Insurance perils and US Army deployment planning
Domain jargon can be funny, as is the case with insurance perils. We also learn about how the US Army plans deployments – or didn't, in that one case in 2003.
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Insurance Perils
Sometimes domain jargon sounds absurd to an outsider. This is the case of some perils in the insurance industry. It's hard to pick a favourite but did you know you can get insurance against a "stuck pig"?
Full article (2–5 minute read): Insurance Perils
Flashcard of the week
I have been reading Cobra II, which is a contemporary history of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. It draws on data from many sources – including classified interviews with Iraqi officials to get some of their perspective – and illustrates well just how confusing the whole affair was.
A large portion of the early book is about US foreign politics and the desire of a certain secretary of defense to, among many other things, micro-manage the deployment schedule for the invasion. This meant deleting the TPFDL originally associated with the invasion plan.
What is the TPFDL?
The acronym is pronounced tipfiddle, although that does not help with figuring out what it is. One might be able to guess based on the context that deleting it was required to micro-manage the deployment schedule.
The time-phased force deployment list is a huge automated schedule for exactly which personnel and equipment goes where at what time, which the US Army uses for coordinating transportation across the world.
Since the TPFDL was circumvented, people ended up separated from their own equipment, they ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and supplies were incredibly scarce when they were needed the most – at the start of the invasion.
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