miserably” in a war game with China,
leading to a major fighting strategy change.
They knew exactly what we’re going to do before we did it,’ he said.
The United States’ readiness for armed conflict
was put to the test in an exercise last October 2020,
which ended up uncovering serious weaknesses
in its warfighting strategy,
reports Business Insider.
Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Hyten
said on Monday, 27 July 2021,
“Without overstating the issue, it failed miserably."
During the simulated war,
described as a fictional confrontation with China,
that involved a fight over Taiwan,
the imaginary enemy upended
the blue team’s strategy ( the United States’)
of “information dominance”.
An aggressive red team ( taking the role of hostiles ),
that had been studying the United States for the last 20 years
just ran rings around us," said Mr Hyten.
He added, "they knew exactly what we’re going to do before we did it,
and they took advantage of it.”
Mr Hyten said that the US forces attempted
to establish information dominance,
“just like it was in the first Gulf War,
just like it has been for the last 20 years,
just like everybody in the world,
including China and Russia,
have watched us do for the last 30 years.”
Imagine what our actual competitors
have been doing for the last 20 years,
with probably even more focus,
with larger numbers," Hyten said.
"So we had to take a step back and look broadly and say:
'OK, what did we miss?
Hyten characterized the situation as a "big problem."
The US military also learned from the simulated engagement
that aggregating American forces might not be the best option
against a great power adversary.
"In today's world, with hypersonic missiles,
with significant long-range fires coming at us from all domains,
if you're aggregated and everybody knows where you are,
you're vulnerable," Hyten said.
The exercise demonstrated that the US military
cannot take for granted the advantages it has had in the past,
as it thinks about how best to address higher-end threats
from rival powers like China and Russia.
In the wake of that exercise,
the Pentagon has been looking at how to address
the vulnerabilities in its warfighting strategy.
The military is changing its Joint Warfighting Concept
to an "expanded maneuver" strategy.
The new warfighting approach,
which the Pentagon argues is necessary to deter
future Chinese or Russian aggression,
looks at things like contested logistics,
joint fires, joint all-domain command and control,
and establishing an information advantage.
The purpose of the new warfighting strategy,
Hyten explained, is to reshape logistics,
develop the capability to fire on an adversary from everywhere
in such a way that an adversary cannot defend itself,
and connect command and control links to give commanders
a much clearer picture of the battlefield.
Hyten, according to Stars and Stripes,
stressed the importance of making these changes,
arguing that the stakes are high
and that the US military's warfighting edge over rival powers
like China is "shrinking fast."