Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post

My concern remains with EBO, and I don't want to throw out the baby with the bath water with EBO, because there has been some good work, but we have been using it now for a few years (at least three), so in theory we should have some lessons learned. Or, do we just keep replicating this staff behavior regardless of the results?
There are lessons learned compiled - check the CALL database.

I have seen two major headquarters use - or try to use - effects based thinking. One was ISAF, the other CJTF-76. They used different intellectual and organizational approaches, but both failed for the same generic reasons:

1. They couldn't properly integrate an effects-based approach with targeting, planning, and the execution of operations. In both headquarters, you had 'effects guys' who were seen as primarily responsible for the application of actions to achieve effects and/or the formulation of effects. Don't get me wrong, people recognized this as a problem and worked to overcome it, but there simply wasn't a deep enough grasp of the principles throughout the headquarters to allow for a solution.

2. Both headquarters did things that were not aimed at achieving the desired effects. In some cases, this was forced on them by higher, by policy, or by local politics. In others, they chose to do things that did not contribute to achieving desired effects. Why? Because some of them didn't take EBO seriously, or they saw a list of desired effects as unneccessarily constraining their freedom of maneuver. Many times I saw an action selected, and then a perusal of the Priority Effects List to see which one it might support. This is backwards, of course.

3. Finally, and to me most importantly, EBO is far too complex to be anything other than an aid to planning. The JFCOM version you are using, Bill, is an attempt to systematize, bureaucratize, and infantilize EBO. As such it offers false precision - much desired by headquarters staff but a bane to useful employment of EBO. As a planner I found EBO very useful, but I approached it with humility. After all, we couldn't find two Afghanis who agreed on how their culture works - how are we supposed to be able to apply EBO with any hope of precision?

This debate will not die easily, however. You will always have EBO's detractors saying that it doesn't work in practice - which it doesn't - while its defenders will claim that the detractors didn't understand its tenets - which is generally true. If we would see it as a form of mental discipline that offers the staff a common approach to planning, rather than as a system that can be used to conduct operations, we would all be much better off.