Effects Based Operations (EBO) - is it valid?
Since coming to my most recent job I've been a witness to some heated statements about Effects Based Operations from lots of intelligent people. It seems there are three camps - those who think it is the best thing since sliced bread, those who think it's a concept that briefs well but is intellectually bankrupt in application, and those (like myself) who get lost because we don't understand the arguments.
I will state up front I have done no detailed reading or research on EBO and understand only the outlines of it. I understand it competes with and/or is compatible with Center of Gravity analysis, which I am very familiar with.
What intrigues me is that a number of the smartest COIN thinkers I know are completely opposed to EBO as a model, usually spouting extremely dismissive comments. I also noticed that EBO proponents tend to argue that if we all just moved to EBO, the war would be over.
So I'm asking the community the following:
- Is there a good overview/primer (short) on EBO?
- Where has EBO been effectively used? Are there case studies? Why do the advocates think it is superior?
- What are the intellectual/application flaws of EBO? I see a lot of complaints, but no one has explained to me why it is the devil's creation.
- Should or should it not be used by forces as a planning model?
Genuinely interested in the feedback.
EBO is OBE and other things
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tom Odom
Cav,
For reading look at:
CALL Newsletter 03-23 Targeting CMO
CALL Handbook 04-14 Effects Based Operations from Brigade to Company
CALL Handbook 05-19 A Special Study on the Effects based Approach to Military Operations
CALL Special Study 07-02 The Brigade Planning Process
CALL Special Study 07-03 The Battalion Planning Process
Tom,
I think CALL was directed to yank anything with EBO in it... May or may not apply to last two, but the first three ought not be available unless i'm mistaken. The reason being the directive CAV guy notes...
CAVGUY... In response to did I get it about right Yes grasshoper
Live well and row
Effects based operations is in the same paradigm as MDMP
I would argue that EBO is another variation of the "rational actor model" (RAM) that has been under attack for decades by those arguing from a different worldview. GT Allison published a seminal piece on "explaining how we explain" about how things really are decided in complex situations. The full citation of the article length version is:
Graham T. Allison, CONCEPTUAL MODELS AND THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS, The American Political Science Review, VOL. LXIIIn No 3., 1969, 689-718.
The "updated" book version is: Allison, G. T. & Zelikow, P. (1999). Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, (2d Ed.). New York, NY: Addison-Wesley.
RAM has the classic neorealist assumption that nations [and organizations] are unified actors that behave rationally. The process of decision-making involves problem recognition based on relevant values and objectives, developing alternatives, estimating the consequences of each of the alternatives, calculating the net valuation of the consequences, and making the choice of the alternative that value-maximizes. RAM is derived around a theory of constraints. However, that if the organizational goal is...plural and complex, there is no definitive basis for weighting or assigning values to the varied dimensions of constraint; thus, making the otherwise rational decision (what can also be approaching linear programming) more interpretive and value-laden, so more political in nature than we give it credit for.
The problem with this RAM paradigm is that it dominates our military mindset to the point we cannot consider alternatives as to how decisions really happen. The rational economic model of cost-benefits falls apart when we try and template its step-by-step structure onto unstructured (complex) situations.