Operations, which directed them to think beyond the
conventional military method of targeting and destroying an
adversary’s military assets. They were given a comprehensive,
real-time map of the combat situation called the Common
Relevant Operational Picture (CROP). They were given a tool
for joint interactive planning. They were given an
unprecedented amount of information and intelligence from
every corner of the U.S. government and a methodology that
was logical and systematic and rational and rigorous. They had
every toy in the Pentagon’s arsenal.
“We looked at the full array of what we could do to affect
our adversary’s environment — political, military, economic,
societal, cultural, institutional. All those things we looked at
very comprehensively,” the commander of JFCOM, General
William F. Kernan, told reporters in a Pentagon press briefing
after the war game was over. “There are things that the
agencies have right now that can interrupt people’s capabilities.
There are things that you can do to disrupt their ability to
communicate, to provide power to their people, to influence
their national will... to take out power grids.” Two centuries
ago, Napoleon wrote that “a general never knows anything with
certainty, never sees his enemy clearly, and never knows