is to create a standardized system which can be used as a sort of quick reference guide for those of us to whom common sense might not be such a common thingOriginally Posted by William F. Owen
So how is any of that a product of "effects based thinking"?
This is leadership and common sense. That is what the military should create. Men who can impose their will on others in dangerous and difficult circumstances, to get them to do things they don't want to do or don't know how to.
I always come back to the same thing. How is anything "effects based" different from anything we ever did that worked? How does calling it effects based, make it better?
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Perhaps the point
is to create a standardized system which can be used as a sort of quick reference guide for those of us to whom common sense might not be such a common thing
Quick reference guide? So EBP and EBT are infact Aide Memoir Formats in the same way as the Five Paragraph orders format is.is to create a standardized system which can be used as a sort of quick reference guide for those of us to whom common sense might not be such a common thing
Situation, Mission, Execution, Command/Control and Administration. ( SMECA )
IMO, Five Paragraph orders format is good for almost anything, and where even the OODA loop has its home.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Wilf, here is a little deeper back round on the beginnings of what became known as EBO.
1-I guess this is pretty much the paper that started it all. "The Enemy As A System" by Col. John Warden
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...les/warden.htm
2-From that original concept of "Systems Warfare" it went to this, which is why EBO has long been associated with Air Power only, which is was never meant to be.
http://www.aef.org/pub/psbook.pdf
Last edited by slapout9; 12-21-2007 at 11:36 AM. Reason: Fix Stuff
Yes, The Warden paper I know well and reject it utterly, for the same reason Tira and whole bunch of other folks do.
Quote: In today's world, strategic entities, be they an industrial state or a guerrilla organization, are heavily dependent on physical means. If the physical side of the equation can be driven close to zero, the best morale in the world is not going to produce a high number on the outcome side of the equation. Looking at this equation, we are struck by the fact that the physical side of the enemy is, in theory, perfectly knowable and predictable. Conversely, the morale side, the human side, is beyond the realm of the predictable in a particular situation because humans are so different from each other. Our war efforts, therefore, should be directed primarily at the physical side.
This assumes breaking stuff is decisive. It is not. We have vast amounts of evidence against this.
This is not attacking the will and cohesion of the enemy nor is it anything to do with what many touted as EBO - so how come this is always cited as the Rosetta Stone of EBO? - when Warden is advocating something that is purely physical destruction. Any relevance to COIN?
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
slap, when I've read enough of your postings, can I claim that as credit towards an MMAS at Maxwell (and if I read your SBW stuff when you've finished it, can I claim that as sufficient for the entire MMAS, or even a PhD?)
Hi Norfolk, sure go ahead. In fact if you applied to Maxwell for a degree in SBW it would probably flyright through. They wouldn't have a clue what you were talking about but it sounds good. As for my postings the best is yet to come, just laying the ground work so to speak.
Hi Wilf, I am at work getting ready for our Xmas party so I don't have time to respond now, but I will later. You ask good questions. Oh by the way haven't you heard EBO is now called EBA the Effects Based ApproachLater
Hi Wilf, You just ask the question of all questions. That is one reason I called this thread Targeting instead of EBO. The reason in my opinion is that almost all EBO documents somehow reference the 5 rings Targeting model at least the older ones do. The other reason is that now General Deptula used to work for Warden as a Major as part of the Checkmate Team. Warden left the Air Force and Deptula is still in and was a big push behind what came to be known as EBO hence the posting the Article by him.
Warden at the time had know real title for his theories. He played with several, some of which were Parallel-Warefare and Hyper-Warfare, none of which he kept, but his primary purpose was to develop a process, a systematic way of thinking about how to develop a war winning Strategy. A process that could be taught and repeated as a Campaign Planning Model.
Here is a link to a short article that pretty much describes that process. This will seem like common sense to you but at the time inside the Air Force this was radical stuff.
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...unerwadel.html
He was and is a big proponent of using non-lethal weapons to avoid breaking stuff. At the time he wrote that article he was still in the Air Force so I suspect he had to tow the party line so to speak. His insistance on development of less lethal weapons would end up being very costly to his career.
His model can and does work in UW type situations in some ways better than in conventional warfare as I will point out in later post. But generally he thinks that special forces should be handling it, much like the Afghan Campaign at least at the start of it.
In general reference to your primary question Norfolk answered it a long time ago when he said he felt he had been Horn Swoggled
Excellent paper on how Warden's Rings can be used to Target any organization.
Urban Warfare at the Operational Level: Identifying COG's and Key Nodes.
http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=...fier=ADA397036
5 Rings Targeting of a terrorist organization. Absolutely one of the best papers on Warden's theory and how it can be applied to any organization. Warden left as commandant of the Air Command and Staff College in 96 and this is one of the last really good papers on his theory. After this period things started to switch to EBO theory and have not really done that well since then. Chapter 3 has the targeting scheme that nearly 10 years later the Grubbs article brings up ("Is There a deep fight in COIN "posted earlier on this thread). As so often happens with theories they get changed when they just really need to be understood. The amazing thing is that an Airman wrote this and it is as valid today as it was then if not more so.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/acsc/97-0393.pdf
Well I'll give it a look, but I am very doubtful, because:
a>) The RAF is trying to claim some insights into COIN, which are just woeful and play very fast and loose with the historical record to try and support their arguments.
b>) I think the overwhelming lesson of the 2nd Lebanon War is that Air Power has extremely limited utility in COIN, as concerns "kinetic" effects. The RAF is actually now trying to claim that AIR POWER did not fail in the Lebanon, but that it was given an impossible task, thus did not fail, per se.
c>) I also suspect that there are some very unhealthy pre-emptive USAF agendas in play in this paper.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Here is a PDF file on how CARVER can be adapted to almost to any situation. This one is CARVER+Shock used in the food industry. The first time I saw this in LE was with the NYPD some years back. This should be an Interagency Gold Standard right after the 5 Rings IMHO.
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/PDF/Carver.pdf
Ebo
Generally, I'm all for piling on whenever EBO is criticized, but after a tour as a planner I've realized a few things.
1. In its essence, EBO (or EBP or EBAO or whatever the acronym consultants are using now) is a useful tool in planning. We've been doing it for years; artillerymen, like Proust's gentleman, were pleased to discover they had been using it for decades when they asked us whether we wanted to "neutralize", "suppress", or "destroy" a particular target. In concept, it is much like backward planning. I know where I want to be at the end of the operation; how do I get there? Personally, I found it to be a good way to recharge my planning brain cells and incorporate innovative thinking.
So, what's the problem?
2. It is not moron-friendly. Many officers I worked with were unable to articulate feasible, definable, measurable effects, let alone figure out what "causes" needed to be employed to bring them about. When you add in unintended effects, second and third order effects, etc., you quickly develop migraine headaches and intellectual shutdown amongst your staff. In other words, effects-based planning is hugely difficult, especially in hideously complex environments such as your average COIN op.
3. It has been hijacked by knuckleheads and LOM-scroungers. Whereas early works on the subject suggested that EBO might be a nice way to approach problem solving and an aid in planning, its recent enshrinement in the buzzword pantheon has effectively crippled its utility. We have taken an interesting idea and transformed it into a panoply of spreadsheets, bullet points, MOPs, MOEs, mandatory annexes, and new staff sections. As one who has waded through charts of desired effects, sub-effects, sub-sub effects, and apparently randomly-selected (see para 2, above) actions, methods, enabling tasks, etc., ad nauseum, I can testify that EBO are already as dysfunctional as IPB ultimately became. Unfortunately, EBO is a perfect catalyst for our proclivities toward endless analysis, false precision, and overornamentation.
4. It is often dominated by targeteers, artillerymen, and bomber pilots, none of whom are noted as a class for their excellence in strategic planning. As a result, we have too often replaced meaningful campaign plans with target lists. In the end we chase targets rather than our chosen end-state.
It's too late to stuff the genie back in the bottle, guys. The only way to escape the insidious uses to which this good idea is being used is through education and professional discussion. Or maybe we could come up with a new buzzword. But what would be the second and third order effects...
Glad to note that someone who's actually had to use
the process confirmed my suspicion:
Violations of K.I.S.S. are not advisable; or "We can overcomplexificate ANYthing..."
Maybe not, since General Mattis took over JFC the handbook on the Effects Based Approach has been pulled
It is also nice to have someone agree with me because I have been saying this since I got here and I learned EBO (wasn't called that then) as it was taught to LE to attack drug gangs. Although that has been several years now I have never talked about it in detail except to commnet on articles because I am not sure of the current OPSEC rules, but if you want to know just how powerfull this type of planning can be read "Killing Pabelo" by Mark Bowden how he got away with saying what he did I don't know but the detail is amazing. I posted a page number from the book on another thread that gives almost a perfect 5 rings analysis of what to hit and how to hit IF!!!! your really want to win.
We're simply stupid
Slapout I find myself in disagreement with you, which is out of character, since I am normally a cheerleader for your posts. The mnemonic CARVER has been around for over 50 years. I was taught it was developed by the OSS during WWII, and it was called CRAVER (a french verb), because it was developed to assist the French underground in determining the best targets to hit based on their capabilities and desired results. I have found it to be very useful over the years. My heartburn with the use of CARVER is based on two concerns:
First, I'm troubled with our persistant effort to quantify everything. Not all the factors in CARVER can be "accurately" quantified, so the highest sum of each proposed target will not always (and usually doesn't) equate to the target you deisre to hit based on logic and experience; however, since our officers need metrics for everything, the operator must adjust his numbers, so the target he wants to hit has the highest sum. In short we're spinning our wheels trying to quantify each factor, yet the important thing is to "consider" and think each factor through.
Second, and much more serious, is the attempt to apply CARVER to insurgencies and terrorist groups as an effective tool to identify the "silver bullet" solution. This is complete hogwash, insurgencies are complex social networks or movements, and there is no silver bullet solution or shock and awe effect that will equate to victory. CARVER was defined for simple networks, such as a power plant, where hitting gadet X will predictably result in Y. You cannot conduct targeting of human nodes and expect to have a predictable result. Social networks will readjust and keep on ticking, as we seem to painfully relearn each time we get into one of these conflicts. As a matter of fact, after Pablo was killed, the Columbia drug cartels became more decentralized and exported more crap to the U.S. than they did when Pablo was alive. I'm not arguing that killing Plabo was a bad thing, but it was simply justice, not a decisive victory.
Targeting stupid is an attempt to define all our security challenges as targets. We simply can't dumb our problems down to targets. Targets will remain part of the solution, but winning insurgencies requires creating desired effects and avoided undesired effects. Winning requires winning over the support of the population, isolating the insurgent from the population, and neutralizing the insurgent infrastructure. CARVER doesn't facilitate this, effects based thinking does. EBO targeting doesn't facilitate this, effects based thinking does.
EBO targeting is a terrible concept, because EBO shouldn't be linked with targeting. Targeting should remain traditional targeting, where we apply lethal fires to create the specific effects that lethal or destructive fires can create, but the main effort in COIN, and even the so called drug war, isn't targeting. It is much more complex than that, yet we're always striving for a simple answer and that frequently takes us down the wrong road.
CARVER is an outstanding tool for what it was designed to do, but it has limited use in countering insurgencies.
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 USWhy? 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
Errr..
The utility of military force is to break will, either by annihilation of exhaustion.
That's it! Armies are not systems and nor are any human organisations. It's a nice myth. Breaking one critical part, will rarely cause collapse. The Germans lost an entire Divisional HQ to an air strike in Normandy and no one noticed!
What you say about targeting is entirely correct, and in line with what Ron Tira writes. (met him recently. heck of a nice guy... for a fighter pilot!). Sooner or later someone has to plant a flag on a hill or a building. How would Hezbollah have felt if every village in the Southern Lebanon got covered in Blue and White flags? - and then live in the knowledge the Jews can come back anytime and use your toilet... and it'll cost you many lives to stop them.
Ironically, your handle says it all. I subscribe to the "stay down or get F**ked up," school of military thought.
Last edited by William F. Owen; 02-23-2008 at 04:31 AM. Reason: I wrote something very stupid
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Poms Poms are still in the closet
Hey Slapout, I'm sorry buddy, but I'm not taking my poms poms out of the closet yet. This topic is worth signficant discussion and debate, but I'll be short on time for the next few weeks, but here is a quick response.
First, you said the enemy is a system. O.K. we can say the enemy is a system, the enemy is a network, the enemy is a group of people, the enemy is nation, all are perceptional models to help us understand the problem. The problem is if we use the wrong perceptional model we misrepresent the problem, and thus develop the wrong strategy, but I digress.
Let's use the system model (note you can perceive systems in a number of ways). If the enemy is a nation-state such as Germany during WWII, then the nation is the ultimate the system we want to target. The nation is a system composed of several subsystems (economic, political, social, defense, legal, etc.) that interact with one another in various ways. Using the example provided by W Owen of a German Infantry Division, the Inf Div "could" be classifed as a node of a component (Infantry) of a subsystem (Army) of a subsystem (defense) of a system (Germany). Framing it this way, it would seem apparent that the loss of a division was simply the loss of a node of a component two subsystems down from the over archng system, so the effect while painful wouldn't be decisive in itself. If we destroyed all the nodes, that would cause the Infantry subsystem to collapse, which would make the rest of the Army system much less effective, thereby weakening the nation state system. That is one way to look at it, but I think it is a stretch. I think it can argued there are effects derived from destroying this node that are acculmative in nature on the nation's morale that the system model doesn't address. On the other hand, where the system approach may have made a difference was if we went after Germany's ability to generate electric power, we would have crippled their industrial production capacity, which many German officers thought would have ended the war two years earlier.
I agree that presenting problems as systems so we can understand them may be useful for certain situations, but I also think using the system paradigm has serious limitations, especially when applied to insurgencies, Al Qaeda networks, and the drug cartels. Of course it does have "some" use, but Warden's five ring model will not provide us with sufficient understanding of the problem set to develop a comprehensive strategy. We have tried this approach numerous times throughout history to no avail, as this is the American way of war (or the industrialist way of war). I guess you could argue we were doing it wrong (perhaps), but you can also argue that this approach while useful is not a targeting pancea, and it doesn't come close to providing a complete strategy for defeating the enemy. I think we should apply multiple models to the same problem set to see what we come up with, use Warden's system approach, use PMESII analysis, use ASCOPE, and others, all provide a different way to understand the problem and factors influencing the problem(s).
Last edited by Bill Moore; 02-23-2008 at 11:29 AM.
Hi Wilf, I was rather confused at your response about systems. A short definitions os a system is persons,places,and things using a process to accomplish some purpose. The Army has the purpose of breaking the enemies will to fight by using the processes of Annihilation and or Exhaustion would be an outstanding definition of the Army as a system.
Agree on my handle Wilf SBW (Slapout Based Warfare) is about how to get the Enemy Slapout of town.
Hi Bill, what is usually called 5 rings analysis Warden calls mapping the system. The 5 rings are meant to be a map that shows all the persons,places and things that are in your AO. Somehow over time people just stopped calling it that or explaining it that way and usually just call it a 5 rings analysis. The point being whether you use PEMSII (i keep wanting to say Pepsi) or ASCOPE doesn't really matter. The fact that you are mapping the a system is the important thing. ASCOPE isn't that different than the 5 rings to me but either one is fine. CARVER is just tool that I would use to analyze the 2nd ring (System Essentials) instead of doing an entire fractal 5 rings map. Adaption or evolution of a process is life
The Rand Corp. did a study called "Street Smarts" where they suggested that OAKCO be used to create a human terrain map long before human terrain teams were talked about. The same acronym would go hand in hand with the physical terrain analysis. Example Key Terrain would be VIP's, avenues of approach would be people who could introduce you to or influence key terrain. obstacles could be crowds or individuals that were working against you to block access or influence key terrain you were also trying to influence. If I can find the link to the paper I will post it here. So you are are busy have enjoyed the debate and education throughly.
PS: All you other smart folks out there jump in at any time. where's them Air Force dudes hiding at
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