Leaders face future threats with Unified Quest
By Heike Hasenauer
May 2, 2006
CARLISLE BARRACKS, Pa. (Army News Service, May 2, 2006) – Unified Quest 2006, the fourth major annual event of its kind co-sponsored by U.S. Joint Forces Command and U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command as part of the Army’s Future Warfare Study, ended Friday April 28, at the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pa.
The yearlong UQ06 study included four war games, workshops and planning exercises that brought together senior active-duty military personnel and retirees from the joint services and allied nations, government civilian employees, contractors and interagency representatives, said Bill Rittenhouse, chief of TRADOC’s Wargaming Division.
As part of teams that represented interagency and multinational forces and adversaries, they focused on joint operations and irregular warfare, strategic agility, homeland defense and multinational and nongovernmental operations, among other things.
“The purpose of UQ06 was to test different ideas and stress the force, looking at irregular warfare to find out what we have to plan for,” said TRADOC spokesman Maj. Mark Van Hout.
The games were played from “cells” throughout Collins Hall at Carlisle Barracks and from an operation cell at a USJFC facility in Suffolk, Va. Some 300 players were onsite to participate in three separate games, referred to as cases A, B and C, said Navy Cdr. Jim Anderson, a JFC spokesman.
Case A focused on the divided land of Redland, a fictitious country in Eurasia where a ceasefire was in effect and a coalition supported a fragile government. Insurgent groups threatened greater instability. Four task forces were “in place” to find an unaccounted-for nuclear weapon, handle counter-insurgency operations, border-control issues and training.
Case B was a strategic-level game played by major commands, including U.S. European command, Pacific Command, Northern Command and Central Command, to address worldwide issues, Anderson said.
And Case C focused on homeland defense and included weapons of mass destruction coming into the U.S.
While various situations were played out in Redland, tensions simmered, some more close to the boiling point, in various areas of the world. Political unrest affected China, Korea, Taiwan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia and regions of Africa and Latin-America.
Greater havoc and stress on commanders and decision-makers came in the form of major natural disasters.
Commanders were able to use assets to their advantage, as did Gary Phillips, a TRADOC Army-threat analyst who played a fictitious “Red”-force commander. He used information operations to boost his rival front in the game, the United Front for Freedom and Justice. Its mission was to discredit the coalition and destabilize the puppet Redland regime.
He and his group were able to disrupt elections in a province of the divided Redland and render the elections invalid, thereby establishing a government of the UFFJ’s own choosing.
“We got $25 million in 30 days, as we played to the Muslim community,” Phillips said. “As a red commander, I want the coalition to see the need to make priority decisions.”
As the various players acted or reacted to events, streams of new challenges had to be addressed. Everything from major natural disasters to terrorist activities, the threat of war between nations and a nuclear missile on the loose entered the mix of “junk” - as one player called the problems – that had to be dealt with.
“At the top of the list of what we hope to get out of this exercise,” said Rittenhouse, “are insights into protracted, irregular warfare and the differences between conventional and irregular warfare. What does this notion of protraction mean for us and for the services in the future?”
It’s a situation where the adversary doesn’t present himself. There is no rapid, decisive defeat, and U.S. military forces, as part of a coalition, must work toward a relative, sustainable peace, Rittenhouse said. “But how long that will take is something else we need to find out.
“You might ask, ‘Why do we need to do this when we’re conducting operations such as these in Iraq and Afghanistan?’” Rittenhouse added. “UQ06 is based on a global scenario in 2017. It’s an alternative future that includes ‘irregular’ partners.”
In UQ06, the Army – through TRADOC and USJFC – planned for the worst to continue to prepare for every possible contingency in the future.
A report due to the Army chief of staff in July will be a major step in moving forward with lessons learned from this complex exercise and incorporating changes into Army training doctrine.
Such exercises also allow the Army and other players to refine their operational concepts and follow-on war game plans, said MG David Fastabend, deputy director of the Army Capabilities and Integration Center.
(Editor's note: Heike Hasenauer writes for the Soldiers Media Center.)
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