EBO is Everything in War — Almost

Effects Defined

Effects consist of a full spectrum of outcomes, events, or consequences that result from a particular action. An effects based approach to operations stresses the value of connecting all actions (political, diplomatic, economic, and military) to operational and strategic outcomes. In the most basic sense, effects-based operations are planned, executed, assessed, and adapted to influence or change systems or capabilities in order to achieve desired outcomes. The three essential features of effects-based operations (EBO)—planning, employment, and assessment—cannot be separated from one another.

[Sonny, at FX-Based, in “Deployment (From Hell)”]

Dr. Challans’ critique of [EBO] reminds me of criticisms I have made against Objectivists — and I am not surprised by this:  Objectives/Objectivists.  My central criticism is that Objectivists often fail to acknowledge 1) their limited sensory perceptions (experience), 2) their limited ability for analysis (which may be genetic; which may be a result of cognitive insularity), and 3) the objective reality of subjectivity (we do not have an objective theory of mind, but only hypotheses), while supposing that they have everything they need to make grand pronouncements on the shape and functions of the world and to prognosticate future events.

[CGW, Phatic Communion, in “Emergence and Warfare: Notes and Hypotheses”]

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Introduction

I have previously approached a criticism of Effects-Based Operations at the link immediately above in a cursory review of an essay by Dr. Tim Challans titled “Emerging Doctrine and the Ethics of Warfare” made available by the Joint Services Conference on Professional Ethics (JSCOPE).  In that essay, Dr. Challans uses philosophical arguments to attack the notion that EBO can be successfully applied as a strategy in warfare to subvert or defeat an opponent:

But just as philosophers of science consistently demonstrate that the scientists  themselves are not aware of the deep structures of their own practices, the same is true of philosophers of social science and social scientists. This difference in viewing the  concept of causation as it relates to human action has perhaps always separated those who approach human activity philosophically from those who approach it scientifically. Within the effects-based approach, the military is attempting to cause effects outside the realm of the physical world; they are trying to bring effects about in the realm of human activity. Causation is not the proper concept when dealing with human activity. Many advocates of the effects-based approach have even attempted to make their so-called scientific approach to appear to be philosophical by looking toward the philosophical literature on causation. They mistakenly believe that something as complex as human activity can be rendered and reduced and mutilated to fit the Procrustean bed of behaviorism, choking the mental realm into lifelessness with their chains of cause and effect. This attempt by EBA [effects-based approach] advocates is both pseudo-scientific and pseudo-philosophical….

The deep assumption here is that people can be caused to behave, and modifying behavior is simply a matter of adjusting input to get a different output. Action theory recognizes that the mental realm falls outside the normal physical realm of cause and effect. One simply cannot cause another person to act a certain way; people act for reasons, not causes.

[Dr. Challans]

This makes much sense, which is why critics of EBO have such solid footing.  Who hasn’t attempted to modify the behavior of a child, a spouse or significant other, or employee by introducing a change in the physical environment — only to have an entirely unexpected and undesired effect when the subject of our experimentation decides upon a course of correction we did not anticipate?

Sonny of FX-Based has recently responded to critics of EBO — particularly, to an essay by Ralph Peters titled “Bloodless theories, bloody wars; Easy-win concepts crumble in combat” — with a defense of EBO in three parts: Part One, Part Two, Part Three (with more to come.)  Sonny writes one of the top-notch military blogs around, and his arguments against various assertions made by Ralph Peters are highly recommended reading.  Essentially, Sonny argues that EBO is not a strategy involving high-tech attacks on the infrastructure of our enemy, per se, but a broad approach to warfare which recognizes the very real reality of cause & effect during wartime activities.  Dr. Challans may be quite correct when he suggests a difference between causes and reasons for human activity, but by disregarding any relationship between concrete effects and the reasons humans choose for acting is to disregard humanity entirely:  man may not live by bread alone, but without it or some substitute, he will die. 

I.e., We live within the world and reason from it.

Consider again the child or the spouse.  We have sufficient proof that the threat of physical force, particularly if it follows previous applications of physical force, can modify a child’s or spouse’s behavior.  Children locked in cycles of physical abuse, just like spouses locked in those cycles, may submit; or, maintain the secrecy of the situation while acting according to the will of the abuser.  Their reason for doing so is a memory of the consequences of not doing so, consequences which have a very concrete nature.  However, we must ask if a new spouse or newly adopted child unfamiliar with such consequences will submit to a new threat or a new and unexpected act of violence; perhaps the child or spouse will run away or in fact attempt to kill the attacker.  Thus, are the limits of EBO, very broadly stated, limits which will make more sense if we consider more fully the Revised OODA loop……

Almost Everything

In Part One of this series, I redrew John Boyd’s OODA loop to more fully take into consideration the distinctions between the concrete world and the abstract world: Boyd left the distinctions ambiguous; he blurred them, perhaps as a result of the limitations of his combat experience, since so much observation and activity during a dogfight occurs within a very localized (limited) environment between individuals with very specific limitations already long-set.  The fighter pilot only has so much concrete data to observe, within very limited time frames, and will be engaged in very conscious observation of that data while putting much abstract observation on “autopilot.”  The past experiences, genetic heritage, cultural traditions of both pilot and his enemy operate in the background — i.e., on autopilot — and would have only tangential affect on Observation and Activity, so Boyd did not need to more fully consider how these affect observation and activity even if he did manage to include their effects within his Loop through hazy subprocesses.  It was enough to say that these factors have an effect; but the concrete realities of weather, instrumentation, and enemy maneuvers were primary.

Boyd’s decision-making process as a fighter pilot, because it occurred within very limited milieux, did not need to more fully take into account the distinction between the abstract world and the concrete world, since the abstract world only had tangential effects on the concrete activities of either fighter pilot.  Either would be much more focused on a shared concrete domain (i.e., the sky, the fighter jets.)  Changing an enemy’s relation to his past experiences and cultural traditions would have been largely unimportant during a dogfight, even if these factors were exploited: The pilot would exploit long-standing factors, but would not need to more fully engage those factors.  It was enough that they were there.  Unfortunately, for any confrontation beyond the immediate — e.g., in longer campaigns — such long-standing factors would affect so many other variables, in so many directions, that putting a consideration of them on autopilot would likely prove disastrous — this, in a nutshell, is Dr. Challans’ criticism, Ralph Peter’s criticism, and the general criticism of EBO.

When we consider Effects-Based Operations, then, we need to consider more fully:

1. How a concrete action can change the concrete world
2. How such a change is observed by the enemy
3. How the enemy further interprets that observation, in order to react to it.

Of these three, we have much more control, or decision ability, over #1.  Every time we act physically, some part of the concrete world is changed.  Because of the complexity of the real world, our acts may not always change that world in expected ways, however.  But if we decide to bomb a bridge, we are likely to be able to do that, since our own past experience in combination with our physical arsenal enables us to do that.

We have some control over #2, because humans in general — including us, including our enemy — view the concrete world similarly.  If a bridge is blown up, both parties are going to see that in fact it has been blown up.  But observation for humans is two-fold, since it includes not only concrete sensory perception but also how that concrete information is turned into an awareness within the brain.  The old argument about the tree falling in the woods with nobody present would serve as a good example.  Does it make a sound?  Technically, no, since it creates vibrations in the air and ground and nearby objects, and it is only our mind that interprets the presence of these vibrations as sound.  That is a facile example, and most humans have very similar interpretative abilities — would be aware of sound if present at the tree’s falling — but the process of cognition is very quick and will include many more things during the individual’s observation of phenomena, such as previous experience of phenomena.  Thus our control over an enemy’s observation, or #2 above, is only partial, because his past experience was long set before we blew up the bridge.  Furthermore, the enemy’s concrete observations of things other than the bridge, which also enter his decision-making cycle, may alter his awareness of what has occurred or limit his awareness of the blown-up bridge.  (If he’s deeply entrenched in a bunker, he may feel the vibrations through the ground without being aware that the bridge itself was destroyed.)

We have the least amount of control over #3.  Although we may have some idea about our enemy’s habitual thought patterns, experiences, etc., these tend to be things which are previously set for our enemy — and, for us.  I.e., we may easily create a concrete effect in the world, but we cannot so easily go back to our enemy’s childhood and reconstruct his memories and past experiences, his cultural traditions, up to the point of that concrete effect, in order to give that concrete effect an interpretation (by the enemy) of our choosing.  The enemy may have past awareness — past experience — of tunnels he uses for supply routes and may interpret the destruction of the bridge as an only incidental occurrence.  In particular, our own history of observing that enemy — intelligence information — may seemingly give us more or less control over #3, although even the smallest gaps in our intel could produce resulting gaps in our ability to control our enemy’s interpretation of events.  Plus, quite idiosyncratic and personal behavior may be quite unknown to us, at least the extent to which such behavioral traits might influence enemies; e.g., Saddam Hussein’s megalomania (or, Hitler’s, at the time of WWII.)

These factors correspond to the Concrete OODA of the Revised OODA:

Note that although I have not drawn a direct line from Act to World, the line is implied, since our physical acts alter the concrete world.  Also note the most obvious and most important implication: that our ability to affect an enemy always stems from manipulation of the physical world. Until psychic powers are realized, this will remain the case.  (And even then, I would bet that stimulation of brain waves by some mechanical means, from outside an enemy’s body, would best be considered a physical act.  If such a thing ever comes to pass.)  Finally, note the degree to which such a consideration ultimately confounds many theories of 4GW and 5GW or at least limits them — and the way such a consideration severely limits what may be accomplished via EBO.

On that last point: Too often when reading theory of 4GW, 5GW, and EBO, I detect a belief — or, call it a faith — that we may directly affect an enemy’s abstract processes.  For instance, when we talk of moral and morale manipulation as methods used by a 4GW fighter, some mystical direct link is implied: “4GW insurgents sap our will to fight.”  That is putting it too simply, however, and risks devastating illusion by putting too much faith in that illusion of a direct link, or of a direct operation on our own abstract processes by the enemy.  This is not to say that our morale cannot be sapped, but it is giving the enemy too much credit for that effect.  Sonny of FX-Based,  in his defense of EBO, gives a very good example of the process in his response to Ralph Peters:

…strategic bombing preceding D-DAY did play a crucial role in Nazi Germany’s defeat. The main problem was that one of our main pre-war suppositions proved to be incorrect: the German industrial infrastructure proved to be more resistant to attack than what we originally expected. However, the USSBS showed that aerial attacks had actually worn out the morale of the German people and had increased absenteeism to some extent in the later phases of the war. The attacks conducted by the AAF and the Royal Air Force (RAF) from July to December 1943 did not obliterate all of the German industrial machinery, but they did compel the Germans to disperse manufacturing functions at a critical point in the war.  [ed. — emphasis added]

[Sonny, at FX-Based, in “In Defense of EBO”]

We might argue whether such an EBO effect — lowering morale — would be inevitable in every situation, including possible future scenarios; and, we would be right to do so.  For instance, I suspect that the German response was also a result of comparing past status to the status created by aerial attacks and seeing a major difference — but some future enemy might never have had a highly efficient and safe environment prior to such bombing, and the morale-sapping effect might be less.  I.e., this future foe might not have had a previously bloated image of self due to a productive environment, thus would not be as greatly affected by having that environment systematically destroyed — This is the “ascetic bin Laden hiding in mountains” effect.  Other factors might limit the drop in morale; consider, for instance, Britain and Churchill under repeated bombings.

The arguments against EBO are really arguments against limited deployment of EBO.  I.e., they are arguments against robotic, ill-conceived, limited and repetitive operations regardless of environment and enemy, and such arguments are spot-on.  Although to some degree we can anticipate very similar reactions for most people in response to large-scale devastation — we are all human — the limitations on devastation imposed by modern warfare strategies and the general so-called “laws of war” severely limit our ability to affect large numbers of people successfully.  So much that is common between people that would give us a better understanding of reactions to operations also becomes a barrier to what we may do to a people.  The Golden Rule has limited EBO warfare.   When Ralph Peters uses the phrase “sterilized techno-wars,” he is on the right track — especially also since those we most need to affect, the enemy’s military, may be quite separate from the people, or hidden among the people, and even less susceptible to the manipulation of a concrete environment than the person on the street:  The abstract processing of those in the military forces may be quite unlike the abstract processing of the typical citizen of a society.  High-tech bombings may terrify and disrupt the person on the street, but guerrilla fighters might go underground and wait it out — worse, such a bombing campaign may not affect everyone in the general populace the same way and could lead to larger numbers of guerrilla recruits.

At the same time, the link between cause and effect in the concrete world is omnipresent and difficult to refute; as Sonny at FX-Based has said,

An effects-based approach is a common-sense and intuitive way to conduct operations.

[Sonny, at FX-Based, in “In Defense of EBO - Part Two”]

How, pray tell, can we conduct a war without creating changed concrete environments through physicial acts — whether it is “EBO,” or 4GW or 5GW? 

Everything in war is effects-based — almost.

Reason Is Almost Because

It’s just that cause and effect are omnipresent, the World is complex, and Observations — whether concrete or abstract — are going to be limited, stretching from the past through the present and into the future.  Thus, reason is limited.  When Dr. Challans criticized EBO, this was his primary argument, if not stated in so many words.  Our errors in war are, in effect, errors in effects-based operations, and they have come about because we failed to know our enemy well enough to be able to anticipate — foreknow — how that enemy would react to our acts upon the world.

Almost.  Because the only sure way to know how our enemy will react to our actions is to kill him.  EBO as a theory is a theory of how to cause a living enemy to do what we want, whether it is to make a horrible move or to surrender, and the desire to understand EBO well enough to employ it comes from an understanding that we cannot completely and utterly destroy our enemy physically, at least not at the moment.  If we could destroy him utterly through a physical act of our own, we would not need to have an EBO theory.

Although we may act only physically upon the world — despite the superstitious theory that we are all somehow “connected” via a “network” and able to act upon each other metaphysically or outside the realm of physics — we have some limited ability to Go Deep into the enemy’s abstract processes or gain an objective understanding, even if limited, of those processes.  In order to do so, we must remember how those abstract processes occur and not leave such things as “cultural traditions” and “past experiences” cloudy and completely removed from a consideration of the physical world.

All mental constructs — previous experience, memories, ideologies, understanding — are a result of information flowing from the exterior world over a lifetime, which has been analyzed, synthesized, perhaps re-examined multiple times (Decide-Hypothesize), and no doubt often corrupted, before becoming “imprinted” within the mind.  (Remember, genetic heritage, including all physical processes — meaning even those shaping analytical ability — are a part of the concrete world constantly feeding into the Abstract Observation of a person.  We are dynamically alive, and such factors can change throughout a lifetime.)  When we act upon the physical world, changing it, that new information enters the enemy’s Abstract OODA in the Abstract Observation along with old information previously imprinted.  Dr. Challans’ argument that human activity should be considered from an understanding of reason rather than of cause-effect is only partly true, since many concrete causes have shaped our mental constructs; but reason is limited because our life experiences are limited by such factors as:  our physical being (including sex, including the functioning of our senses, including our mental capacities); our family and early environment; and the dominant culture(s) of our society.  Thus, we might often act from reason more informed by old information than by new information; or, vice versa.

So there are two processes occurring, which might or might not align:  our action upon the world and our enemy’s reaction to the changed world.  EBO is what we do, but “EBR” or effects-based reaction is what the living enemy does — in fact, is what we ourselves may do in reaction to that world we have changed, when we observe it.  EBO is not everything in war, just as the Concrete OODA is not all that occurs for humans:  Cause and reason. But since reasoning will almost certainly include old information, the strict physical cause-effect basis of some EBO theory is insufficient for understanding the successful employment of EBO, since our enemy will not be reacting strictly to the changed environment or to that physical cause but also on the basis of prior learning, cultural traditions, and experience, etc.  So more properly speaking “EBR” should be renamed “EIR”, or effects-influenced reasoning.

To contemplate an EBO approach without first considering the mental constructs of our enemies — largely by ignoring how our enemies’ environments have shaped their mental constructs — should not be considered an effects-based operation whatsoever.  It is really an ideologically-driven operation, since we are operating more from our own pre-built abstractions of our enemy, and how our enemy will react, than from an actual understanding of that enemy.  This is the argument Ralph Peters makes when he criticizes certain high-tech and “sterile” approaches to warfare advocated ad infinitum by certain Pentagon officials.  Essentially, whether he knew it or not, Peters was criticizing our tendency to approach our enemies as if they were all carbon-copies of each other likely to always react in the way previous foes have reacted to such effects-based operations.  I.e., those carbon-copies are just our abstractions of the enemy — more likely, our abstractions of the enemy’s Abstract OODA — rather than actual enemies.  Incidentally, however, Peters may have some carbon-copy alternatives himself, since he appears to assume that the approach is always doomed to failure or often doomed to failure, at least against the foes we are likely to confront in the short term. (He may be correct in this; but that’s a subject for a different post.  I doubt that he should make a universal evaluation of such a limited EBO campaign, however.)

Sonny at FX-Based, as quoted in the lead-in to this post, has expanded the concept of EBO beyond Peters’ consideration, and would not limit EBO to only one style of fighting:

An effects based approach to operations stresses the value of connecting all actions (political, diplomatic, economic, and military) to operational and strategic outcomes.

[Sonny, ibid.]

This is good as far as it goes, but it should not go without a consideration of the Abstract OODA.  I.e., as we decide which actions upon the world are required for influencing an enemy that we aren’t simply wanting to utterly destroy and able to utterly destroy, we must remember that an enemy’s past will filter every observation of the world that we have altered by our acts.  We must know his cultural environment, his past environments, etc., as well as we can before drawing any conclusions about how he will react to our actions.  And, while we might read in a textbook or hear a lecture about cultural influences, past experiences of our enemy, and the like, these remain mere abstractions for us until we have been able to witness them in action in the concrete world; thus, some amount of experimentation, or preliminary acts, might be required in order for us to draw a conclusion that an enemy will react the way we think he might react.  Like the enemy, our abstract processes are our own, but we may see in the physical world concrete manifestations of those abstract processes — or, Acts.

There is at least one universal “truth” we might draw from the Abstract OODA, however, vis-a-vis EBO.  Impulsive Acts are those committed with more of an eye on unfolding circumstances than on past experience and other mental constructs (even if these also influence such action.)  I gave this example of an Impulsive Act in Part One of this series:

…consider a different Impulsive Act:  While at the Mall, a person suddenly hears lots of gunfire near him, sees people falling, and rather than quickly duck behind a convenient metal barrier starts running around, screaming — and, gets shot.  But a person who has been in combat situations might quickly duck behind the barrier:  a reflexive act based more on past experience than on present new information and sudden ideas of impending death.

[CGW, Dreaming 5GW, “Rethinking the OODA”]

Present new information and sudden ideas of impending death. — One we might create by our action, if only we can know that the new information is really new for a target; the other is a common fear for most people but not all.  As a metaphor, however, this would suggest how rapid changes within a concrete environment, of a certain type, might cause an enemy to react impulsively.  True, we might have no firm understanding of exactly how he will react, but the fact that his action will be impulsive might be enough, particularly if we could create a quick recycling through O-O-D(Hyp.) and back to O of the Abstract OODA of our enemy.  He would be forced either into paralysis or into committing an impulsive act.

And Again, Beyond

I had intended only two parts for this series, but this look at EBO warranted a post of its own — especially since, as I would assert, all warfare beyond absolutely destructive warfare is EBO or ought to be considered such.  We act through the concrete World and we seek a corresponding beneficial reaction from our enemies.  EBO is not a so-called “generation” of warfare, although I am beginning to believe that understanding the concept of EBO will be very important in understanding William Lind’s Generations of Warfare.  I intend to address those generations, in further consideration of the Revised OODA, in a third part to this series, since this post has already grown to a…sufficient length.

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Rethinking the OODA
• Part One: Rethinking the OODA


• Part Two: EBO is Everything in War — Almost


• Part Three: Observing the Maturing World

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NOTE: Links to the original blog posts have been altered to direct to the cross-posted entries here on Dreaming 5GW.