cubicles and long, brightly lit carpetless corridors. The business
of JFCOM, however, is anything but ordinary. JFCOM is where
the Pentagon tests new ideas about military organization and
experiments with new military strategies.
Planning for the war game began in earnest in the summer
of 2000. JFCOM brought together hundreds of military analysts
and specialists and software experts. In war game parlance, the
United States and its allies are always known as Blue Team, and
the enemy is always known as Red Team, and JFCOM
generated comprehensive portfolios for each team, covering
everything they would be expected to know about their own
forces and their adversary’s forces. For several weeks leading
up to the game, the Red and Blue forces took part in a series of
“spiral” exercises that set the stage for the showdown. The
rogue commander was getting more and more belligerent, the
United States more and more concerned.
In late July, both sides came to Suffolk and set up shop in
the huge, windowless rooms known as test bays on the first
floor of the main JFCOM building. Marine Corps, air force,
army, and navy units at various military bases around the
country stood by to enact the commands of Red and Blue Team
brass. Sometimes when Blue Team fired a missile or launched a