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09-26-11, 03:47 PM

I seem to recall that in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, some media got hold of Plan Red, although it was common knowledge in the military community for some time. The aim was to embarrass Dubya and give politically motivated anti-American pundits something to demonstrate the historical evil that has always been the USA.

That assessment is of course is pure crap and has been noted above, one of the functions of the military is to contingency plan for the improbable as well as the possible.

When the existence of these types of plans become public knowledge, over-reaction as shown by the OP is generally the result but the mere existence of a plan does not automatically mandate its execution.

There are excellent reasons why functional command and control organizations separate capability (What can They do?) from intentions (What are They likely to do?) when making intelligence assessments. Plan Red is solely about capability and its existence or even exercises designed to aid the planning process posed zero threat to Canada. Note though that its main premise is rooted solidly in the Monroe Doctrine and does not appear to have been revised to account for the new relationship between Britain and Canada from the passage of the Statute of Westminster in 1931. Pretty good evidence that the Joint Board created Plan Red as a purely military scheme with minimal input from the State Department.

Defence Scheme 1 is the same idea; we examined it during a course in 1985 using it as a sample of the operational separation between capability of a potential foe and their intentions. The former is primarily military but the latter mostly political in nature.

Problems occur when the leadership blurs the lines between the two; introducing threat inflation and fear into the mix. The handling of the WMD issues before Gulf War 2 is a good example of this since the contingency planning included hypothetical Iraqi WMD and America's military response and theoretical (and disputed) capabilities merged with the threat assessment to create a political over-reaction to a non-existent threat. This has happened many times in the past and the experience is no way unique to the USA.

09-26-11, 03:47 PM	#5
Randomizer Stowaway Posts: n/a Downloads: Uploads:	I seem to recall that in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, some media got hold of Plan Red, although it was common knowledge in the military community for some time. The aim was to embarrass Dubya and give politically motivated anti-American pundits something to demonstrate the historical evil that has always been the USA. That assessment is of course is pure crap and has been noted above, one of the functions of the military is to contingency plan for the improbable as well as the possible. When the existence of these types of plans become public knowledge, over-reaction as shown by the OP is generally the result but the mere existence of a plan does not automatically mandate its execution. There are excellent reasons why functional command and control organizations separate capability (What can They do?) from intentions (What are They likely to do?) when making intelligence assessments. Plan Red is solely about capability and its existence or even exercises designed to aid the planning process posed zero threat to Canada. Note though that its main premise is rooted solidly in the Monroe Doctrine and does not appear to have been revised to account for the new relationship between Britain and Canada from the passage of the Statute of Westminster in 1931. Pretty good evidence that the Joint Board created Plan Red as a purely military scheme with minimal input from the State Department. Defence Scheme 1 is the same idea; we examined it during a course in 1985 using it as a sample of the operational separation between capability of a potential foe and their intentions. The former is primarily military but the latter mostly political in nature. Problems occur when the leadership blurs the lines between the two; introducing threat inflation and fear into the mix. The handling of the WMD issues before Gulf War 2 is a good example of this since the contingency planning included hypothetical Iraqi WMD and America's military response and theoretical (and disputed) capabilities merged with the threat assessment to create a political over-reaction to a non-existent threat. This has happened many times in the past and the experience is no way unique to the USA.