Tom,
No doubt that they are available... Just don't think they should based on previous O9-O10 guidance.
You're Doin Fine
You are on the mark as usual...Originally Posted by Eden
OBE Handbooks
Tom,
No doubt that they are available... Just don't think they should based on previous O9-O10 guidance.
Hacksaw
Say hello to my 2 x 4
Hack,
I am well aware of extant guidance on these particular terms. But when guidance says do not use them that is different than going back through previous publications and purging them. If we tried to do that with every term that changed we would be in a constant redit mode.
We don't put out doctrine; we put out emerging observations, insights, and lessons, especially TTPs. And 99.9% of the time, those come from outside of CALL. We don't make them up hence my statement that CALL is not a proponent.
At the time of their publication, those particular publications reflected emerging TTPs. The opening question of this thread asked for briefs and insights on EBO. The list of CALL pubs concerning that term and its application offers a quick historical review of how they were applied, especially here at the JRTC and in theater.
Beyond that I said that the evolution of thought concerning targeting and measuring effects continues here. It does so within TRADOC guidance.
Best,
Tom
You've hit on the biggest intellectual challenge in COIN. I wrote about it a little in the Mil Review Article, and highlighted the I MEF G2 quotes about how Anbar was lost as late as November 2006, when six months later the place was largely pacified.
I think it's a mix. As LTC Gentile commented on my article, it is somewhat arrogant to assume complete causation from our actions. (aside, what I noted in the conclusion was that many factors, some we don't understand, played a role) That said, I firmly believe we set the correct conditions for the Awakening to occur. We couldn't directly CAUSE it in the EBO sense, but we could take actions to make it more likely, based on an analysis of the dynamics of our area and historical COIN principles, and most importantly be arrayed to recognize and exploit the opening when it occurred. Much like a maneuver battle.
This is about having the right kind of boss. I've never posted my ARMOR article on Tal Afar here - but it relates. We moved into a bad neighborhood to clean the insurgents out in my sector. We built a platoon base and began population security operations. Over the subsequent five weeks, 10% of my company was WIA, with one KIA. IED's were detonated on my soldiers every few days. A patrol base was attacked with a SVBIED. PFC Jody Missildine was blown up by an IED. The population was not cooperating. By every measure, things were bad. Morale began to sag among the men, as we were taking casualties with little noticeable result on the enemy. I questioned the validity of my chosen course of action. It was hard ordering my guys out again, potentially to get sniped or blown up. However, I was convinced we were doing the right course of action, and it would pay off. By all of my education and lessons thus far it SHOULD have worked. There's a fine line between "staying the course" and downright denial.You can't simply count standards captured or ground gained. What indicators are there that you can monitor, that are genuine measures of progress, and (perhaps most importantly) that you can brief to the boss?
I was lucky to work for a BN and BDE Commander that had patience, and also believed in what I was doing. We made adjustments in our ops. We got newly trained and competent IP's from the local community to patrol the area and establish a police substation. We changed tactics.
Two weeks later, we had no further attacks in the area. There were no further attacks in that area for six months following, where my direct knowledge ends. The neighborhood elected a mayor, received reconstruction funding, and became a safe community. Sa'ad became a model for other operations. My soldiers beamed with pride at what they had been a part of. The effects spread to other parts of the city. Nothing succeeds like success.
Why did it happen? Mostly I attribute it to a few key HVI captures, coupled with the introduction of competent and fair LOCAL security forces, able to protect the population. I would say we made it impossible for the insurgent fish to swim among the population there. Once that happened, he had to leave. We captured a few, but I suspect most just left for easier areas to operate in.
Excellent point and captured in the two stories above. In Ramadi, my BCT took 85 killed and over 500 wounded in six months while trying to get the awakening going. Attacks were down, marginally. AQIZ still ruled significant swaths of territory that showed little sign of flipping. But we sensed things were set to shift - all the conditions were set, and awaiting the spark. When that spark happened on Nov 26, 2006 with an AQIZ attack on a tribal group, the entire situation changed, and our BCT was postured to exploit the gap - it was the event we had waited for.But experienced counterinsurgents learn to judge progress by using a whole range of subtle indicators; sometimes they may not even be able to articulate what it is that informs their judgment, but that does not necessarily make it any less accurate. Again, you may be doing ten things and may not be sure which are effective and which are not - you can only judge the end product.
......
It takes a great deal of moral courage to be convinced you are doing the right thing when the progress reports don't support you.
To an extent I agree. To truly defeat an insurgent, you simply have to deprive him of the (willing or tacit) support of the population who provides him intelligence, medical, food, shelter, supply, and recruits. There are many ways to get at this.So how do you articulate that in a form that is understandable and briefable?
...
I think this is why the debates about COIN theories are so much more virulent and inconclusive than the corresponding 'conventional' theories. You get much clearer and quicker feedback in 'big wars'; in COIN you often have to take it on faith that you are doing the right thing.
When I arrived to FOB Ramadi in Aug 2006, we were mortared several times a day from the north. By October 2006, there were no attacks. Sure, we targeted the mortar teams, and got a few. But the attacks stopped when the tribe north of the FOB "flipped" to the Awakening. I don't know if the mortarmen were from that tribe or simply allowed into the area, but the net effect was the same. The insurgents were unable, physically or willingly, to attack the base anymore because of our non-lethal effects. That's COIN. The insurgents were deprived of the support of the population that enabled them to operate.
If your actions are targeted at the population's will to support the enemy, instead of ON the enemy, you have a much higher chance of success, in my experience. Take away the population's support, and the insurgency ceases. This can be done by bribing, protecting, intimidating, or several other measures, whichever is most appropriate to the AO. But the key isn't to kill/capture the enemy, it's to deprive him of the population's support. (NOTE: This DOES mean you have to kill/capture enemy - but to free the population from his grip, not to protect yourself)
It's the equivalent of taking out my CSS trains rather than trying to take out the M1. I'm useless without a HEMMTT every 8 hours. An insurgent is nothing without the support of the populace. Galula and Trinquier understood this well.
Commanders that understand that are the ones seeing success. Much more to say, but unfortunately I do have work to do today .....
Eden's response above
I agree that metrics cannot do us justice in COIN. Is COIN more complex than a football game? Why would we watch the scoreboard rather than what is happening in the game? These are qualitative issues, not quantitative ones.
The McNamara-inspired-ORSA-fied management system (in the Army particularly) has convinced the profession that anything is measurable. Most of what is important in life is not. I do not love my children, for example, on a scale of 1 to 10. The "number" is a logical fallacy hidden behind the facade of the pretense of science. Same fallacy can apply to COIN and "EBO."
I like this quote: "War is bounded by the referential extremes of the pre-battle roll call and and the post-battle body count, and is constituted within by the mundane and innumerable calculations (days counted, supplies counted, miles counted). ...Indeed, counting is a speech act so pervasive in war that it approaches an ideology; it is thus not simply a formal or typological question (What shall I count? How shall I count?) but also fundamentally an ethical one (Who counts? Do I count?)." --James Dawes, The Language of War
Last edited by ChrisPaparone; 03-26-2008 at 11:02 PM.
It's always nice when people who know what they're talking about mirror my thoughts, and Eden expresses what I was thinking far more eloquently than I could have, but two points.
One: I'd say that dropping a bomb on Khadfy's kid was a successful EBO: probably because he wasn't interested in adapting to continue the "fight."
Two, there are political benefits to EBO that are often overlooked. Imagine what people would've been saying about Clinton on 9/11 if he hadn't fired a missile at UBL. (If a Democrat wins and draws down troops in Iraq, I can pretty much guaranty that they'll drop bombs on someone/somewhere just so they aren't accused of being "soft.")
Just my opinion, but I'm beginning to think that COIN is being asked to achieve the impossible. COIN can prevent a group from hijacking the political process, but I don't know if it can create "legitimacy" or force "compromise."
If it could, then the metrics would be evidence of legitimacy and/or compromise.
Not the impossible,
just to achieve an acceptable solution in the eyes of all parties. That's all one is ever going to do in COIN -- and there's always going to be a disgruntled disagreeing cluster on both sides. The key is to make those clusters so small as to be of limited or no impact. It generally does this not by forcing compromise but by making compromise a slightly better solution than continuing the insurgency.
The only thing that creates legitimacy is legitimacy.
Metrics are a dangerous myth in most fields of endeavor, they're really dangerous when one attempts to apply them to human conflict. Quantify your relations with your wife...
I have a clear objective. If someone told me I needed to wait ten years to achieve it, I'd get a divorce.
I could have fun with that but I'll just say that you
didn't provide a metric.
OTOH, if a married couple decide they wish to buy a McMansion and they only bring in a combined $65K a year and figure it'll take 'em 10 years to save up enough to buy their dream house; you may think them stupid -- but it's their goal and they believe the wait and effort worth the payoff, you can deride them but it's still gonna happen.
Oh -- and quickies aren't always besties.
WOW! While aware of most of what was written, that was the single most useful document I have read in a very long while on COIN. It is well written, utterly coherent, explanation of how and why. Simple, shop floor, useable stuff. My main take aways from this are;
A.) IO is actually transmitting and supporting intent, that is demonstrated by action. I can think of many better terms for this than IO
B.) Suppression/attrition and terrain denial are very much COIN tools. Eg: it is about people and places.
C.) Major Smith is a soldier trained in conventional combined arms warfare, who has considerable expertise in the practice of COIN. Assuming he is a normal guy (though gifted writer) it seems it is not to hard to create an officer who can do both.
I see this article featuring in my footnotes for some time to come!
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
[LIST
Cavguy, yes there are several encluding one I helped a SWC member with, but I am busy as he....for the rest of this week. So check this weekend for details. PS. EBO is now called SBW Slapout Based Warfarethat's a joke everyone calm down. Later
I'm humbled you think it is that good. I strugged for months on the piece, the genesis was out of a discussion here on SWJ. Lots of people cleaned up the orgininal, and the MR editors worked wonders on it. Even as written, it omits far more than it includes, but contains the essence of what happened.
Agreed. Deeds matter far more than words. (I assume you meant "can't) above. The IO message must be synced with tactial actions. In fact, everything must be synced with tactical actions.A.) IO is actually transmitting and supporting intent, that is demonstrated by action. I can think of many better terms for this than IO
We wouldn't do a heavy breach without syncronizing all the combat arms at the point of penetration, so why would we do a COIN campaign without syncing non-lethal effects on the decisive points?
I am constantly arguing this to people who perceive FM 3-24 and COIN theorists as anti-force. Force is critical. Force is key. But you have to integrate it into your overall plan, or it flops and/or backfires.B.) Suppression/attrition and terrain denial are very much COIN tools. Eg: it is about people and places.
Smith's a hack.C.) Major Smith is a soldier trained in conventional combined arms warfare, who has considerable expertise in the practice of COIN. Assuming he is a normal guy (though gifted writer) it seems it is not to hard to create an officer who can do both.
My hope is that we integrate that reading/learining into our PME for a long time. If an officer simply can understand how a COIN environment requires a different approach from HIC, then we're much better prepared than when I arrived in 2003.
I see this article featuring in my footnotes for some time to come![/QUOTE]
Wilf,
as to MAJ Smith....define "normal"; as to the rest of it...yes, I agree, the Army can (and has) produce(d) officers capable of successfully executing COIN in spite of conventional combined arms training. Army efforts are underway as we speak to inculcate the COIN mindset into leaders force-wide, and at nearly every level of leader development, education and training (which, BTW, as I recently discovered, are dissimilar entities in the eyes of mother army). As somebody once said, (mighta been me...I forget); "It's easier to make a make a SOF guy out of a conventional guy than it is to turn a SOF guy into conventional guy."
"THIS is my boomstick!"
Bingo
A lot of ink has been spilled here and elsewhere over how we should prepare our leaders for combat: focus on COIN, focus on regular warfare, split the difference, etc. My take is that we should concentrate on teaching leaders 'how' to prepare for war, encourage professional study, and give people time and opportunity to do so.
We talk about how lessons have been lost, principles forgotten, doctrine abandoned and the like. The truth is more complex; any half-assed post library has plenty of material, both historical and theoretical, on any type of conflict you care to name. With the internet, reams of resources are available for professional study. Even the most dyed-in-the-wool tanker steely-eyed advocate of attrition has the wisdom of the ages at his fingertips.
Unfortunately, most officers have neither the time, energy, nor inclination for professional study. Many, and I include senior leaders, don't even recognize the gaps in their professional education. Until we teach them how to learn on their own - and reward them for doing so - we will cyclically lose the first battle of every war.
An acquaintance of mine told me when he knew we were in trouble in Iraq. He was flying over with a bunch of fresh-faced staffers bound for the CPA. Almost without exception, they were conscientiously studying books on the Marshall Plan and MacArthur's occupation of Japan.
This is a start
This is one of the better docs on EBO. More latter. The best is not online anymore...but I am jamming up on it
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/saas/kreighbaum.pdf
Exactly! There is no genetic, organisational or intellectual block to creating officers (and thus and army) skilled in both Combined Arms Warfare/Counter Formation and COIN.
The UK had an entire generation of Officers, who were skilled Combined Arms men - Germany and COIN -Northern Ireland practitioners. We got this purely by accident and ad-hocary. We should (and are apparently failing) to be able to do it by design.
What is lacking is an "This is X and this is Y. You must be good at both" approach to professional military education.
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
Too true! And the answer to how to create officers - and soldiers - who were solidly capable of both turned out to include thorough, not merely basic, training in the basics. In both initial entry training syllabi and in Unit-training cycles, the emphasis in training progressed from the basics: beginning of course, with individual, sub-unit, then Minor-unit training, and including at the same time most of the the Aid to the Civil Power/Operations Other Than War matter - Humanitarian/Disaster Relief, IS, SSO, CT, COIN, and the like - which is majority individual and small-unit stuff anyway, and finishing off with MCO at Sub-unit and Minor-Unit level; then up through more advanced matter in MCO at Sub-unit an Minor-Unit level; and finishing off with MCO at Major-unit and Formation-level. And during the process, it was inculcated into officers - and soldiers - that there was a real difference in role and mental approach that had to be taken in Aid to the Civil Power/OOTW missions as opposed to the mentality required for MCO and the like - which went along with the whole "flick of a switch" bit by which Commonwealth soldiers are pychologically conditioned. Plus, Aid to the Civil Power/OOTW training, coming as it did at about the same time as individual, sub-unit, and minor-unit level training, allowed for instillation of the appropriate self-displine and mindset - self-control and restraint - prior to going on to full-fledged Operations of War/MCO stuff. Crucially important. It worked, and worked well - once the "formula" had been worked out by time, trial, and error. Considering OOTW ops, such as COIN, to be somehow an "advanced" or "exotic" mission that can only really be attempted after having mastered MCO, is backwards. OOTW is basic, MCO is advanced.
But there were two keys to making it work: sustained unit cohesion (i.e., a Regimental system), and relatively long intitial entry training; the original 4-month syllabus for soldiers eventually increasing to 6-months, in order to relieve Units of the burden of having to bring the soldiers up to standard in the basics, thus preserving much more Unit training time for, well, Unit training.
Wilf is right though, about EBA/EBO/Entropy-Based Warfare/..., and that there is no substitute (so far) for being able to plant your flag on the top of the hill at the end of the day, insofar as EBO is identified with Stand-Off Firepower-type approaches. The NCW concept that has been tied into EBO has, as others have observed, reduced EBO in such cases to little more than the mere servicing of targets, with attendant expectation that somehow the desired effects will occur, and that we will observe them soon enough to take full advantage of them. It hasn't worked out so well in practice, when EBO is synthesized with RMA/NCW.
That said, EBO, properly understood and applied, may be rather more appropriate for COIN than MCO anyway, not least because of the time factor. COIN is long-term, and time is not usually compressed in anything like the way that it is in MCO. In MCO, there is often little time to take much more than an almost spontaneous assessment of what's going on, where things are heading, and what next to do about it. There is precious little time to seek and observe for desired effects - it's a lot more by the skin of your teeth in comparison to OOTW. In COIN, there is much more opportunity to seek to bring about and to observe for desired effects, and then to act accordingly. Then again, as Wilf and others have said or implied, in this respect EBO in some respects does little more than provide a rather more formal targetting-list for an approach that has long been used well before "EBO" ever had a name. It would have been interesting to hear Sun Tzu's take on the EBO concept, especially as to whether it actually offers anything substantially more than what he did.
EBO may also be much more appropriate at the higher, and especially highest, echelons. At the National political level, EBO is potentially quite useful when applied to the conduct of National Strategy. Time is most in abundance at this level, and so are the range of various desirable effects to be potentially had. As you go down the ladder, both time and the range of options decrease, until to get down to OOTW, such as COIN. Then the game changes dramatically, and EBO may come back into its own.
But if EBO offers little more than an extensive targetting list of sorts, then as Eden said, an officer just going down to a decent library and reading up on a few good books may not need EBO's input; he's able to develop the judgement necessary to figure out what effects are desirable, how to try to achieve them, and how to look for the appearance of anticipated effects and then to act upon them. So is EBO really an advance, or is just telling anyone with access to a decent library something they don't already know or can't find out for themselves? slap, is there something that EBA offers that you can't get otherwise?
Hi everyone sorry for the late response but I had a very busy week and had to catch up on my chores this weekend.
Norfolk, the paper I posted above is well worth the read and here is a quote from roman numeral page 8 in the introduction.
" A strategy of coercive FA (force application),when confronted by competing beliefs and probabilities regarding an adversary, should do what all wise strategies have done before-hedge. It should hedge using both pragmatic strategy that focuses on attrition (brute reduction) and a more idealistic strategy that concentrates on virtual attrition (functional reduction)."
Or another way to say it is to not only be able to plant your flag on the enemies hilltop but also be able to seize the government at the point of a bayonet until he complies with your demands and leave him his hilltop after he complies.
EBO holds non-lethal capabilities at a level equal to destructive force... that is it's main contribution. But I hate the term EBO it doesn't even sound military and it has morphed into so many forms as compared to what it was meant to be (the above paper is 1998) that it no longer makes any sense. It needs to be simplified by going back to the enemy as a system for analytic and operational design purposes and realize that Effects are nothing more than the commanders intent.
Frankly, this sounds quite similar to the kind of problems that indications and warning intelligence analysts face. Perhaps an I&W methodology could be adapted to measuring COIN effectiveness.Our tendency is to measure those things that are measurable: number of attacks, number of schools built, number of weapon caches discovered. But these don't always serve as reliable measures of effectiveness. We tend to discount professional military judgment because it doesn't brief well and is not quantifiable. But experienced counterinsurgents learn to judge progress by using a whole range of subtle indicators; sometimes they may not even be able to articulate what it is that informs their judgment, but that does not necessarily make it any less accurate. Again, you may be doing ten things and may not be sure which are effective and which are not - you can only judge the end product.
So how do you articulate that in a form that is understandable and briefable?
Cavguy is SOF undercover
Cavguy,If your actions are targeted at the population's will to support the enemy, instead of ON the enemy, you have a much higher chance of success, in my experience. Take away the population's support, and the insurgency ceases. This can be done by bribing, protecting, intimidating, or several other measures, whichever is most appropriate to the AO. But the key isn't to kill/capture the enemy, it's to deprive him of the population's support. (NOTE: This DOES mean you have to kill/capture enemy - but to free the population from his grip, not to protect yourself)
I can't believe you're a tanker after reading this. Instead I think you're an old school SF officer undercover in an armor unit. I thought the motto of armor and mech was "death before dismount"? I really enjoyed your post, especially the comment I pasted above. Your understanding of COIN is superior to many new generation SOF officers who are strictly focused on chasing bad guys around, like a dog chasing its tail. They call it network targeting, I call it network B.S..
I'm going to use your post to support my previous arguments (whether you intended to or not) regarding EBO:
By focusing on the population instead of the enemy, you didn't go after the nodes of an insurgent network, you went after the links. This destroyed the network in your area. You can go after nodes forever, and they'll simply be replaced.
EBO based on nodes is generally a flawed concept.
EBO based on metrics is also flawed, and worse wastes considerable man hours attempting to develop and monitor metrics that in the end are generally misleading and beyond accurate measurement to begin with. Smart men on the tip of the spear can tell you if things are getting better without resorting to metrics and bubble charts. I think it was Ken who wrote, "how do you quantify the relationship with your wife"? Um, metrics could range from the number of times you do the funky, number of arguments, number of phone calls/e-mails when TDY, etc., but none of them really equate to the quality of the relationship. However, it is probably fair to say you know what the status of your marriage is, and you would probably be a better husband/wife if you spent time with your partner instead of wasting time developing and monitoring metrics. The same is true when battling an insurgency. The men on the street (who have been there awhile) are smart enough to get a feel for things, especially when they're man enough like Cavguy's men to get outside the FOB and hold terrain.
EBO attempts to reflect if you tickle a particular node it will equate to immediate and measurable effect. That may be true for physical systems like electric power, but it is not true for complex systems like an insurgency. This is a weak attempt to transfer b.s. air force systems kinetic targeting methodology to COIN. How many times do we have to decaptitate the insurgency to realize that isn't decisive?
On the other hand, Cavguy was effective because he struggled to control the populace (the populace isn't a node). This isn't some left wing, whimpy, soft approach to fighting, it is the "toughest" fight in COIN. You're not launching from a relative safe base on armored vehicles to kill/capture a couple guys, then run back to your weight room, you're living 24/7 amongst the enemy. It is a mano a mano fight. It is such as effective technique that the insurgents will push back hard, because they know they can't afford to lose this fight. I would argue that increased attacks against us is a positive metric if we have to go down the metric road. This is bringing the enemy to the surface where we can defeat him. The effects you create by denying key terrain (the populace) to the enemy are hard to quantify, but they are significant. Why waste time trying to develop metrics, stop light charts, etc.? They're created for folks who aren't in the fight, because those who are don't need them.
That brings me to my final point, EBO as it is being implemented is a failed concept. However, if it gives birth to Effects Based Approach (EBA), then it won't have been a wasted life. EBA is still useful in my opinion because it empowers soldiers at all levels to really understand what needs to be accomplished to get to the desired endstate.
We all know how important decentralized operations are in COIN, even at the squad/platoon level. If these strategic corporals really understand the desired effects that they are supposed to create (propaganda by deed), then commanders will have a tool to force multiply their intent effectively.
This is not the same as task-purpose (still a useful), because your squad leader may not know the task until he is amongst the populace. When he faces an emerging situation, then he can issue a task purpose type order to his men that supports achieving the desired effect.
Thus the beauty of EBA is it facilitates initiative at the lowest levels. Squad leader X from Brooklin may express the message one way (via words or deed), and Squad leader Y from Portland another, but as long as it is generally "on message" supporting the desired effect we're good. In my opinion this differs from end state and task and purpose.
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