Like all of these things I think a simple concept got overly ‘technologified’ by people with far too much time on their hands ... IO in many regards is exactly the same.

To me EBO started simple for simple audiences … a process/terminology used at whole-of-Government level to let the military be the military and the politicians be the politicians and the other departments do what they needed to do in support of national needs. We (the military) could simply ask Government what end state they wanted and what effects they wanted to achieve and then we could go off and plan the military things to achieve it. We could also clearly identify those non-military things/elements that we needed for success. Really it was about letting the military plan to achieve the job with their complete arsenal of options rather than plan to meet the COA outlined by Government ... "We want to you to win (without defining it) without causing undue political pressure for us (without defining what that was) and you need to do it all within this arbitrary budget and with exactly 727 personnel.... oh by the way we want all of the services included and please make sure no one gets killed" I can really see the frustration that led us down this path ... "just tell us what you want done and let us go and do it" ... that's all EBO was really about.

It got caught up when a simple process for getting clear and coherent intent statement out of our political masters suddenly became something that influenced the operational art and played in tactics.

If we had left it up at the strategic (vice the military strategic) I think it would fly ... we'd end up with nice language that worked across Government and let everyone feel happy about things. Importantly the military then could do its normal planning (JOPES, JMAP whatever) and carry on. When you try to bring the language and theory down into the operational and tactical level it suddenly plays havoc with concepts of mission command and everything else.

Theorists, boffins and academics (ducking into my Stage 3 Fighting Pit here) have to accept a lot of responsibility for this ...