New War Games Focus On Financial Attacks, and Not Armed Conflict...(From: The Politico)
The Pentagon sponsored a first-of-its-kind war game last month focused not on bullets and bombs - but on how hostile nations might seek to cripple the U.S. economy, a scenario made all the more real by the global financial crisis.
The two-day event near Ft. Meade, Maryland, had all the earmarks of a regular war game. Participants sat along a V-shaped set of desks beneath an enormous wall of video monitors displaying economic data, according to the accounts of three participants.
But instead of military brass plotting America’s defense, it was hedge-fund managers, professors and executives from at least one investment bank, UBS - all invited by the Pentagon to play out global scenarios that could shift the balance of power between the world’s leading economies.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense hosted the two-day event March 17 and 18 at the Warfare Analysis Laboratory in Laurel, MD. That facility, run by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, typically hosts military officials planning intricate combat scenarios.
“Why would the military care about global capital flows at all?” asked another person who was there. “Because as the global financial crisis plays out, there could be real world consequences, including failed states. We’ve already seen riots in the United Kingdom and the Balkans.”Participants described the event as a series of simulated global calmities, including the collapse of North Korea, Russian manipulation of natural gas prices, and increasing tension between China and Taiwan. “They wanted to see who makes loans to help out, what does each team do to get the other countries involved, and who decides to simply let the North Koreans collapse,” said a participant.
There were five teams: The United States, Russia, China, East Asia and “all others.” They were overseen by a “White Cell” group that functioned as referees, who decided the impact of the moves made by each team as they struggled for economic dominance.
At the end of the two days,
the Chinese team emerged as the victors of the overall game - largely because the Russian and American teams had made so many moves against each other that they damaged their own standing to the benefit of the Chinese.
My reaction: It is interesting to find the pentagon prepping for economic warfare. Seems the military and intelligence community is beginning to realize that the financial/economic threats facing America are far greater than the military ones.
