EBO and ONA...
Let's make sure my position is not taken out of context. I have no problems with effects.Originally Posted by reluctantwarrior
That said - I have the occasion to interact with those tasked with writing joint concepts and conducting experimentation.
From my little corner I see much ado about repackaging tried and true doctrine and TTP under a new name - normally tied to a Cold-War (legacy) related mentality.
This leads to what many in the concept and experimentation community believe is the future of Effects Based Operations - an automated - "sees all - collects all - links all" - Operational Net Assessment. I'll take to my grave that this pie-in-the-sky ONA ‘ain't gonna’ happen.
This brings me back to the "Cold War (legacy) mentality” comment. Many proponents of this new and improved ONA seem (my experience) to be Air Force and Navy, with a spattering of Army (not the ground-pounders with recent operational experience – again my view from my small but significant corner).
For the most part, those most enamored with technological solutions to EBO through ONA have the luxury of living and operating in a world of tech-related platforms facing other tech-related platforms. This is an important point, as platforms / systems emit signatures and are easily collected on and can be linked to other tech platforms and can reveal intent.
Intent here relates to the intent of the individual platform or weapons system, not an adversary at a “campaign” level. This is especially true with an adversary like the one we are battling today and will most likely face in the foreseeable future. The thinking and adaptive terrorist – slash – insurgent – slash – asymmetric foe – slash – irregular foe is operating on a plane off the screen of our high-tech capabilities to collect, analyze, and disseminate in a timely and useful manner – i.e. actionable intelligence.
This is further complicated by the dependence on the ONA of the future’s claim to provide linkage (nodal analysis) between friendly, adversary and non-combatants to include all elements of the physical and social infrastructure in order to provide a tipper on when to use kinetic and non kinetic tools to achieve a desired effect.
For those that might argue that high-tech solutions such as capabilities to intercept cell phones and monitor Internet traffic run contary to my argument – I say good on you – useful as a collection tool but there is no technology that puts this information overload together, sorts and analyzes, and spits back actionable intelligence for planning and executing a campaign. Yea sure; when Ahmed calls Ali and says bomb the KFC at 1100 on Thursday, God willing, we can take action – but stopping one attack is not what I think we should be mortgaging our future for when it comes to significant defense expenditure.
Let’s invest in humans before we bankrupt ourselves chasing the “newest and most improved” tech solution to “all our problems.”
Already wrote more than intended – but if I were the Defense God for a day – I would invest in training and education and all those little things that our grunts seem to be buying out of hand – GPS, body armor….
If I were the U.S. Government God for a day – I would invest in all the non-military capabilities that should be resident in DoD’s sister departments and agencies when they enter a Small Wars’ environment.
If I am wrong about all this – I will invest in the first company that sells this ONA concept to any U.S. city that would purchase such a silver bullet to solve their particular problems…
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