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Comment by ethbro | Hacker News Reader

Pentagon has plan for X, for values of X that are possible, is literally the job.

Do we want a military with extremely powerful weapons executing a carefully considered and studied plan, or just winging it?

And truth be told, joint / cooperative exercises are often more about C2 experience and relationship building and less about the actual objective. "Aliens attack" would be almost as effective at the primary goals. So why not have some fun with it?

The Intercept does veer into click-bait occasionally.

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> Pentagon has plan for X, for values of X that are possible, is literally the job.

To wit: "War Plan Red" is an US old war plan, developed in the 20s and 30s, for a war with Britain/Canada, fought entirely in Canada (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red). Similarly, "Defence Scheme No. 1" was Canada's plan for a surprise invasion of the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_Scheme_No._1).

"War Plan White", from the same series, dealt with a domestic uprising (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_color-coded_war_...).

The fact that they are doing their job is not interesting or relevant. What's interesting and important is the specific scenario they are forced to consider, and what it says about the state of the country.

The reasons behind this type of planning are interesting, but I wouldn't read too much into them. I've sat in on this type of wargaming before, and generally the workflow is as follows:

Military think-tank identifies a situation for which where there is no modern war plan, a situation which could possibly happen if global circumstances change.

Think-tank writes up a detailed notional scenario describing the world in which that situation could occur and hands it off to military leaders.

Military leaders present it as a war game to their staff, assign different units to different sides.

Military staff proceeds to generate plans to win their side of the 'war', possibly executing maneuvers in mock battles or training events, and write up lessons learned and battle tactics and strategies.

These write ups are compiled into "war plans" and codified.

To clarify, these are done constantly. A large portion of the training events that the average military service member does are in support of these wargames. They are extremely effective in keeping up mission readiness at all levels; commanders get practice solving difficult military problems in peacetime, battalions get practice coordinating deployments and operations, and individual units and personnel get practice using tactics and equipment. The only real downside is that they are vastly expensive.

They are less expensive than losing the occasional war.

True! But when was last time the US was forced into a war? I believe that was World War 2. Ever since then we have been voluntarily policing the world, and losing many of those "wars".

His point is that plans like this are generated regardless of the current state of the country, therefore it says nothing about how polarised or at risk of rebellion America is today.

(a) they had a scenario for response to domestic boomer rebellion, and it probably wasn't new then

(b) for current purposes, JCS has sided with the people

> (b) for current purposes, JCS has sided with the people

What do you mean? The closest "current purposes" have come to rebellion is looting and rioting, and there's no indication that anyone in the military has approved of that. Hell, many _protesters_ don't agree with it.

sorry, I was referring to coup-watching the US. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23412986

I'm seeing military and a majority of the media as not being with the White House on "dominating the battlespace". Am I missing other power centers? (I think the Fed would prefer to see some emphasis on addressing the pandemic)

Ah thanks for clarifying

You're welcome. See also Todd Winn:

https://www.military.com/benefits/military-legal/court-marti...

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