Some Thoughts on Millennium Challenge 2002 and Fast Attack Craft

Soviet Osa-class missile boat, source: Wikimedia

Remember Millennium Challenge? That war game back in 2002 in which an entire US Navy fleet was sunk by missiles and kamikaze runs from a “swarm” of fast boats and small planes? Most war games fade into memory, going largely unnoticed outside of the realm of defense analysts and military historians. Millennium Challenge, however, ended up with acquiring a certain degree of notoriety amongst a larger section of the general public. For critics of the US military – especially those inspired by the “reformer” camp – Millennium Challenge was an ideal illustration of everything wrong with the Pentagon. A large, clumsy, high-tech conventional force was demolished by a flexible enemy led by a gutsy Marine Corps general using clever tactics, cheap assets, and “old fashioned” technology (such as messenger bikes, quite famously), and the top brass responded not by learning their lessons but by comically “refloating” their fleet for a staged redo. It’s almost the perfect narrative.