Principles of 5GW: Evolved EBO

From a White Paper appearing in October 2001, issued by J9 Joint Forces Command, Batschelet extracts the theory that EBO focuses on final outcomes, first as a goal but second as data points for assessing actual ongoing operations; additionally, multiple domains will affect final outcomes and thus multiple actors — not merely within the military — will be required:

According to J9, effects-based operations are “a process for obtaining a desired strategic outcome or effect on the enemy through the synergistic and cumulative application of the full range of military and non-military capabilities at all levels of conflict.” Furthermore, an “effect” is the physical, functional, or psychological outcome, event, or consequence that results from specific military or non-military actions.  The defining elements in the J9 description include emphasis on effects-based operations as a process, beginning with developing knowledge of the adversary, viewed as a complex adaptive system, the environment, and U.S. capabilities. Knowledge of the enemy will enable the commander to determine the effects he needs to achieve to convince or compel the enemy to change his behavior. The commander’s intent plays a central, critical role, in the determination and explicit linking of tactical actions to operational objectives and desired strategic outcomes. Execution of the plan follows, the aim or task being the use of all applicable and available capabilities, including diplomatic, information, military and economic.

The purpose then is to create a coordinated and synergistic operation that will produce the desired effects. Continuous assessment must measure and evaluate the impact of the desired effects. Assessment includes, determining if military actions achieved the desired effects, produced unintended effects, the overall impact of the effort, and if tactical actions contributed to achievement of the desired outcome. Finally, continuous assessment of the enemy, U.S. military and political actions as well as the friendly situation will enable the commander to adjust his course of action to reach his desired endstate efficiently and rapidly.

Following this broad outline, Batschelet then considers a type of EBO conceived as a destruction-based EBO by Air Force Major General David Deptula, albeit one more focused on destroying an enemy’s support systems rather than on destroying the enemy himself:

He asserts that the conduct of warfare has changed from campaigns designed to achieve objectives through sequential attack, to what he describes as, parallel warfare, or simultaneous attack against all the enemy’s vital systems.  In Deptula’s concept, prosecuting parallel warfare requires precision weapons, the ability to suppress enemy air defenses, and an operational concept that focuses principally on effects rather than only on aggregate destruction to achieve military objectives….he argues that the present focus is on physical target destruction with little concern for the outcome. This focus on destruction comes from two traditional concepts of war, he argues, annihilation and attrition….

Deptula advances an alternative concept of warfare based on control—the idea that an enemy organization’s ability to operate as desired is ultimately more important than destruction of its military forces. He views destruction as a means to achieve control over an enemy. Destruction then should aim at achieving effects on enemy systems, not necessarily at destroying the system, but preventing its intended use as the adversary desires….he asserts that effects-based operations will achieve desired effects through the successful application of force to gain control of systems on which the enemy relies.

For his third example, Batschelet summarizes a study by the Institute for Defense Analyses:

It begins by arguing that effects-based operations rest on an explicit linking of actions to desired strategic outcomes. It is thus about producing desired futures. Moreover, effects-based thinking must under grid the concept by providing a focus on the entire continuum (peace, pre-conflict, conflict, and post conflict), and not just on conflict.  Understanding how to think in this manner enables effects-based operations. This study also emphasizes the need to understand and model an adversary as a complex, adaptive system driven by complex human interactions, rather than just collections of physical targets. Therefore, one should be able to focus operations more coherently.  Furthermore, effects-based operations have seven attributes: the need to focus on decision superiority, applicability in peace and war (full-spectrum operations); a focus beyond direct, immediate first-order effects; an understanding of the adversary’s systems; the ability of disciplined adaptation, the application of the elements of national power; and the ability of decision-making to adapt rules and assumptions to reality...Of note, this study places great importance on communications between decision makers at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels and underlines the criticality of “commander’s intent” for ensuring focused efforts and effects.  Finally, this work offers that those engaging in effects-based operations must continuously adapt plans, rules, and assumptions to existing reality, in other words, effects based-thinking and operations help the commander to fight the enemy and not the plan.

I would note:

• The first and third examples do not greatly differ, unless one takes from the third a strong focus on being able to create a solid and, one must assume, strict structure for Command and Control within the operation, which the first does not strongly emphasize (in these abstracts.)  Shane Deichman has previously questioned the need for C^2 organizational capability for waging 5GW.
• The second, Air Force Major General David Deptula’s conceptualization, has become the dominant definition of EBO, at least as the term is commonly utilized in blogospheric debate.  It is also the least like descriptions of 5GW included on D5GW, of the three descriptions, although it is the most like description of 5GW as propounded by John Robb of Global Guerrillas fame.
• Batschelet in the remainder of his paper concludes that Deptula’s conceptualization of EBO is too narrow — “creating effects solely with fires” — but cannot be excluded from a working concept of EBO, and he does not reject the notion of a strong and what he would call effective C^2.  Indeed, he uses the rest of the paper to suggest methods — from training of military personnel at all levels, to creating a working taxonomy of EBO to be used by all involved, to combining different organizations into one functional and effective organizational structure — for improving C^2.  These methods skirt the idea of a multi-domain approach by suggesting that officers become proficient in understanding non-military sciences such as those relating to culture and economics; but they maintain and reinforce the idea that EBO must be a top-down endeavor with strong C^2.
  

EBO Evolved

The arguments against EBO are really arguments against limited deployment of EBO.²

This is not the first time I have addressed the subject of EBO on D5GW.  In that previous blog post, I spent most of my time 1) arguing the above against the predominant Deptula concept of EBO and 2) arguing that all warfare, being effects-based in a literal sense, is EBO but that one crucial aspect of conflict is often overlooked:  the fact that cause-effect considerations typically used by those deploying EBO do not take into consideration previous and other present causes and effects which have shaped or are shaping an enemy’s world view.  In other words, the limitation of EBO as currently conceived rests not only in its refusal to observe causes other than its own (that is, the actions of those conducting the EBO), but also, relatedly, in its refusal to expand operations beyond its own generalized sphere of activity.

The first limitation can be best observed in the Deptula concept for EBO, as described above; the second limitation can be best observed in the other two concepts for EBO, and in Batschelet’s exploration, as described above.  However, all of the above are limited in both ways.

I have recently been revisiting the subject of a Revised OODA^{3, 4}, which might help to clarify the limitations of EBO as it has been conducted and/or conceived to this point. (In any case, as with here, my old exploration of EBO was also part of a consideration of the Revised OODA.)

First, without diminishing John Boyd’s original concept for the OODA — which I have found to be very useful indeed — we can use his diagram as a metaphorical guide to understanding the old EBO limitations:



 

The diagram is very individual-centric.  While “Outside Information” and “Unfolding Interaction With Environment”, etc., are included, the diagram focuses on an individual’s processes and processing of that information.  Indeed, his unfolding interaction is shown to lead directly from his action and back into his own observation: a kind of ego-centric loop.  From looking at the diagram we may say that, obviously, other influences exist in the world, but these influences are given short shrift. Batschelet’s exploration of EBO, whether in exploring his three examples or in his own conclusions, stresses the iterative process of EBO, including this diagram:




More than Boyd’s OODA Loop, but similarly, this diagram shows the C^2-centric conceptualization for EBO.  One does continue to asses the general environment and act accordingly, but the overriding focus is on 1) one’s own observation of the environment, 2) one’s own activity planned as a result of that observation and 3) the effects of one’s own activity upon that environment, for 4) further developing one’s own EBO operation.  Generously speaking, we might add the enemy’s OODA process into the standard EBO operations when we conduct those operations — we are “attacking the enemy’s OODA” — but this too runs into the limitation of presuming that the enemy is only focused on our activity when he decides his own actions in any conflict; and this only serves to focus our attention back into a self-reinforcing loop/EBO plan.

Strictly speaking, multiple EBO operations, beyond our own and beyond our enemy’s, will be occurring in the course of any conflict.

Of preeminent importance, the truly dynamic state of the World must be expressed in any diagram we would use for understanding and conducting EBO.  This includes not only an explicit inclusion of the larger sphere of activity — the entire World — but also an explicit consideration for the abstract processing we and our enemies use when we observe that environment.  A reworking of the OODA becomes necessary:

Here we have a Concrete OODA and an Abstract OODA.  Importantly, actions within the world — i.e., in this case, EBO activities — change the physical world, and it is this larger environment we and our enemies observe.  In other words, no change in the environment is observed purely but is observed within the context of everything else occurring in that environment.  Additionally, any observations of the environment are further diluted by previous “Mental Constructs” — past experiences, ideologies, etc. — which have been the results of activities occurring long before the current EBO operation and indeed before anything else presently occurring within the environment.  (A more detailed explanation of the Revised OODA can be found on-site.) 

In consideration of multiple EBO’s occurring, we can show multiple OODA loops:



This merely shows multiple individuals observing a common environment and acting upon that environment, but importantly with different observational niches.  With respect to EBO operations, the overlap and lack of overlap in observational niches may represent a break in the self-reinforcing, self-looping OODA/EBO which is often implied in standard definitions of EBO.  In other words, our enemies will be reacting to other changes in the environment than we have caused.  In addition, the formation of understandings of that environment will therefore include these other observations mixed with previous understanding of the environment unrelated to EBO activities:




The strict C^2 might be represented as a “common understanding” held by the force conducting EBO; certainly, this seems to have been a very large focus for Batschelet, when he stressed the importance of disseminating not only the general concept of EBO among the armed forces but also a) the need for an organization within which multiple organizations might unify their approach and b) processes for communicating existing circumstances to those in command and in turn communicating the directives of those in command back to the soldiers on the ground.  This strict C^2 might be diagrammed within the Revised OODA Loop as being an “aligned abstract” which would shape common activities affecting the battlefield in common ways toward a specific purpose:




— unfortunately, those activities must compete within the World with other activities of other forces, and our enemies would be viewing our changes to the environment in context with those other changes not of our doing.

But let’s skip ahead to the Evolved EBO.

The very general concept as expressed in Batschelet’s first and third examples was not far wrong.  In general “effects-based” has two components:

1. “It is thus about producing desired futures.”  I.e., operations should be focused on pre-determined ultimate effects.  Our activities are therefore determined by those effects, or based upon those effects we are seeking.
2. “[T]hose engaging in effects-based operations must continuously adapt plans, rules, and assumptions to existing reality.” In other words, whatever effects actually occur within the world — as opposed to the pre-determined effects we have chosen — will shape our activities; our future activities will be based upon those effects.

Critically, we must begin to recognize that the effects upon which we base our actions will therefore be two-fold.  Yes, an ultimate goal must shape what we do (#1), but also we must observe the effects presently occurring within the world and base our activities on those (#2) — but not only on our own activity-causing effects.  This seems utterly obvious and even facetious on the surface, but unfortunately most standard concepts of EBO fail to consider the scope implied in any commingling of those two concepts of “effects-based.”  Perhaps this failure is due to institutional inertia or the ever-common, and not relegated to the military, egocentricity of world views and motivations.  Understandably, as we can see in Batschelet’s paper, the effort of operationalizing EBO within a subset of society — i.e., the military — automatically 1) reduces the scope because 2) the sphere of activity is prescribed and expansions of the sphere of activity are in fact proscribed for the military.

Indeed, the sphere of activity is automatically limited for any group or individual, due to limited powers and limited observational capabilities.  Some 5GW theorists, like John Robb, propose the utility of grand-scale system perturbation as a means of circumventing restrictions; a grand attack might in itself create ripple effects across a broad spectrum of domains.  Unfortunately, a single origin, combined with the ripple effect, will lead to unintended consequences — which, strictly speaking, means that such an action would not be effectively effects-based in and of itself even if one intended effect occurs.  The iterative aspect of EBO, or of observing the effects of one’s own activities and the activities of others, and then revising future activities based on those, would be moot if a grand system perturbation on the scale of an Armageddon were the method of choice; on the other hand, smaller perturbations, if they allowed further activity, might be effectively used in EBO.

Evolved EBO will require the recognition of a greater sphere of activity and greater numbers of actors than old school EBO recognized.  Multiple domains and multifarious actors and organizations continue to affect the World, and will continue to affect the World, which in turn affects the world views and thus future activities of both our allies and enemies, and our actions will need to be based on these facts and their effects as well as an ultimate, sought-for effect.  The inability of any one organization or group of individuals to operate directly across all spheres of activity will require the utilization of “hands in the field” and mass co-option for addressing those effects and shaping them, directing them.

For any warfare effort to be considered 5GW, the utilization of  “Evolved EBO” — i.e., multi-directional, broad-spectrum and adaptive operations directed toward a single ultimate effect — will be key.




I. Introduction
II. Principles of 5GW:  Hands in the Field
III. Principles of 5GW:  Evolved EBO
 

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¹ Effects-based operations: A New Operational Model?, 09 April 2002.

² from EBO is Everything in War — Almost, Dreaming 5GW, 07 Oct 2006.

³ OODA Reminder Post, Le Grande Bombaste, 3 Aug 2009.

⁴ Social OODA Loop, Le Grande Bombaste, 7 Aug 2009.