"Norman Schwarzkopf & Wargaming" Topic

Norman Schwarzkopf and Wargaming

INTERNAL LOOK is a biennial JCS sponsored, CENTCOM coordinated, and Command Post Exercise (CPX) based on a real-world contingency plan. Its operational concept is focused on joint battle staff warfighting at the strategic and operational level. The primary training audience is CENTCOM's combatant commander and the USCENTCOM headquarters staff. The secondary training audience is composed of CENTCOM service and functional component commanders, their staffs and selected allied forces. INTERNAL LOOK is CENTCOM's major CPX and facilitates training the full battle staff for CENTCOM and its components. It also allows Third Army to exercise its deputy joint land forces command responsibilities.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) and Third Army prudently anticipated the Gulf War crisis that occurred in 1990. The initial Third Army plans drawn up to support Internal Look and operations plan (OPLAN) 1002-90 for CENTCOM recommended a heavy armored force whose closure would be in question due to sea-lift limitations. However, this force offered more combat power and an offensive capability that Army planners believed previous planning forces lacked. This prudent planning by military professionals was reflected in the Army Desert Shield force deployments and closure through the end of October 1990. Internal Look showed Saudi Arabia could be defended against Iraqi invaders, but at great cost.

As the exercise unfolded, the real-world movements of Iraq's air and ground forces eerily paralleled the scripted scenario of the war game. So closely did actual intelligence reports resemble the fictional exercise messages, the latter had to be prominently stamped "Exercise Only." During the last few days of INTERNAL LOOK, Saddam Hussein's forces invaded and captured Kuwait on 2 August 1990. Suddenly in possession of Kuwait's oil fields, Iraq was poised to acquire the even more valuable prize of the Arabian Peninsula. General Schwarzkopf's immediate requirements were to develop a military strategy and courses of action to stop the potential Iraqi invasion of Saudi Arabia.

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Wolfhag

Interesting.