Effects Based Operations (EBO) - is it valid?

[Rank amateur]

It's always nice when people who know what they're talking about mirror my thoughts, and Eden expresses what I was thinking far more eloquently than I could have, but two points.

One: I'd say that dropping a bomb on Khadfy's kid was a successful EBO: probably because he wasn't interested in adapting to continue the "fight."

Two, there are political benefits to EBO that are often overlooked. Imagine what people would've been saying about Clinton on 9/11 if he hadn't fired a missile at UBL. (If a Democrat wins and draws down troops in Iraq, I can pretty much guaranty that they'll drop bombs on someone/somewhere just so they aren't accused of being "soft.")

Cavguy, one of the hardest things about COIN planning or execution - really the core of what you are struggling with, I feel - is how to measure progress.

Just my opinion, but I'm beginning to think that COIN is being asked to achieve the impossible. COIN can prevent a group from hijacking the political process, but I don't know if it can create "legitimacy" or force "compromise."

If it could, then the metrics would be evidence of legitimacy and/or compromise.

[Ken White]

...
Just my opinion, but I'm beginning to think that COIN is being asked to achieve the impossible. COIN can prevent a group from hijacking the political process, but I don't know if it can create "legitimacy" or force "compromise."

If it could, then the metrics would be evidence of legitimacy and/or compromise.

just to achieve an acceptable solution in the eyes of all parties. That's all one is ever going to do in COIN -- and there's always going to be a disgruntled disagreeing cluster on both sides. The key is to make those clusters so small as to be of limited or no impact. It generally does this not by forcing compromise but by making compromise a slightly better solution than continuing the insurgency.

The only thing that creates legitimacy is legitimacy.

Metrics are a dangerous myth in most fields of endeavor, they're really dangerous when one attempts to apply them to human conflict. Quantify your relations with your wife...

[Rank amateur]

Quantify your relations with your wife...

I have a clear objective. If someone told me I needed to wait ten years to achieve it, I'd get a divorce.

[Ken White]

didn't provide a metric.

OTOH, if a married couple decide they wish to buy a McMansion and they only bring in a combined $65K a year and figure it'll take 'em 10 years to save up enough to buy their dream house; you may think them stupid -- but it's their goal and they believe the wait and effort worth the payoff, you can deride them but it's still gonna happen.

Oh -- and quickies aren't always besties.