You can maximize effect at given cost or minimize costs at given effect.Originally Posted by Ken White
There's absolutely no point in preferring effectiveness over efficiency because efficiency in achieving a desired effect (= at minimum cost) is simply unbeatable.
Effectiveness is only about one variable while efficiency considers two important variables - it's a much richer term.
No one with a functioning brain will ever strive for the best ratio of effect and cost and willfully fail to achieve the desired level of effect by doing so.
A military that looks only at effectiveness is bound to waste resources and fail its master, the people, by performing poorly.
Look at the LCS, F-35 or the fuel cost in AFG, Puma for examples. In fact, every Western military force is extremely wasteful because they don't strive for efficiency.
I won't accept any excuse like "militarily only effectiveness counts" because the latter is ethically the same as to send a troop of soldiers every hour to rob a bank.
The damage that wasteful behaviour in the military does to the welfare of the nation is extreme.
Many "victories" were more damaging (net) to the "victorious" nation than staying at peace would have been. The costs of military & war suck and threaten to badly impair the Western nations in their ability to reform themselves for the future.
Bookmarks