Mo Best,
The people who create and run these war games are my neighbors and friends. Look it up, Naval War College=Newport RI. Check my profile. My daughter goes to school with the children of those who create these war games. I know many of them, as well as scientists, engineers, and foreign military officers who live on my street who come to learn and participate in the Naval War College study programs......
To imagine that the US military is a bunch of cowboys with no educations and no global perspectives on the world is completely innaccurate.
Interestingly, this War Game was run in 1999, and published somewhat later. The crisis in Kashmir in 2002 was averted largely because of international pressure on India, and the re-engagement of the US with Pakistan. The US economic pressure on India, by creating a "Travel Advisory" was a natural outgrowth of this war game. When high tech executives started evacuating India it created enormous pressure on New Dehli to ratchet down tensions. Certain provisions of the Microsoft Anti-Trust settlement also helped. The outsourcing of IT projects to India is a huge lifeblood of the Indian high technology economy. When these projects are jeopardised through regional instability, the Indian economy suffers enormously. These same types of outsourcing agreements would have yielded some pressure on Pakistan, but had been limited by the withdrawl of most IT outsourcing agreements by this time. Equivalent pressures were exerted throught the garment/linen/textile industries, which remained largely intact through the Afghanistan crisis. The US State Department runs the same type of scenarios, and uses the military warfare scenarios as a backdrop to diplomacy.
Chalk up a couple of years of peace to globalization.
While not a permanent solution, the pressure on India and Pakistan was enough to take the edge off of a crisis, and buy some time towards a solution in Kashmir. The ultimate solution is still in question, of course, but these "war games" go a long way to exposing economic weaknesses, as well as military and political solutions. The State Department uses a similar approach for their diplomatic "war games", and a large degree of their "diplomacy" is always pre-prepared as a result of analysis of potential military options and forethought.
I have had conversations on Imperialism during football games. I have had discussions on the Mid-East with ranking military instructors while at my daughters marching band rehersals. At the Thanksgiving day football game I counted no less than 30 admirals, or future generals. To imagine that the US military is a braindead bunch of testosterone-laden cowboys is completly innaccurate. Most of those running the US military today have extensively traveled the world. Most have Masters Degrees or above. My daugher regularly communicates via email to kids whose parents are stationed in Japan or Korea. Tomorow we are dog sitting for a family whose father supervised the Air Force Nuclear Ballistic Missle arsenal. I go to church with one of the Naval Reserves top admirals.
This is why I laugh at the critics on this board who belittle the US military. They view themselves as fathers and gentlemen of honor, not some blood-thirsty video-game neanderthals. They thoroughly and completely study history, and the interrelationships of power and authority to US policy. They are all patriots, hell, the Portsmouth RI high school teams are called the "Patriots". We live in towns started in the 1600's and 1700's, and we have a distinct set of values based on the history of our country. The leaders of the US military do not desire wealth, nor power. they do not envision dreams of overthrowing the government and threatening the world with tyanny and fear. They are the true-beleivers in democracy and the freedoms that we believe are the inalienable rights of all world citizens. These men have no vested interest in oil companies, or profits and losses, or the thousand things they are accued of...
As are the American people, the military leaders of the US are endowed with a singularly American sense of right and wrong. Totalitarian regimes=wrong. Freedom and democracy=right . You may argue the validity of the policy of America, but these are undoubtedly the values. You may argue the methods, but the purpose is noble.