Army approves plan to create school for Red Teaming

Story by Marcus Spade/TRADOC News Service

FORT MONROE, Va. (TRADOC News Service, July 13, 2005) – The Army recently approved the concept plan to establish the University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., providing the Army a force-wide Red Teaming capability at the unit of action through unit of employment operational levels.

A pilot program – where UFMCS begins teaching courses – starts next year. The pilot will be based on an educational, training and operational-experience curriculum and will educate specially selected students who will serve on the staffs of designated organizations.

The pilot will be similar in structure and intensity to existing programs for other advanced military studies programs for the individual services and Joint community.

UFMCS’ pilot courses next year will be:

• Red Team Leader Course (18 weeks) – Intended for leaders of Red Teams organic to a UA, UEx or UEy. Initial course to begin in January 2006.
• Red Team Member Course (six weeks) – Intended for subordinate members of a Red Team that is organic to a UA, UEx or UEy.
• Red Team Practitioner Course (two weeks) – Intended for mentors and subject-matter experts assigned to support operational Red Teams.

The Army defines Red Teaming as a “structured, iterative process executed by trained, educated and practiced team members that provides commanders an independent capability to continuously challenge plans, operations, concepts, organizations and capabilities in the context of the operational environment and from our partners’ and adversaries’ perspectives.”

According to an official from Training and Doctrine Command’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, findings of the Army’s actionable-intelligence focus area – as well as operations during the Global War on Terrorism – confirm that today’s Army requires an independent capability that will allow it to adapt quickly to new and unanticipated requirements.

Historically, government and industry have employed some form of Red Teaming, the DCSINT official said. “However, there’s no common Red Teaming doctrine, procedures, methodologies or framework for lessons learned,” he said. “There is also no formal education or training currently available to institutionalize it. As the first of its kind, UFMCS will set the standard.”

A UFMCS-trained Red Team will be educated to look at problems from the perspectives of the adversary and our multinational partners, with the goal of identifying alternative strategies. The Red Team provides commanders with critical decision-making expertise during planning and operations. The team’s responsibilities will be broad – from challenging planning assumptions to conducting independent analysis to examining courses of action to identifying vulnerabilities.

According to Dr. Williamson Murray, writing for the Defense Adaptive Red Team, “Where Red Teams existed in active and vigorous forms, military organizations have almost invariably outperformed their opponents on the battlefield.”