Assessment of Effects Based Operations

[Hajduk]

Cav Guy was right in his comment above; the systems guys will be back. .

I agree that the 'system guys' will always look for a reason (justification) to unleash the wrath of their calculators and powerpoint presentations. I would only allow them to exist within the experimentation departments (where failure is acceptable).

The dying breaths of the systems nerd were heard a while back with the changed order of affairs in today's hotspots reached unacceptable proportions. Now, its about time that leaders (that don't get hard ons when they see a "super-cool" ppt slide from a vitamin-d deficient concept developer) are at the strategic level making decisions that will change the way future concepts and doctrine (and their developers) are influenced and written.

Gen Mattis is in no way new to the game

[William F. Owen]

I suggest that good doctrine and concepts should use no words that do not appear in the UKs 1924 field regulations! Plain simple, and all about killing His Majesties enemies!

[slapout9]

I have been very busy the last 2 weeks at my day job and have not had a chance to post much. After reading the full document Mattis may produce some very good things without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. On page 6 of the memo just under the comments by General Kelly and Dave Killcullen are four ideas that will be retained by current Joint Doctrine. What is unusual is these are all very important "Systems Thinking Concepts." Real systems thinking concepts are not fuzzy or complicated and should be kept as apparently Mattis intends to. The rest of the stuff should go as Mattis is apparently going to do. Time for a return to the "Enemy As A System."

[jcustis]

The joint force must act in uncertainty and thrive in chaos, sensing opportunity therein and not retreating into a need for more information.

And right here I see something that typifies this great general. If he said the enemy was at the bottom of that cliff, I need you to jump off it to kill them...I'd peek first, but would figure out how to make that poncho into a parachute real quick.

[William F. Owen]

Time for a return to the "Enemy As A System."

This force me to ask why? Does it help? Is it useful?

OK, having read up on systems theory to help me understand Shimon Naveh's work, I can see very little merit in it's application to military thought. - I also think Naveh is mostly wrong.

The problem is ambiguity. If the enemy is a system, then he is usually self healing, adapting and evolving, and all the other bumper stickers that add complexity.
Why do I want to get into a competition tracking and understanding this?
Why don't I just kill and destroy any part of him I come across?

Systems Theory seem to be a starting point that wants to advocate clever and complex solutions.

Yes, everything may be a "system", but like the OODA loop, why does thinking that way help?

[Ron Humphrey]

This force me to ask why? Does it help? Is it useful?

OK, having read up on systems theory to help me understand Shimon Naveh's work, I can see very little merit in it's application to military thought. - I also think Naveh is mostly wrong.

The problem is ambiguity. If the enemy is a system, then he is usually self healing, adapting and evolving, and all the other bumper stickers that add complexity.
Why do I want to get into a competition tracking and understanding this?
Why don't I just kill and destroy any part of him I come across?

Systems Theory seem to be a starting point that wants to advocate clever and complex solutions.

Yes, everything may be a "system", but like the OODA loop, why does thinking that way help?

The most notable concern that I hear over and over is exactly as you say,
ambiguity.

The real effect in using any type of systems approach should be IMHO simply being able to more quickly identify, or recognize opportunities, changes taking place, weaknesses, strengths, etc. KISS principle works in life because most of us would rather be able to just pick a direction and go with it at least knowing that everyone is on the same page(even if it turns out to be the wrong page).

The problem with refusing to not only accept that some systems approach may be necessary if one is to truly be able to address the larger environment, is that it may be in the end, the only way to actually define what will be the most effective KISS principle with which to approach the particular situation.

Think formulas in math, they are useful because they allow us to figure out answers to given problems sets without actually having to go through all of the extra steps. Thus problem solving is simplified and thus hopefully more within the comfort zone of most those who have to use them.

For every part of the enemy you decimate there exists another portion yet unidentified which will most likely fill the vacuum. Now in a normal war or LE circumstance it is probably doable to say that you'll just keep eliminating until their all gone.

In the current world climate exactly how long do you think it would take to actually do that, or is it even more likely that at some point you will have eliminated so many that a new stock of problems develops from the results of those which is even more menacing and perhaps less defined by cause and more defined by revenge/personal loss. This is what they mean by the statement you can't kill your way out of an insurgency. I submit thats probably true to some extent in ANY battle.

[William F. Owen]

This is what they mean by the statement you can't kill your way out of an insurgency. I submit thats probably true to some extent in ANY battle.

I will ponder the rest of your post at length, but I just wanted to pick up this.

You are exactly right. Insurgents are defeated just like everyone else.

Insurgencies fail, or are defeated because the insurgents gives up. He is militarily defeated. He may not have been defeated solely by military means but, as an armed opponent, he suffered defeat.

All the so called non-military aspects of COIN are aimed at detracting from the effectiveness of someone using force. If an insurgency did not use armed force, it would not be a military or police problem.

Understanding an Insurgency as "a system" merely allows you to kill and arrest the right people. The defeat of the Shining Path, in Peru being one of the best examples I know. The bigger the system, the larger the amount of people have to be taken out circulation.

[slapout9]

Hi Wilf, the answer to your question on the benefit is...well I would be hard pressed to come up with a better answer than Ron Humphrey gave.
EBO is complex and not worth it. Systems thinking is simple and will bring clarity to the situation when done properly.

The real effect in using any type of systems approach should be IMHO simply being able to more quickly identify, or recognize opportunities, changes taking place, weaknesses, strengths, etc. KISS principle works in life because most of us would rather be able to just pick a direction and go with it at least knowing that everyone is on the same page(even if it turns out to be the wrong page).

The problem with refusing to not only accept that some systems approach may be necessary if one is to truly be able to address the larger environment, is that it may be in the end, the only way to actually define what will be the most effective KISS principle with which to approach the particular situation.

Ron that is quote of the week type stuff....very well said.

[Ron Humphrey]

Hi Wilf, the answer to your question on the benefit is...well I would be hard pressed to come up with a better answer than Ron Humphrey gave.
EBO is complex and not worth it. Systems thinking is simple and will bring clarity to the situation when done properly.




Ron that is quote of the week type stuff....very well said.

by your praise

One thing I learned fairly quickly in corrections was that although things are never simple, their not always as difficult as they seem either.

[William F. Owen]

Systems thinking is simple and will bring clarity to the situation when done properly.

Slap mate. I want to believe! - the religious side of me!

..but can you give me an example? How does thinking of the IRA or a Soviet Style Motor Rifle Regiment, as "a system" help me defeat him?

I totally get that deep understanding of how something mechanical, cybernetic or even chemical allows me to use the minimum force to sabotage it, but how do I apply that to real world enemies and threats? - which are endlessly "open" systems, are they not?

[Ron Humphrey]

Slap mate. I want to believe! - the religious side of me!

..but can you give me an example? How does thinking of the IRA or a Soviet Style Motor Rifle Regiment, as "a system" help me defeat him?

I totally get that deep understanding of how something mechanical, cybernetic or even chemical allows me to use the minimum force to sabotage it, but how do I apply that to real world enemies and threats? - which are endlessly "open" systems, are they not?

They must eat, sleep, work, watch their back, find support, find the good guys, create alliances, establish boundaries, conquer ground, address the populous, etc.

If that ain't a system of some sort not sure what is.

That doesn't mean there's not some difference in how one is to approach said systems. It is simply to identify that their still the same just trying to use a little tech to help think about them.

Whats the difference between a tape or CD, how about VHS or DVD,
Standard res / HD Its about clarity of perception and understanding not different answers. Hopefully better answers to the same questions.

I'm sure that didn't help but Oh well I tried

[wm]

Systems thinking usually seems to arise when one is feeling resource constrained. In other words, if you can't rain down tons of steel on your opponent in a rather indiscriminate fashion, you have to be selective about what you target. Since you have to be selective, you want to make every shot count. Rome'e enemies tried to capture the legions' eagles as a way of breaking the legionnaires' will to fight. Modern systems thinking looks at what might achieve the equivalent "biggest" bang for the buck. That, at least, is the theory. But I am not sure that the theory has ever been mapped successfully to practice (in modern warfare at least). From what I've read, "surgical" strikes against Iraqi C2 facilities, e.g., didn't really break the will of the Iraqi Army in OIF I.

Of course some smart guy will tell me that this is not a failure of the systems approach. Rather, we failed to correctly identify the right or critical node in the system which was the Iraqi Armed Forces, Al-Qaeda in Iraq or whomever. I hope this reminds you of the kinds of responses you hear from conspiracy theorists when they are presented with evidence that is meant to disprove their hypotheses about the world takeover conspiracies of the Illuminati, the KGB, the Knights Templar, etc.

[Ron Humphrey]

Systems thinking usually seems to arise when one is feeling resource constrained. In other words, if you can't rain down tons of steel on your opponent in a rather indiscriminate fashion, you have to be selective about what you target. Since you have to be selective, you want to make every shot count. Rome'e enemies tried to capture the legions' eagles as a way of breaking the legionnaires' will to fight. Modern systems thinking looks at what might achieve the equivalent "biggest" bang for the buck. That, at least, is the theory. But I am not sure that the theory has ever been mapped successfully to practice (in modern warfare at least). From what I've read, "surgical" strikes against Iraqi C2 facilities, e.g., didn't really break the will of the Iraqi Army in OIF I.

Of course some smart guy will tell me that this is not a failure of the systems approach. Rather, we failed to correctly identify the right or critical node in the system which was the Iraqi Armed Forces, Al-Qaeda in Iraq or whomever. I hope this reminds you of the kinds of responses you hear from conspiracy theorists when they are presented with evidence that is meant to disprove their hypotheses about the world takeover conspiracies of the Illuminati, the KGB, the Knights Templar, etc.

I don't think it takes all that smart a guy to figure out that if your right hand doesn't know what your left hands doing and your feet have decided to sit it out things might not go very well. CO-CO-COmmunication

[slapout9]

Slap mate. I want to believe! - the religious side of me!

..but can you give me an example? How does thinking of the IRA or a Soviet Style Motor Rifle Regiment, as "a system" help me defeat him?

I totally get that deep understanding of how something mechanical, cybernetic or even chemical allows me to use the minimum force to sabotage it, but how do I apply that to real world enemies and threats? - which are endlessly "open" systems, are they not?

Wilf, if I can still find it I actually have a 5 rings analysis of a Soviet Style Motor Regiment. Actually I think it is a whole Soviet Army arrayed against NATO. It shows how the system was taken apart to show what to attack in order for NATO to win. If I can not find it ask Warden..he studied this intently and produced a real plan for it. The Soviets were none to happy about it either...they new they would have lost. Again this is open source material so don't be concerned about the material. I also have one of a basic Terrorist organization...I will find and post. Also Major Adam Strickland wrote a paper for one of the Marine War schools he went to and does a brilliant job of applying the 5 rings and systems thinking. It should be in the SWC library somewhere.
Again Ron Humphrey makes very good points in his recent posts...what he describes would be ring#2 systems processes or systems essentials depending on which version you use.
Our own SWC Dr. Jack Kem wrote a campaign Planning handbook which shows how to use the rings as part of the Campaign Design process. Later Slap...keep believing!

[Cavguy]

Slap,

Here is a very astute critique of the 5 rings from Airpower Journal - agrees with Wiif and my viewpoint to some extent. What do you think?

As an Operational framework for the employment of strategic airpower, the air campaign has sought and attracted much attention in recent years. Its champions have been tireless in promoting a commanding position for it among the US Air Force's many roles and missions. Such zeal gives the impression that winning acceptance for this particular form of using the air weapon may be the real campaign in question.

In establishing the value of the air campaign, its advocates assert that the enemy is a system on which they base the claim to have constructed a model of the conflictual environment. This essay scrutinizes the logic of that assumption. It examines its analytical and conceptual content so as better to assess how well this assumption explains the environment of future conflicts in which the armed forces will be expected to operate.

My purpose is not to challenge the need for the kind of airpower that the air campaign represents. Clearly, we need a rational template for the application of airpower against enemies organized as states. Nor is it my purpose to question the ways the air campaign employs airpower operationally to its best advantage against such enemies. A rational template helps identify critical targets, and it is far better to engage critical targets than those that have less significance for the course and outcome of fighting. My purpose is simply to underscore the problem that occurs when enthusiasm for an idea outstrips the logic marshaled in its support.

and

Advocates assert that the enemy is organized in five concentric rings and that inasmuch as the five rings represent the enemy's basic architecture, they therefore constitute a system. The rings descend in order of importance from the innermost to the outermost—namely, from leadership, organic essentials, infrastructure, and population to fielded forces. Imbedded within these rings, we find centers of gravity (COG), viewed as the points of maximum utility to attack. The destruction of these COGs is most likely to hurt the enemy the worst and produce decisive results. Furthermore, these COGs may be divided into sub COGs and nodes of pressure.5 By virtue of the airplane's ability to transcend the limitations of natural topography, it remains the weapon of choice to render the enemy strategically powerless under the conditions of the five ring analysis.

Nevertheless, the five ring analysis begs the question of who and what the enemy is, what circumstances he operates under, and what qualifies him as a “system.” War is not an act of individuals but a social activity. This statement is not social science double talk; it is an issue critical to our understanding of warfare. Hence, we are obliged to ask in what way this view of the enemy resembles a social construct. However we may choose to define the component elements of a social construct called “the enemy,” there can be little argument that, through the interaction of its individual parts, a social construct represents people organized according to patterns which provide for enduring cooperation and collective expression. One important manifestation of such collective expression is in the manner and means by which people conceive and make concrete the idea of violent conflict. To grasp such manifestations in their most unambiguous form requires more than superficial analysis.

and

It is worth repeating that the model which advocates propose for the air campaign can operate successfully only in an international environment where the enemy's form of sociopolitical and economic organization is the “state” and where he has the industrial capacity to produce and field the conventional forces amenable to the dissection of the five ring analysis. Unfortunately, the present day international environment has been changing in ways that no longer make the state the sole focus and arbiter of violent conflict. To this end, RAND analyst Carl Builder has argued in his book The Icarus Syndrome that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Air Force has, indeed, lost all sense of its mission.20 The formulations that have resulted in the flawed concepts of the air campaign, with its seductive appeal to simplistic reasoning, speak emotionally to a military culture in mourning for the loss of its historical roots and in search of a new purpose. Be that as it may, we must also say that the five ring analysis of the enemy as a system is the newest contribution to thought regarding the employment of airpower—however flawed the concepts of the air campaign may prove to be. What we should always strive for in the end is a better understanding of the contribution that airpower makes to war fighting and the means by which that contribution adds value to the military endeavor. The five ring analysis of the enemy as a system is a start in that direction, but it is not the end.

[slapout9]

Cavguy, I am familiar with the article from some years ago. I just printed it out and want to read it again. I dig your new uniform in your avatar.

[William F. Owen]

Wilf, if I can still find it I actually have a 5 rings analysis of a Soviet Style Motor Regiment. Actually I think it is a whole Soviet Army arrayed against NATO.

Very interested. I await it most earnestly! - and that is the 5 Rings stuff.

But what about Naveh's "Systemic Operational Design". All his assumptions are based on the "Fact" the enemy is a system!!

[selil]

One of the Airpower Journals Seasonal issues in 2006 if I remember was all about EBO. A theme issue. If I'm remembering correctly anyhow.

[Bill Moore]

Looking at an insurgency as a system, or a system of systems, is dangerously misleading. William Owen is correct about his comments regarding mechanical systems (closed systems or simple systems) verus open (or complex systems). You can predict the results of a nodal attack on a closed system, but you can only guess what the result will be when you target a node in an open system, because that system will adapt (perhaps in your favor, perhaps not). While targeting important individuals and resources is still an important line of operation, it is a supporting line of effort, it should not be the main effort. The main effort should be focused on changing the environment so the insurgents can't survive there. If you focus on making the environment hostile to them by using good ole COIN doctrine which involves protecting the populace so the insurgents can't coerce support, fixing government problems to undermine whatever cause the insurgents may have, and establishing capable security forces at the local level that can collect and respond to intelligence rapidly (they're the ones who fix and finish the enemy). They don't focus on so called HVI's, but rather all the bad guys to prevent the insurgents from regrouping, thus the goal is to purge an area and put our "systems" in place to prevent their resurgence (functioning gov, security, intelligence, public diplomacy, etc.). We attempted systems targeting initially during OIF and it largely failed to achieve the desired results, but when we surged and changed the environment to prevent the insurgents from regrouping, that combined with the targeting methodology had a positive impact. Only history will tell how long it will last.

I still support using a systems model on occassion when looking at the insurgency to identify potential vulnerabilities, but the focus must be on the basics, which is changing the environment (it is tough, dangerous, and requires patience). If I can shut down a weapons smuggling ring (system), or a financial support arm (system), that is a bonus, but only a temporary one until they adapt to the disruption. If I can deny the populace to them by setting conditions to get them to actively support the government I can overwhelm the insurgents, vice constantly hitting them with pin pricks. They won't be able to recover from staggering blows.

Slapout if you can find a magic silver bullet for defeating an insurgency please let me know. I have a case of beer saying you can't.

[Cavguy]

If you focus on making the environment hostile to them by using good ole COIN doctrine which involves protecting the populace so the insurgents can't coerce support, fixing government problems to undermine whatever cause the insurgents may have, and establishing capable security forces at the local level that can collect and respond to intelligence rapidly (they're the ones who fix and finish the enemy).

Absolute gold, and dead on.