Well, yeah, that was General Pace’s justification. But the Red team was then forced to use a pre-set strategy for the rest of the exercise, which was restrictive enough that its commander, General Paul Van Riper, outright resigned midway through. He later said that “We were directed… to move air defences so that the army and marine units could successfully land. We were simply directed to turn [air defence systems] off or move them… So it was scripted to be whatever the control group wanted it to be.” He also later explicitly compared General Pace’s thinking to that of the Defense Department under McNamara, which is why I brought it up.
Well, yeah, that was General Pace’s justification. But the Red team was then forced to use a pre-set strategy for the rest of the exercise, which was restrictive enough that its commander, General Paul Van Riper, outright resigned midway through. He later said that “We were directed… to move air defences so that the army and marine units could successfully land. We were simply directed to turn [air defence systems] off or move them… So it was scripted to be whatever the control group wanted it to be.” He also later explicitly compared General Pace’s thinking to that of the Defense Department under McNamara, which is why I brought it up.