Red team-Blue team is a military exercise where a group plays the role of a competitor and tries to break into their own defences or structures. In cybersecurity for instance, a group of software engineers may try to hack their way past a firewall they created to gain unauthorised access to assets. This attacking group is the red team, and the defence is the blue team.

There are various goals of this exercise, including the promotion of creative thinking and problem solving, but the primary benefit of red team-blue team is to find out if there are any holes in one’s defence and to fix them correspondingly.

Why Dostoyevsky is so good

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been pouring over Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. Upon reflection, I’ve realised that one of the reasons why these classics are so compelling is Dostoyevsky’s use of the red team mentality.

In a debate, it’s easy to utilise the strawman fallacy, where one oversimplifies an opponent’s stance to make it easier to attack. In doing so, one makes their own arguments look better – but ultimately, it is a disingenuous form of arguing as the point is often misrepresented.

The highest and most difficult form of arguing is when you take your opponent’s argument and make it as strong as possible (a so-called iron man argument) and still defeat it. This method requires much more understanding of the other side and skill to pull off.

What Dostoyevsky does so well in his novels is he makes the “other side” of his contention as brutally strong as possible, and still defeats it. In Crime and Punishment, the main character of Raskolnikov has every possible reason to murder. He is poor, charming law student and has the potential to do much good. On the other hand, his pawnbroker is a rude, dishonest rich woman who is generally disliked by everybody. Her murder is made as defensible as possible.

But when Raskolnikov commits the murder and spirals into chaos, Dostoyevsky’s point is made in its fullest force -that even though a crime may seem utilitarian or defensible, one’s punishment for a crime is the moral burden itself, and this is irrespective of whether the killing was “right” by any standards. If the murder was portrayed as disgusting to begin with, the same effect could never have been made, for a reader could argue that some murders can be justified. But not here.

Generally speaking, the red team mentality can be seen as an appraisal. If you think you have a strong idea, try putting everything you have to tear it down, and see if it withstands the test. If the red team wins, then you’ve seen its flaws and can work to improve it.

But if the red team fails, despite making the strongest effort possible, then you know you have a strong idea.