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Thread: Bloodless Theories, Bloody Wars (EBO)

  1. #1
    Small Wars Journal SWJED's Avatar
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    Default Bloodless Theories, Bloody Wars (EBO)

    16 April Armed Forces Journal - Bloodless Theories, Bloody Wars by Ralph Peters.

    ... The primary problem we face in preparing for future wars is an intellectually corrupt budgeting and procurement process, a system that forces the services — especially the Navy and Air Force — to make extravagant, impossible-to-fulfill claims for the weapons they wish to buy. It isn’t possible to argue that a system will be “useful.” To appear competitive, each system has to be “revolutionary.”

    Compounding the damage, each of the services (except the Marine Corps) has fallen into the trap of designing its strategy to fit the systems it wants, rather than devising an honest long-term strategy, then pursuing the weapons best-fitted to support that strategy.

    We have gotten the process exactly wrong.

    No sensible person would argue against the potential benefits of new military technologies — but those technologies must be relevant to genuine wartime needs, not merely sexy platforms for air shows. The services become so mesmerized by their in-progress procurement programs that any challenge to a system’s utility is treated as an attack on the service itself.

    The truth is that we lie...

    Nonetheless, at the Joint Forces Command and in the Air Force, proponents of Effects-Based Operations now suggest that, by striking just the right pressure points, we might bring China to its knees. Well, China’s already on its knees — a position that gives China greater inherent stability than our own top-heavy military and hyper-developed national infrastructure possess. The crucial question in any war is, “What will it really take to force our enemy to surrender?”

    We know what it took in Nazi Germany. And in Imperial Japan. To defeat China, we’d have to inflict at least a comparable level of destruction.

    EBO isn’t a strategy. It’s a sales pitch.

    Yet, EBO also reflects a recurring American delusion — the notion that, if only we can discover it, there must be a formula for winning wars on the cheap. EBO and other schemes for sterilized techno-wars have surprisingly deep roots in our military culture — the American vines were grafted onto diseased European root stocks...

    One could rehash this endless tug of war between our military theorists, who never fail to come up with new clothes for their emperor, insisting that this time they really do know how to win wars cheaply (in terms of blood and bother, if not financially), and the fighting generals and colonels who have to step into the mess the theorists have made and clean it up while the bullets are flying. Contemporary generals such as Mattis and Wallace are the heirs of Sherman and Sheridan — not afraid to fight and ever ready to ride to the sound of the guns. On the other side, you have the theorists, who have them outnumbered, if not outgunned. No matter the empirical evidence, theorists will always insist that they know a better, easier way to wage war than the men who must actually fight it. Compounded by the power of the defense industry and the political momentum of legacy weapons systems, the theorists win. In peacetime...

    There’s no end of such revolutions. Only the End of Days will see an end to military innovation. And we’re told, again and again, that the nature of warfare has changed. But the nature of warfare never changes — only its superficial manifestations. On the battlefield, Cain still squares off with Abel. The technologies evolve, but it’s still about killing the enemy until the survivors raise their hands — and mean it.

    Even as our soldiers and Marines fight primitive (but intelligent) enemies in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, we’re told that the evidence before our eyes doesn’t really mean anything, that the next war is going to be different, that technology really will do the trick this time. If the United States still exists a hundred years from how, I have no doubt that your great-great-grandchildren will also be assured that, while the theorists were wrong for the past century (or two, or three), they really have it figured out now and that technology really is going to be decisive this time.

    Appropriate technologies are essential. But flesh and blood wins wars. The only Effects-Based Operations that mean anything are those that destroy the enemy’s military, the opposing leadership and the population’s collective will. Bombing well-selected targets helps. But only killing wins wars.
    Oh, and a last note on Effects-Based Operations: Any combat doctrine that cannot be explained clearly and concisely will fail.

  2. #2
    Registered User Anlaochfhile's Avatar
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    Thumbs up EBO, schmee-BO

    Ralph Peters proves yet again his preeminance as a military thinker, clearly attuned to what is wrong in the current military environment.

    EBO, in and of itself, would not be a bad thing if it were put in the appropriate context. Applying pressure to multiple nodes, instead of the direct frontal pressure of direct attack, may indeed cause collapse earlier. Put another way, attacking the financial and political support of the insurgents in Iraq may reduce their ability to conduct operations even as we apply direct military pressure to their operatives, but that direct action against hostiles will still be required to win the war.

    As an observer of JTF-level unit training, it is clear that the Army still appreciates the kinetic approach and understands the need to apply lethal solutions to the problems of modern warfare. For these organizations, EBO's biggest problem is summed up in Peters' last statement. EBO has spawned an expansive jargon that is at once enlightening and confusing. We've taken what we have always done, which is to combine direct and indirect attack, and convoluted it into a process that even those charged with training it to the force don't really seem to understand. It is not surprising therefore, that planners and tacticians seem lost in the sea of acronyms and processes tied to EBO.

    Here's to the steely-eyed killers to remind us what warfare is really about.
    - erp -

    Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito - Yield not to misfortunes, but advance all the more boldly against them. - Virgil

  3. #3
    DDilegge
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    Default Good Post and Welcome...

    Quote Originally Posted by Anlaochfhile
    Ralph Peters proves yet again his preeminance as a military thinker, clearly attuned to what is wrong in the current military environment.

    EBO, in and of itself, would not be a bad thing if it were put in the appropriate context. Applying pressure to multiple nodes, instead of the direct frontal pressure of direct attack, may indeed cause collapse earlier. Put another way, attacking the financial and political support of the insurgents in Iraq may reduce their ability to conduct operations even as we apply direct military pressure to their operatives, but that direct action against hostiles will still be required to win the war.

    As an observer of JTF-level unit training, it is clear that the Army still appreciates the kinetic approach and understands the need to apply lethal solutions to the problems of modern warfare. For these organizations, EBO's biggest problem is summed up in Peters' last statement. EBO has spawned an expansive jargon that is at once enlightening and confusing. We've taken what we have always done, which is to combine direct and indirect attack, and convoluted it into a process that even those charged with training it to the force don't really seem to understand. It is not surprising therefore, that planners and tacticians seem lost in the sea of acronyms and processes tied to EBO.

    Here's to the steely-eyed killers to remind us what warfare is really about.
    We have had several discussions here on the SWC concerning EBO - for some the fact that one does not support the latest / greatest version of EBO (along with its critical component - ONA) implies that one does not appreciate the value of combining kinetic and non-kinetic means to achieve desired effects. I do not always agree with Peters - but on this hot-button issue he is spot-on.

    War, and especially Small Wars, has a "human element" that can never be modeled, simulated or otherwise automated to provide the appropiate measures of effectiveness to be, well, effective.

    The Information Dominance folks can take that to the bank.

  4. #4
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Default 911 was an EBO

    Hate to bring this up but 911 was a classic EBO operation. I saw EBO applied to the breakup of a drug organization by a DEA task force in Montgomery,Al. which included a five rings analysis. Maybe the military had a training problem and tried to use it before everyone completley understood it? If this seems rude I do not mean it that way, but I think there is merit in the process based on my experience with it.

  5. #5
    Small Wars Journal SWJED's Avatar
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    Default Effects-Based Controversy

    20 April Inside Defense - The Insider - Effects-Based Controversy.

    Inside the Pentagon leads this morning with Elaine Grossman's must-read report on why the debate over "effects based operations" has emerged as a controversial issue among the U.S. military top brass...

    A top combatant commander at a key U.S. military headquarters is moving quietly to defuse growing military consternation over a warfighting approach that has become a hallmark of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's leadership. . .

    Air Force Gen. Lance Smith, who heads U.S. Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, VA, said in an interview he wants to "disavow the term" for the controversial strategy, "effects-based operations," following complaints from high-ranking Marines and Army generals who regard it as dangerously simplistic.
    More if you subscribe to Inside Defense...

  6. #6
    DDilegge
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    Default We went through this on another thread...

    Quote Originally Posted by slapout9
    Hate to bring this up but 911 was a classic EBO operation. I saw EBO applied to the breakup of a drug organization by a DEA task force in Montgomery,Al. which included a five rings analysis. Maybe the military had a training problem and tried to use it before everyone completley understood it? If this seems rude I do not mean it that way, but I think there is merit in the process based on my experience with it.
    The issue is not effects, the military understands this very well, it is where some within DoD believe the direction EBO should go. Much of this "future" is overly reliant on an automated method to produce measures of effectiveness (Operatinal Net Assessment is an example of this). Ain't going to happen.

    Once again, do not confuse having a negatvie opinion where EBO is going with a total disregard with the utility of effects based operations.

    Also, do not confuse bumper-sticker concepts that repackage tried and true doctrine or high-tech solutions to low-tech problems with progress.

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