numerous explanations from the analysts at JFCOM about
exactly what happened that day in July. Some would say that it
was an artifact of the particular way war games are run. Others
would say that in real life, the ships would never have been as
vulnerable as they were in the game. But none of the
explanations change the fact that Blue Team suffered a
catastrophic failure. The rogue commander did what rogue
commanders do. He fought back, yet somehow this fact caught
Blue Team by surprise. In a way, it was a lot like the kind of
failure suffered by the Getty when it came to evaluating the
kouros: they had conducted a thoroughly rational and rigorous
analysis that covered every conceivable contingency, yet that
analysis somehow missed a truth that should have been picked
up instinctively. In that moment in the Gulf, Red Team’s powers
of rapid cognition were intact — and Blue Team’s were not.
How did that happen?
2. The Structure of Spontaneity
One Saturday evening not long ago, an improvisation comedy
group called Mother took the stage in a small theater in the
basement of a supermarket on Manhattan’s West Side. It was a