Bill, you hold on to them cheerleaders cause I haven't finished yet.

1-My intention was to show how well CARVER would work when you are figuring out how to defend large physical systems with various agencies at the state-country level. I have posted this before but this looked like a newer version so I put it up here.

2-On trying to quantify everything I absolutely agree. It is the questions that are asked in the CARVER acronym that are of the greatest value IMHO. Besides knowing what you know about me you think I am gonna fill in all them numbers

3-The SHOCK in this version has nothing to do with the Shock and Awe stuff you are used to. I could have explained it better by saying it is more like being aware of the CNN effect. Again this is from a defensive point of view while a LE/NG/RA unit is protecting a state-city-countries critical infrastructure.

4- Killing Mr.Pablo. I agree that is was justice and not Victory. But killing Pablo makes some very good points about where EBO came from. The Enemy is Always the System! It is Systems thinking more than effects thinking that makes Warden's theory so powerfull.........



Get them cheerleaders ready cause this is some important very important stuff. It is also one of the biggest mistakes I see in what are being called EBO operations. Write this down...being good at achieving desired target effects doesn't matter unless you also achieve the desired System level effect!!!

So WTF does that mean and why is that so important. As you pointed out Pablo went to hell and all the other drug gangs made more money and actually increased production/shipments to the US Why? because we did not attack the Drug problem at the system level...just the target level.
What happened was entirely predictable. Let me explain another way.

Your enemy is the Automobile system of the US. So what do you do...you attack General Motors that's what you do.. right?....they are the Center of Gravity right? So you go bomb the hell out of GM...what happens? people buy more Fords and Toyota's!!! Why because you only attacked at the target level (even if it is a huge target) to achieve a Systems Effect you would have had to attack ALL of them!! In some way (even if it was non-lethal).

In order to change the entire System..... especially a human oriented System. You must attack the whole system or you will see the system adapt and come back as you pointed out.

If we had wanted to end the Drug War in Columbia quickly you would have needed to form a Task Force for every known gang there, do a 5 rings analysis of each gang and then try to synchronize and attack all the gangs in parallel.

In Guerrilla/Insurgency warfare it is the same way. You need to change/attack the whole system in parallel or as close to it as possible or it will adapt or more likely repopulate!!! and you are back to square one.

So where are them cheerleaders at