Effects Based Operations (EBO) - is it valid?

[Norfolk]

Exactly! There is no genetic, organisational or intellectual block to creating officers (and thus and army) skilled in both Combined Arms Warfare/Counter Formation and COIN.

The UK had an entire generation of Officers, who were skilled Combined Arms men - Germany and COIN -Northern Ireland practitioners. We got this purely by accident and ad-hocary. We should (and are apparently failing) to be able to do it by design.

What is lacking is an "This is X and this is Y. You must be good at both" approach to professional military education.

Too true! And the answer to how to create officers - and soldiers - who were solidly capable of both turned out to include thorough, not merely basic, training in the basics. In both initial entry training syllabi and in Unit-training cycles, the emphasis in training progressed from the basics: beginning of course, with individual, sub-unit, then Minor-unit training, and including at the same time most of the the Aid to the Civil Power/Operations Other Than War matter - Humanitarian/Disaster Relief, IS, SSO, CT, COIN, and the like - which is majority individual and small-unit stuff anyway, and finishing off with MCO at Sub-unit and Minor-Unit level; then up through more advanced matter in MCO at Sub-unit an Minor-Unit level; and finishing off with MCO at Major-unit and Formation-level. And during the process, it was inculcated into officers - and soldiers - that there was a real difference in role and mental approach that had to be taken in Aid to the Civil Power/OOTW missions as opposed to the mentality required for MCO and the like - which went along with the whole "flick of a switch" bit by which Commonwealth soldiers are pychologically conditioned. Plus, Aid to the Civil Power/OOTW training, coming as it did at about the same time as individual, sub-unit, and minor-unit level training, allowed for instillation of the appropriate self-displine and mindset - self-control and restraint - prior to going on to full-fledged Operations of War/MCO stuff. Crucially important. It worked, and worked well - once the "formula" had been worked out by time, trial, and error. Considering OOTW ops, such as COIN, to be somehow an "advanced" or "exotic" mission that can only really be attempted after having mastered MCO, is backwards. OOTW is basic, MCO is advanced.

But there were two keys to making it work: sustained unit cohesion (i.e., a Regimental system), and relatively long intitial entry training; the original 4-month syllabus for soldiers eventually increasing to 6-months, in order to relieve Units of the burden of having to bring the soldiers up to standard in the basics, thus preserving much more Unit training time for, well, Unit training.

Wilf is right though, about EBA/EBO/Entropy-Based Warfare/..., and that there is no substitute (so far) for being able to plant your flag on the top of the hill at the end of the day, insofar as EBO is identified with Stand-Off Firepower-type approaches. The NCW concept that has been tied into EBO has, as others have observed, reduced EBO in such cases to little more than the mere servicing of targets, with attendant expectation that somehow the desired effects will occur, and that we will observe them soon enough to take full advantage of them. It hasn't worked out so well in practice, when EBO is synthesized with RMA/NCW.

That said, EBO, properly understood and applied, may be rather more appropriate for COIN than MCO anyway, not least because of the time factor. COIN is long-term, and time is not usually compressed in anything like the way that it is in MCO. In MCO, there is often little time to take much more than an almost spontaneous assessment of what's going on, where things are heading, and what next to do about it. There is precious little time to seek and observe for desired effects - it's a lot more by the skin of your teeth in comparison to OOTW. In COIN, there is much more opportunity to seek to bring about and to observe for desired effects, and then to act accordingly. Then again, as Wilf and others have said or implied, in this respect EBO in some respects does little more than provide a rather more formal targetting-list for an approach that has long been used well before "EBO" ever had a name. It would have been interesting to hear Sun Tzu's take on the EBO concept, especially as to whether it actually offers anything substantially more than what he did.

EBO may also be much more appropriate at the higher, and especially highest, echelons. At the National political level, EBO is potentially quite useful when applied to the conduct of National Strategy. Time is most in abundance at this level, and so are the range of various desirable effects to be potentially had. As you go down the ladder, both time and the range of options decrease, until to get down to OOTW, such as COIN. Then the game changes dramatically, and EBO may come back into its own.

But if EBO offers little more than an extensive targetting list of sorts, then as Eden said, an officer just going down to a decent library and reading up on a few good books may not need EBO's input; he's able to develop the judgement necessary to figure out what effects are desirable, how to try to achieve them, and how to look for the appearance of anticipated effects and then to act upon them. So is EBO really an advance, or is just telling anyone with access to a decent library something they don't already know or can't find out for themselves? slap, is there something that EBA offers that you can't get otherwise?

[slapout9]

slap, is there something that EBA offers that you can't get otherwise?

Hi everyone sorry for the late response but I had a very busy week and had to catch up on my chores this weekend.

Norfolk, the paper I posted above is well worth the read and here is a quote from roman numeral page 8 in the introduction.
" A strategy of coercive FA (force application),when confronted by competing beliefs and probabilities regarding an adversary, should do what all wise strategies have done before-hedge. It should hedge using both pragmatic strategy that focuses on attrition (brute reduction) and a more idealistic strategy that concentrates on virtual attrition (functional reduction)."

Or another way to say it is to not only be able to plant your flag on the enemies hilltop but also be able to seize the government at the point of a bayonet until he complies with your demands and leave him his hilltop after he complies.

EBO holds non-lethal capabilities at a level equal to destructive force... that is it's main contribution. But I hate the term EBO it doesn't even sound military and it has morphed into so many forms as compared to what it was meant to be (the above paper is 1998) that it no longer makes any sense. It needs to be simplified by going back to the enemy as a system for analytic and operational design purposes and realize that Effects are nothing more than the commanders intent.

[Entropy]

Our tendency is to measure those things that are measurable: number of attacks, number of schools built, number of weapon caches discovered. But these don't always serve as reliable measures of effectiveness. We tend to discount professional military judgment because it doesn't brief well and is not quantifiable. But experienced counterinsurgents learn to judge progress by using a whole range of subtle indicators; sometimes they may not even be able to articulate what it is that informs their judgment, but that does not necessarily make it any less accurate. Again, you may be doing ten things and may not be sure which are effective and which are not - you can only judge the end product.

So how do you articulate that in a form that is understandable and briefable?

Frankly, this sounds quite similar to the kind of problems that indications and warning intelligence analysts face. Perhaps an I&W methodology could be adapted to measuring COIN effectiveness.

[Bill Moore]

If your actions are targeted at the population's will to support the enemy, instead of ON the enemy, you have a much higher chance of success, in my experience. Take away the population's support, and the insurgency ceases. This can be done by bribing, protecting, intimidating, or several other measures, whichever is most appropriate to the AO. But the key isn't to kill/capture the enemy, it's to deprive him of the population's support. (NOTE: This DOES mean you have to kill/capture enemy - but to free the population from his grip, not to protect yourself)

Cavguy,

I can't believe you're a tanker after reading this. Instead I think you're an old school SF officer undercover in an armor unit. I thought the motto of armor and mech was "death before dismount"? I really enjoyed your post, especially the comment I pasted above. Your understanding of COIN is superior to many new generation SOF officers who are strictly focused on chasing bad guys around, like a dog chasing its tail. They call it network targeting, I call it network B.S..

I'm going to use your post to support my previous arguments (whether you intended to or not) regarding EBO:

By focusing on the population instead of the enemy, you didn't go after the nodes of an insurgent network, you went after the links. This destroyed the network in your area. You can go after nodes forever, and they'll simply be replaced.

EBO based on nodes is generally a flawed concept.

EBO based on metrics is also flawed, and worse wastes considerable man hours attempting to develop and monitor metrics that in the end are generally misleading and beyond accurate measurement to begin with. Smart men on the tip of the spear can tell you if things are getting better without resorting to metrics and bubble charts. I think it was Ken who wrote, "how do you quantify the relationship with your wife"? Um, metrics could range from the number of times you do the funky, number of arguments, number of phone calls/e-mails when TDY, etc., but none of them really equate to the quality of the relationship. However, it is probably fair to say you know what the status of your marriage is, and you would probably be a better husband/wife if you spent time with your partner instead of wasting time developing and monitoring metrics. The same is true when battling an insurgency. The men on the street (who have been there awhile) are smart enough to get a feel for things, especially when they're man enough like Cavguy's men to get outside the FOB and hold terrain.

EBO attempts to reflect if you tickle a particular node it will equate to immediate and measurable effect. That may be true for physical systems like electric power, but it is not true for complex systems like an insurgency. This is a weak attempt to transfer b.s. air force systems kinetic targeting methodology to COIN. How many times do we have to decaptitate the insurgency to realize that isn't decisive?

On the other hand, Cavguy was effective because he struggled to control the populace (the populace isn't a node). This isn't some left wing, whimpy, soft approach to fighting, it is the "toughest" fight in COIN. You're not launching from a relative safe base on armored vehicles to kill/capture a couple guys, then run back to your weight room, you're living 24/7 amongst the enemy. It is a mano a mano fight. It is such as effective technique that the insurgents will push back hard, because they know they can't afford to lose this fight. I would argue that increased attacks against us is a positive metric if we have to go down the metric road. This is bringing the enemy to the surface where we can defeat him. The effects you create by denying key terrain (the populace) to the enemy are hard to quantify, but they are significant. Why waste time trying to develop metrics, stop light charts, etc.? They're created for folks who aren't in the fight, because those who are don't need them.

That brings me to my final point, EBO as it is being implemented is a failed concept. However, if it gives birth to Effects Based Approach (EBA), then it won't have been a wasted life. EBA is still useful in my opinion because it empowers soldiers at all levels to really understand what needs to be accomplished to get to the desired endstate.

We all know how important decentralized operations are in COIN, even at the squad/platoon level. If these strategic corporals really understand the desired effects that they are supposed to create (propaganda by deed), then commanders will have a tool to force multiply their intent effectively.
This is not the same as task-purpose (still a useful), because your squad leader may not know the task until he is amongst the populace. When he faces an emerging situation, then he can issue a task purpose type order to his men that supports achieving the desired effect.

Thus the beauty of EBA is it facilitates initiative at the lowest levels. Squad leader X from Brooklin may express the message one way (via words or deed), and Squad leader Y from Portland another, but as long as it is generally "on message" supporting the desired effect we're good. In my opinion this differs from end state and task and purpose.

[slapout9]

Cavguy,


By focusing on the population instead of the enemy, you didn't go after the nodes of an insurgent network, you went after the links. This destroyed the network in your area. You can go after nodes forever, and they'll simply be replaced.

Yes,Yes,Yes that is exactly how I was taught(criminal networks) and how you break up a system!! The linkages are how you tear it up!!

[Ken White]

Slapout's already noted the most important point IMO; so I'll just agree with him and note the second most important point

...
EBO based on metrics is also flawed, and worse wastes considerable man hours attempting to develop and monitor metrics that in the end are generally misleading and beyond accurate measurement to begin with. (emphasis added / kw)

[Surferbeetle]

Cavguy,

I am a fan of EBO.

Tom O's CALL references are worth reading and thinking about. I have played with EBO at Camp Smith, Hohenfels, NTC, and JRTC. IMHO these are good places to 'take it for a test drive' and see if it works for you. Worst that will happen to if you get it wrong is an ass-chewing. The old FA warrant officer's and some of the S2/G2 folks are great resources for helping you to set up your targeting matrices. I adapted my knowledge of EBO on the ground in OIF 1 as I moved from South to North, finally ending up in Mosul. Good stuff.

On to metrics, they are important from a management controls standpoint as well as from a justification for additional resources from higher standpoint.

From where the rubber meets the road in engineering, metrics are required: How many hours on the generators? How much fuel on hand? How many kW hours produced this week? How many amps are the houses limited to? How many MGD drinking water treated today? How many MGD wastewater treated today? How many tons of chlorine left? How many water connections were made this week?

Medicine: What is the pharmaceutical registry (my have the incorrect verbiage here but the intent is what drugs are on hand, what's on order, etc). How many docs? What skill sets? Metrics apply to Law, Law Enforcement, and they are big in MBA school as well. An Operations Management class may be worth your efforts, if you are pressed for time try the book Operations Management-Quality and Competitiveness in a Global Environment by Russell and Taylor (ISBN 0-471-69209-3).

"Operations management designs, operates, and improves productive systems-systems for getting work done. The food you eat, the movies you watch, the stores in which you shop, and this book you are reading are provided to you by the people in operations."

Regards,

Steve

[Bill Moore]

Steve, with all due respect to a brother Soldier, counterinsurgency is not business management. Furthermore, bean counting (amount of fuel on hand) is a not a MOE. The one argument you made that I concur with is that metrics can be useful for justifying resources, but they sure as heck don't reflect the reality of the insurgency.

Not everything can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. -Albert Einstein