The Role and Status of DoD Red Teaming Activiites

Abstract : The Task Force was charged to examine the use of red teams in the Department of Defense and recommend ways that such teams could be of greater value to the department. Our Terms of Reference and task force membership are provided in Appendices 1 and 2. Our usage of the term red team includes not only "playing" adversaries or competitors, but also serving as devil's advocates, offering alternative interpretations (team B) and otherwise challenging established thinking within an enterprise. We argue that red teaming is especially important now for the DoD. Current adversaries are tougher targets for intelligence than was the United State's major cold war foe. Red teaming deepens understanding of options available to adaptive adversaries and both complements and informs intelligence collection and analysis. Aggressive red teams are needed to challenge emerging operational concepts in order to discover weaknesses before real adversaries do. in addition, in the wake of recent military operations, use of red teams can temper the complacency that often follows success.