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Thread: Effects Based Operations (EBO) - is it valid?

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    Council Member Cavguy's Avatar
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    Default Effects Based Operations (EBO) - is it valid?

    Since coming to my most recent job I've been a witness to some heated statements about Effects Based Operations from lots of intelligent people. It seems there are three camps - those who think it is the best thing since sliced bread, those who think it's a concept that briefs well but is intellectually bankrupt in application, and those (like myself) who get lost because we don't understand the arguments.

    I will state up front I have done no detailed reading or research on EBO and understand only the outlines of it. I understand it competes with and/or is compatible with Center of Gravity analysis, which I am very familiar with.

    What intrigues me is that a number of the smartest COIN thinkers I know are completely opposed to EBO as a model, usually spouting extremely dismissive comments. I also noticed that EBO proponents tend to argue that if we all just moved to EBO, the war would be over.

    So I'm asking the community the following:

    • Is there a good overview/primer (short) on EBO?
    • Where has EBO been effectively used? Are there case studies? Why do the advocates think it is superior?
    • What are the intellectual/application flaws of EBO? I see a lot of complaints, but no one has explained to me why it is the devil's creation.
    • Should or should it not be used by forces as a planning model?


    Genuinely interested in the feedback.
    Last edited by Cavguy; 03-26-2008 at 03:21 PM.
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    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cavguy View Post
    Since coming to my most recent job I've been a witness to some heated statements about Effects Based Operations from lots of intelligent people. It seems there are three camps - those who think it is the best things since sliced bread, those who think it's a concept that briefs well but is intellectually bankrupt in application, and those (like myself) who get lost because we don't understand the arguments.

    I will state up front I have done no detailed reading or research on EBO and understand only the outlines of it. I understand it competes with and/or is compatible with Center of Gravity analysis, which I am very familiar with

    What intrigues me is that a number of the smartest COIN thinkers I know are completely opposed to EBO as a model, usually spouting extremely dismissive comments. I also noticed that EBO proponents tend to argue that if we all just moved to EBO, the war would be over.

    So I'm asking the community the following:

    • Is there a good overview/primer (short) on EBO?
    • Where has EBO been effectively used? Are there case studies? Why do the advocates think it is superior?
    • What are the intellectual/application flaws of EBO? I see a lot of complaints, but no one has explained to me why it is the devil's creation.
    • Should or should it not be used by forces as a planning model?


    Genuinely interested in the feedback.
    A few years ago, I proposed an EBO way of thinking about COIN based on psychological effects. (Of course, that certainly does not invalidate your point that "the smartest COIN thinkers...are completely opposed to EBO as a model). See pp. 25-26 of my 2004 SSI study. I initially developed this off the top of my head at a TRADOC workshop. The JFCOM rep there (an Air Force guy) nearly had an orgasm. I'm a bit surprised that it hasn't gained any traction, but I haven't been pushing it much.

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cavguy View Post

    • Is there a good overview/primer (short) on EBO?
    • Where has EBO been effectively used? Are there case studies? Why do the advocates think it is superior?
    • What are the intellectual/application flaws of EBO? I see a lot of complaints, but no one has explained to me why it is the devil's creation.
    • Should or should it not be used by forces as a planning model?


    Genuinely interested in the feedback.
    Oh well... goodbye sleep!

    One problem with EBO is that it is many different things to many different folks. 3 years ago, when I spoke at an EBO conference, I had amassed some 7 differing and even contradictory definitions.

    My personal experience of arguing against EBO is that it's defenders keep morphing it into something else, every time an argument comes up short. The other propensity they have is to label existing and well understood concepts as being examples EBO, when they are clearly not.

    The acid test I use it to read any document that advocates EBO, and the cross out the words "Effects Based." If the meaning or sense does not change, or becomes substantially different from the accepted norm, then why include the words?
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    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Cav,

    I distinguish EBO at the tactical level versus what is played at the strategic and operational levels as EBO. We have been involved in this realm down here since 2001; even before then we used targeting as a way for recocking operations.

    Regardless of whether you call it EBO, EBP, full spectrum operational planning, D3A, or pancakes, our goal in using it is in line with the same goals as D3A. that is to decide what to targert, find the target, synchronize lethal and non-lethal operations delivered against the target and assess the results.

    The key goals are to fuze lethal and non-lethal operations and assess results against objectives to reach the desired endstate. Where and why I diferentiate between this tactical application versus strategic is that the latter is very much tied to the idea we can collapse an enemy if we just kill or bomb the right thing at the right time.

    For reading look at:

    CALL Newsletter 03-23 Targeting CMO
    CALL Handbook 04-14 Effects Based Operations from Brigade to Company
    CALL Handbook 05-19 A Special Study on the Effects based Approach to Military Operations
    CALL Special Study 07-02 The Brigade Planning Process
    CALL Special Study 07-03 The Battalion Planning Process

    We now have a new targeting CD that we are developing that should be available soon to you guys.
    Best
    Tom

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    I recently prepared a lesson plan on the Effects Based Approach to Operations - note the subtle difference from Effects Based Operations - using JFCOMs Commanders Handbook for an Effects Based Approach to Joint Operations. It is pre-doctrinal and I have heard it is being pulled, but it is a good guide to generally accepted tenets.

    I added in my own caveats, having been a planner at the joint level and seen its application in Afghanistan in CJTF76 and ISAF.

    * Requires deep systemic understanding. The first principle is that you must have an almost zen-like understanding of the operational environment, which we generally don't.
    * Requires clear, consistent, genuine objectives. Another thing we are not generally good at.
    * Systems are reactive. You can't just apply effects without changing the systems; unless you are extremely good at monitoring the operational environment, you will not recognize that the system you are attempting to affect (economic system, IED network, guerilla army, etc) has fundamentally changed and the actions you select are no longer having the desired effect.
    * Subject to wishful thinking. Hoo, boy, is it ever. "If we do this, this will happen", announces the expert. And he will not be budged in the face of evidence.
    * Same action can produce different effects. As someone said, Iraq is not one war but many. Repairing an electrical line causes joy in one neighborhood, anger in another. Easy to paralyze yourself through analysis.
    * Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. We often mistakenly link cause and effect.
    * There is a reason we have a box to think in. EBO often leads to a violation of the simplicity principle.

    In ISAF you had a Joint Effects Cell that handled assessment, formulated deisred effects, ran the targeting cell, maintained the Prioritized Effects List, did senior level engagements, and chaired the Effects Working Group. They were segregated from the planners and the J3, which led to disconnects. Effects were not properly integrated into planning products, and the J3 became a competitor for resources with the JEC Chief, who outranked him. In CJTF 76 there were - in effect, ahem - two effects cells. One handled non-kinetic effects through CA, IO, PSYOPs, etc., while the other handled kinetic effects. To my mind this defeats the purpose of EBO, but these cells were more or less executors rather than directly integrated into planning or operations. In sum, I have yet to see anybody get it right.

    As for the concept as a whole, well, we've been doing effects based operations for a long time. You can tell a cavalryman to 'Screen PL Red' or you can give him a desired effect: "Enemy ground forces unable to recon beyond PL Red". To my mind, EBO tends to overcomplicate what is already a very complex business. It is supposed to enhance unity of effort, but I have found that it actually detracts from it. Moreover, it only exacerbates our proclivities for vague guidance, detailed matrices, and huge target lists.

    On the other hand, it is a useful way to think about what you want to accomplish, and it can be an aid to imaginative planning. In summary, I would use it as a planning tool but put it away once you are ready to actually write an order.
    Last edited by Jedburgh; 03-26-2008 at 06:21 PM. Reason: Added link.

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    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    On the other hand, it is a useful way to think about what you want to accomplish, and it can be an aid to imaginative planning. In summary, I would use it as a planning tool but put it away once you are ready to actually write an order.
    And that is critical! Otherwise the tape loop just recycles, again and again....and again.

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
    CALL Newsletter 03-23 Targeting CMO
    CALL Handbook 04-14 Effects Based Operations from Brigade to Company
    CALL Handbook 05-19 A Special Study on the Effects based Approach to Military Operations
    CALL Special Study 07-02 The Brigade Planning Process
    CALL Special Study 07-03 The Battalion Planning Process
    Anything open source? I am very much in the market for useful ideas, but there doesn't seem to have been much new since Foch and his Staff Collage Lectures of 1911.
    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

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    Council Member Cavguy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eden View Post

    * Requires deep systemic understanding. The first principle is that you must have an almost zen-like understanding of the operational environment, which we generally don't.
    * Requires clear, consistent, genuine objectives. Another thing we are not generally good at.
    * Systems are reactive. You can't just apply effects without changing the systems; unless you are extremely good at monitoring the operational environment, you will not recognize that the system you are attempting to affect (economic system, IED network, guerilla army, etc) has fundamentally changed and the actions you select are no longer having the desired effect.
    * Subject to wishful thinking. Hoo, boy, is it ever. "If we do this, this will happen", announces the expert. And he will not be budged in the face of evidence.
    * Same action can produce different effects. As someone said, Iraq is not one war but many. Repairing an electrical line causes joy in one neighborhood, anger in another. Easy to paralyze yourself through analysis.
    * Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. We often mistakenly link cause and effect.
    * There is a reason we have a box to think in. EBO often leads to a violation of the simplicity principle.
    Eden,

    Great observations. I just finished a conversation with Hacksaw about it, he said almost the exact same things. It seems the "Joint" concept of EBO tends to assume/require a depth of understanding of the environment that is simply unrealistic - i.e. if I do A, B will happen. And that's given your assumptions about the environment are valid, we understand the model, and we have enough understanding for it. Given the "assumptions" going into OIF, I can see why the critics of EBO are legion.

    Hacksaw also noted that EBO has great appeal to the "process" mindset, those that like preplanned fires, assessments, and mathematical models to define environments. My experience with COIN and human interaction, not to mention "Black Swans", tend to make me skeptical.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eden View Post
    As for the concept as a whole, well, we've been doing effects based operations for a long time. You can tell a cavalryman to 'Screen PL Red' or you can give him a desired effect: "Enemy ground forces unable to recon beyond PL Red". To my mind, EBO tends to overcomplicate what is already a very complex business. It is supposed to enhance unity of effort, but I have found that it actually detracts from it. Moreover, it only exacerbates our proclivities for vague guidance, detailed matrices, and huge target lists.

    On the other hand, it is a useful way to think about what you want to accomplish, and it can be an aid to imaginative planning. In summary, I would use it as a planning tool but put it away once you are ready to actually write an order.
    Maybe Wiif was on to something talking about various "definitions" of EBO. I have little problem conceptualizing it at the tactical level. And as you've said, I've been doing it for years but not calling it EBO. Figuring out what I want to achieve, focusing all lines of operations to achieve it, developing some way to measure the impact, and adjust the strategy accordingly. Or as Tom says, D3A.

    I'd venture that's what my company did in Tal Afar and BDE did in Ramadi.

    I guess the hardest part is understanding what needs to be done, and measuring the right things. If my operational goal doesn't address the root causes in COIN (i.e. approaching from my POV rather than the populations), all the EBO won't help if the enemy is playing baseball while I'm playing football. That's where COIN IPB comes in.

    Am I (sort of) tracking?

    Also, I noted some traffic when GEN Mattis took over JFCOM that it was to be the death of EBO for awhile, he wasn't a fan. I also saw an Army position paper somewhere admonishing TRADOC not to use EBO, that it was not army doctrine or an approved program, only a Joint methodology. However, I'm thinking that was about the high level EBO you define, not tactical level EBO concepts like Tom is describing.

    Sounds like we have a terminology problem, like Wiif noted.
    Last edited by Cavguy; 03-26-2008 at 04:31 PM.
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    They are all FOUO

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eden View Post
    As for the concept as a whole, well, we've been doing effects based operations for a long time.
    To quote Professor Chris Bellamy, "when were Operations, ever not effects based?"

    EBO is either new or old wine in new bottles. If it is the later, then why the new bottle?
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    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
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    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    I guess the hardest part is understanding what needs to be done, and measuring the right things. If my operational goal doesn't address the root causes in COIN (i.e. approaching from my POV rather than the populations), all the EBO won't help if the enemy is playing baseball while I'm playing football. That's where COIN IPB comes in.

    Absolutely and it is all about targeting the effort against the correct things. That is nothing new but when you get into the realm of non-lethal IO synchronization of that effort with lethal operations becomes critical. What happens when we separate the tactical IO effort from the tactical maneuver effort? We get a desynched result and one often working at cross purposes. that was our experience in trying to develop Tac IO TTPs separate from "real operations". They got shoved aside, marginalized, or completely ignored. As you know better than most that is not a good thing in COIN.

    best

    Tom

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
    Absolutely and it is all about targeting the effort against the correct things. That is nothing new but when you get into the realm of non-lethal IO synchronization of that effort with lethal operations becomes critical. What happens when we separate the tactical IO effort from the tactical maneuver effort? We get a desynched result and one often working at cross purposes. that was our experience in trying to develop Tac IO TTPs separate from "real operations". They got shoved aside, marginalized, or completely ignored. As you know better than most that is not a good thing in COIN.
    So isn't this just ensuring that behaviours and actions do not contradict or undermine each other?

    Tom. What you write makes perfect sense (and what the UK was trained to do for decades) but this is a million miles from all the EBO stuff I have read through in the last 5-7 years.
    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.
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    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    Tom. What you write makes perfect sense (and what the UK was trained to do for decades) but this is a million miles from all the EBO stuff I have read through in the last 5-7 years.
    Hence my confusion every time I see "Effects Based" title anywhere. I usually have no idea what "box" to put it in. Given the negativity to EBO I have run into around here (now I understand to be the "joint" EBO) when I see "Effects Based" in front of a tactical product I assume the same systems.

    I think, given the TRADOC directive, CALL's publications need to be clearer on what version of EBO it means to promote.
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    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    So isn't this just ensuring that behaviours and actions do not contradict or undermine each other?

    Tom. What you write makes perfect sense (and what the UK was trained to do for decades) but this is a million miles from all the EBO stuff I have read through in the last 5-7 years.


    I know. The war of words over EBO at the strategic level has overshadowed what has evolved at the tactical level. In some cases that war of words has interfered with continued learning. We insist so strongly that we "don't do EBO" as it is promulgated at the Joint level, that we miss applications at the tactical (which really echo what we have always done but add some clarity).

    And you are correct it is not "new" in its central focus on behaviors and actions. But to audience learning it and now using it, it was indeed "new". Some of this is just plain marketing: you have to tag it with something and in today's 3-word PPT bullet mode of miscommunications, EBO, EBP, D3A, or "pancakes" works for me if I can just get them to accept the underlying concepts as they swallow their griddle cakes

    Tom

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cavguy View Post
    Hence my confusion every time I see "Effects Based" title anywhere. I usually have no idea what "box" to put it in. Given the negativity to EBO I have run into around here (now I understand to be the "joint" EBO) when I see "Effects Based" in front of a tactical product I assume the same systems.

    I think, given the TRADOC directive, CALL's publications need to be clearer on what version of EBO it means to promote.
    When I've heard it used recently it comes down to peoples inclination to associate it to actions for which there are metrics and thus simple if not necessarily accurate ways of saying do this equals this ,etc.

    That's never what I thought it to be about either.

    Tom's on it with the fact that separating all the pieces of the puzzle from a process doesn't generally work to well.
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    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    I think, given the TRADOC directive, CALL's publications need to be clearer on what version of EBO it means to promote.
    They are. That list is chronological and therefore evolutionary. But I will also say that CALL does not promote EBO (or any other TTP) as we are not proponents. We are a communications pipeline for sharing of said TTPs. In the case of the EBO material, I listed it all came from here as it eveloved within the JRTC Ops Group over the past 6+ years. The TRADOC commander accepted the concepts that went into the brigade and battalion planning study. And the evolution continues here, simply using targeting as the descriptor. In that regard we have come full circle from where we were in 2000 using targeting--but we added in the tools necessary for targeting and assessing the non-lethal as well as the lethal.

    Tom
    Last edited by Tom Odom; 03-26-2008 at 05:04 PM.

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    Default EBO is OBE and other things

    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
    Cav,



    For reading look at:

    CALL Newsletter 03-23 Targeting CMO
    CALL Handbook 04-14 Effects Based Operations from Brigade to Company
    CALL Handbook 05-19 A Special Study on the Effects based Approach to Military Operations
    CALL Special Study 07-02 The Brigade Planning Process
    CALL Special Study 07-03 The Battalion Planning Process
    Tom,

    I think CALL was directed to yank anything with EBO in it... May or may not apply to last two, but the first three ought not be available unless i'm mistaken. The reason being the directive CAV guy notes...

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    Default Effects based operations is in the same paradigm as MDMP

    I would argue that EBO is another variation of the "rational actor model" (RAM) that has been under attack for decades by those arguing from a different worldview. GT Allison published a seminal piece on "explaining how we explain" about how things really are decided in complex situations. The full citation of the article length version is:

    Graham T. Allison, CONCEPTUAL MODELS AND THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS, The American Political Science Review, VOL. LXIIIn No 3., 1969, 689-718.

    The "updated" book version is: Allison, G. T. & Zelikow, P. (1999). Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, (2d Ed.). New York, NY: Addison-Wesley.

    RAM has the classic neorealist assumption that nations [and organizations] are unified actors that behave rationally. The process of decision-making involves problem recognition based on relevant values and objectives, developing alternatives, estimating the consequences of each of the alternatives, calculating the net valuation of the consequences, and making the choice of the alternative that value-maximizes. RAM is derived around a theory of constraints. However, that if the organizational goal is...plural and complex, there is no definitive basis for weighting or assigning values to the varied dimensions of constraint; thus, making the otherwise rational decision (what can also be approaching linear programming) more interpretive and value-laden, so more political in nature than we give it credit for.

    The problem with this RAM paradigm is that it dominates our military mindset to the point we cannot consider alternatives as to how decisions really happen. The rational economic model of cost-benefits falls apart when we try and template its step-by-step structure onto unstructured (complex) situations.

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    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hacksaw View Post
    Tom,

    I think CALL was directed to yank anything with EBO in it... May or may not apply to last two, but the first three ought not be available unless i'm mistaken. The reason being the directive CAV guy notes...

    CAVGUY... In response to did I get it about right Yes grasshoper

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    Nope

    04-14

    05-19

    They are no longer in print but are available online.

    07-2 and 07-3 are still available in print as well as online.

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    Default How'm I doing

    Cavguy, one of the hardest things about COIN planning or execution - really the core of what you are struggling with, I feel - is how to measure progress.
    How do we know we are winning (or losing, or merely treading water)? In my time as a COIN planner this was one of the things that I struggled with constantly.

    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?

    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?

    Another problem is the slow pace of counterinsurgency. Even when you are doing the right things, progress can be glacially slow, or even invisible. The little arrows that we placed along red-yellow-green spectra to brief our progress barely moved during my tour in Afghanistan. Does that mean we were doing things wrong? Or that we just needed to be patient to see the fruits of our labor? The glacial pace, unfortunately, means an incorrect strategy can be defended and a correct strategy abandoned prematurely with ease. 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.

    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.

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