Millennium Challenge 2002: How the US Military ‘Cheated’ to Defeat an Unbeatable Enemy

Resurfacing details from the 2002 Millennium Challenge exercise reveal a controversial conflict between realistic war gaming and scripted outcomes. The exercise, designed to test the US military against a modern asymmetric threat (modeled after Iran), was effectively “reset” after Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper utilized low-tech guerrilla tactics—such as motorcycle couriers and missile-launching small boats—to devastate the simulated US fleet.

Despite Van Riper’s decisive “victory,” which sank 16 ships, game controllers mandated a do-over. They enforced rigid rules that disabled the enemy’s ability to shoot down US aircraft and forced them to expose their positions to GPS surveillance, ultimately ensuring a scripted American win. This analysis argues that this corruption of the exercise had a dangerous legacy: it discouraged challenging the status quo and delayed the necessary doctrinal evolution to handle genuine anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) threats, leaving the military vulnerable to the very strategies Van Riper employed.