Paul Van Riper’s interesting pre-war experience

April 25, 2006

As you may have heard, an [tag]eighth[/tag] [tag]retired[/tag] [tag]general[/tag] announced yesterday that Defense Secretary Donald [tag]Rumsfeld[/tag] should [tag]resign[/tag]. This one, though, has an even more compelling back-story than some of his colleagues.

Fox News is reporting an eighth general has called for Rumsfeld’s resignation. Ret. Marine General [tag]Paul Van Riper[/tag] said he constantly talks with many active duty and retired senior officers who share his feelings that Secretary Rumsfeld has not fought the Iraq war competently. He told Fox that Rumsfeld has run the Pentagon through intimidation and that a change in leadership is needed:

“If this leader is not capable of doing it, now going in excess of five years, has not demonstrated he is, then perhaps it is time to find a new one. If I was the president, I would have relieved him three years ago.”

And who is Gen. Paul Van Riper? Reader AYM reminded me that Malcolm Gladwell devoted most of a chapter in “Blink” to the retired Marine. Apparently, in 2002, Van Riper was responsible for playing an enemy commander (i.e., Saddam) in a war game against U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf. In fact, it’s an interesting story.

The Pentagon had anticipated that the United States, with its superior intelligence-gathering capabilities, its total informational superiority, and its carefully delineated leadership structures, would crush the enemy forces. But van Riper outfoxed them. Using surprise and low-tech solutions, he devastated the U.S. forces. […]

[W]hen van Riper talks about what he did — including a cruise-missile launch against the U.S. fleet — he says, “We’d done all the calculations on how many cruise missiles their ships could handle, so we simply launched more than that. …” Similarly, about his decision to communicate using lighting systems after his side’s electronics technologies were knocked out, he says, “Any moderately informed person would know enough to not count on those technologies.”

Pentagon leaders apparently didn’t pay too much attention to Van Riper at the time. With any luck, his suggestions will be taken a little more seriously now.

NOVA interviews the General. The summary:

“Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, former president of the Marine Corps University, was asked to command the ‘enemy’ forces. In the first days of that mock battle, he used unconventional methods, including a preemptive attack that featured air-, sea-, and ground-launched cruise missiles to sink 16 American ships.

After the American forces decided to refloat the ships and restart the game, Van Riper stepped aside from his role, contending that the rest of the game was scripted for American victory.”

A mulligan. They needed a mulligan.

  • Well the fact that General Van Riper dared to attack the softspots of the American defenses and actually attempt to win the war games points out that he was never a true American. A real American knows that America is always right and can never be defeated. Obviously his whole career was a farce designed to embarass George W. Bush.

  • With any luck, his suggestions will be taken a little more seriously now.

    Probably not. Remember, they wanted the facts to fit the policy. If the large human risk and lack of success doesn’t fit the policy…

    See comment #1

  • I think it is important for everyone to understand that there is NO WAY that Donald Rumsfeld can resign or be fired.

    Can you imagine what the confirmation hearing would be for the new Secretary?

    The politcal price for have any confirmation hearing is just to massive for the administration to ever allow one. I wonder if they would appoint a new Secretary if Rumsfeld were to die???

  • The first post reminds me of the excellent Al Franken observation that republicans love their country the way a five-year-old loves his mommy. There is no room for questions or compromise or seeing anything worthy of criticism. None. Nein!

  • Neil — There was a quote somewhere in the talkingheadosphere last week stating that if Bush fired Rumsfeld he would be in effect firing himself. Personally, I would love to see the admission, and ensuing humiliation, of Bush having to admit that this Iraq situation was mistake from the start. I think that I’ve even coined a new term for the enjoyment I would get, markenfruede, or something to that effect.

  • The real surprise is that the greatest military force in the world would lose a “war games” to a foe pretending to be Sadaam.

    And you wonder why we are still in Iraq after 3 years?

  • I’ve been pointing to this chapter from “Blink” for the past year. I STRONGLY encourage everyone to read it. It gives you a good idea of how this admin changed the way the Pentagon operates.

    Not only was the U.S. given a ‘mulligan’ during these war games, they changed the rules entirely! Not allowing Van Riper to do things that an ‘enemy’ would do at a time of war.

  • Yes – that’s a great chapter. The only question I have left is, did they do that because they wanted to rig the tests so they’d get the desired outcome, or did they rig the tests so they’d be able to claim they weren’t trying to lose and/or screw it up?

  • I always thought “transformation” was a joke. You can have all of the high-speed technology in the world, and it will always be trumped by human initiative, determination, and the will to fight.

  • Speakin of “transformation”: Isn’t this the same theory that Repugs point to as the downfall of the CIA under Clinton.

    The CIA went for more high tech spying versus the old way of manpower. New spying devices on transmissions of intelligence, spy sattelite photos, etc. with cuts in manpower on the ground. Sure sounds like our new military strategy also.

    It didn’t work for the CIA and it looks like it aint working with the military. Rumsfeld and Bush can blame Clinton for this crisis, except that true leaders are supposed to learn from their own and other leaders’ mistakes.

  • What Van Riper implicates about Rumsfeld that may even be more damaging that Iraq is Rummy’s “new” high-tech army can be defeated by low tech methods. Sept. 11 was essentially a low tech assault and IED’s, the principal method of killing US GI’s, are also fairly low-tech while the insurgents use suicide bombers as their smartbombs. Relying on high tech is a cop-out while the folks deploying low tech are actually being smarter. It takes brains to win.

    We keep counting on the people we’re fighting to be more stupid than we are (remember, they won’t think their phones are tapped until we remind them) but the incompetence of our leaders is the best asset the enemy has.

  • “The CIA went for more high tech spying versus the old way of manpower. New spying devices on transmissions of intelligence, spy sattelite photos, etc. with cuts in manpower on the ground. Sure sounds like our new military strategy also.” – left

    Actually, that would be the NSA wanting more high tech goodies. The CIA is reliably a supporter of human assets collecting intelligence.

  • “You can have all of the high-speed technology in the world, and it will always be trumped by human initiative, determination, and the will to fight.”

    Nots not 100% true either. Its totally depenmds on conditions and your opponent.

    The French put a lot of faith in “Elan” prior to WW I but it didn’t help them against German Machine Guns. They weren’t being stupid for no reason – they were applying lessons learned in Colonial wars against irregulars in a continental war against the German Army. They saw these lessons as universal rather than situation specific and they paid heavily for it.

    That being said I agree for the most part – if they really put their mind to probing our weaknesses our technology will fall far short of our expectations.

  • America is obviously the Death Star.

    GOLD LEADER: Pardon me for asking, sir, but what good are snub fighters going to be against that?

    DODONNA: Well, the Empire doesn’t consider a small one-man fighter to be any threat, or they’d have a tighter defense. An analysis of the plans provided by Princess Leia has demonstrated a weakness in the battle station.

    America, unfortunately, has vulnerable ports all over the place.

  • r4d20,
    The Japanese also believed Bushido would help them defeat the United States, but grossly underestimated our own will to win World War II at any cost.

    Everything looks great on paper before the bullets fly

  • MNProgressive is a douche. I love America, dont get me wrong,but saying that we’re always right and that we can never be defeated is just fucking arrogant. Fighting to win a mock battle by unconventional means is giving us something to look out for, not making George W. Bush look like an idiot(besides George covers that himself). It’s called learning from your mistakes, and what better way to learn than firsthand.

    • Comments are closed.