Command Red Team

CHAPTER IV
RED TEAM ACTIVITIES
“One thing a person cannot do, no matter how rigorous his analysis or heroic
his imagination, is to draw up a list of things that would never occur to him.”
Thomas Schelling
Nobel Prize Winner, 2005
“Impossibility Theorem”
1. Overview
a. Red teams are general purpose decision support assets that can enhance problemsolving
efforts in all functional areas, in all organizations, and at all echelons.
b. Red teams employ a variety of tools to frame problems, challenge assumptions,
analyze conditions, explore solutions, and support decision making. The most
appropriate tools are listed in this chapter according to the area of effort they most
frequently support, but these tools should be freely adapted to support any area of effort.
To assist red teams, a full range of current tools, techniques, and best practices, is located
on the UFMCS website at http://usacac.army.mil/organizations/ufmcs-redteaming/schedules-and-handbooks.
The areas of effort are: decision support, critical
review, role play, and vulnerability testing.
c. While red teams can support decision making in all functional areas, they can be
especially useful in those areas where complex variables must be considered, where
precedents may not be applicable, and where the selected COA is likely to impact
multiple aspects of the situation. Red teaming should be considered when addressing
problem sets in the following functional areas:
(1) Doctrine and tactics development.
(2) Operational, campaign, contingency, and interagency planning.
(3) Operational design and commander’s vision of the problem.
(4) Exercise development and evaluation.
(5) Force structure organization and development.
(6) Assessments of systems and processes.
(7) System test, evaluation, and acquisition.
(8) Intelligence collection and analysis.
IV-1