Effects-Based Operations: A U.S. Commander's Perspective

Effects-Based Operations: A U.S. Commander's Perspective

by LG David A. Deptula

Effects-Based Operations (EBO) is a fundamental concept behind what is
required to really "transform" the future of how we conduct
national or coalition security in depth. The basic idea behind this
construct - that of causal relationships in conflict - has been
around for centuries. However, it was only in the last decade that we
have begun to reach the levels of technology necessary to accelerate an
effects-based perspective to its fullest maturity. Still, capturing the
essence of what many past strategists envisioned requires diligent
analysis and innovative thinking. Technology alone will not provide
future victories. Instead, we must examine what new technologies have
to offer as the basis for new concepts of operations. So under the
circumstances, how does EBO apply considering that it is neither a
framework, nor a system or organisation, and it is not service
specific. Rather, it is a methodology or a way of thinking.

Accordingly, EBO is at the heart of merging our security tools, and as
such has application across the spectrum of those security tools. It is
the exploration of control - which creates the necessary effects to
secure desired objectives so as to regulate an adversary's ability to
operate as he or she desires. Ultimately, this mastering of effects
allows us to view the traditional military concepts of annihilation and
attrition, with their focus on destruction, as only one means to
achieve control over an enemy rather than the operative means of doing
so.

The goal of war, simply put, is to get an adversary to act according to
our strategic interests. Ultimately, at some point in the future, it is
in our interest to get our adversary to act in accordance with our
strategic interests without them even knowing that they have been acted
upon. This would be the logical endgame of EBO - the attainment of
security objectives without resorting to destruction or visible
disruption. That may not be possible for quite a while, but it is not
unrealistic, nor should our current inability to do so stifle our
future aspirations. What is possible now are significant improvements
in the way the military, as a part of an individual nation, or as a
part of a coalition of nations, attempt to affect its adversaries'
decisions.

If one puts the goal of warfare in that context, then one begins to see
that desired effects should determine the engagement methods, and that
force application becomes only one of a spectrum of options. In fact,
EBO is a springboard for better linking military, economic and
diplomatic instruments of national or coalition power to conduct
security strategy in depth. So, if the focus is on effects i.e., the
end of strategy, rather than force-on-force which is the traditional
means to achieve it, then more effective ways can be considered to
accomplish the same goal more quickly than in the past, with fewer
resources, and most importantly, with fewer casualties.

The Impact of Precision and Stealth

Though applicable to all instruments of power, the essence of EBO is
manifested in the role it played in the design and execution of the
Desert Storm air campaign.

Over 150 attacks on separate targets consisting of well over a thousand
aim points made up the master attack plan for the opening 24 hours of
Desert Storm. This was a larger number of targets than attacked by the
entire 8 th Air Force in the combined bomber offensive in Europe over a
period of two years in 1942 and 1943. In fact, it was the largest
number of separate target attacks in the shortest period of time
planned in history. What enabled this level of impact to be achieved?
The short answer is the maturation of aerospace technologies merged
with a theory of targeting for effects rather than absolute
destruction.

Advanced technology - the combination of stealth and precision - in
conjunction with a planning approach based on achieving specific
effects rather than absolute destruction, enabled a new concept of
operations known as parallel warfare; the simultaneous application of
force across the breadth and depth of an entire theater. Combined,
these elements became the linchpin of the revolution in military
affairs.

Most people are familiar with the dramatic increase in precision that
aerial delivered weapons have achieved over the last half of the 20 th
century. In some cases, a single aircraft and one precision-guided
munition during Desert Storm achieved the same result as a 1000-plane
raid with over 9000 bombs in World War II - and without the
associated collateral damage. However, not many are as familiar with
the leverage that stealth demonstrated in Desert Storm. A case in point
involved the first non-stealthy attack on one target in the Basra area
(Shaiba Airfield) with three aim points. The strike consisted of four
Navy A-6s and four Saudi Tornado dropping bombs; five Marine EA-6Bs
jamming acquisition radars; four Air Force F-4Gs taking out one type of
surface to air missile system; 17 Navy F-18s taking out another; four
F/A-18s as fighter escort; and three drones launched into the area to
bring up the enemy radars. That brought the complete force package to
41 aircraft - 8 of them dropping bombs on 3 aim points at one target.

At approximately the same time, there were 20 F-117 stealth fighters,
all dropping bombs on 38 separate aim points at 28 different targets.
That constituted less than half the number of aircraft hitting over
1200 percent the target base. That leverage equates to a stealth
multiplier of around 19, or put another way, it took 19 non-stealth
aircraft to accomplish the effect of one stealth aircraft in this
circumstance. That was one example on the first night of the air
campaign. The effectiveness of stealth over the entire campaign is
evidenced by the fact that stealth aircraft flew less than two percent
of the total combat sorties flown in Desert Storm, but attacked over 40
percent of the fixed target base.

The impact of the stealth and precision equation enabled us to move
from a standard of requiring multiple aircraft to accomplish an
objective against a single target, to being able to achieve objectives
against multiple targets with a single aircraft. So how do these
transformational technologies affect military planning? Let me offer a
simplistic, yet applicable analogy. The Desert Storm air campaign
strategy capitalized on stealth and precision in conjunction with an
effects-based planning methodology designed to paralyze Saddam
Hussein's control of his own forces, neutralizing his capacity, and
then his will to fight. The execution of this strategy has become known
as parallel warfare, and was based upon achieving specific effects in
the shortest possible time. The term "parallel" comes from basic
electric circuit design. Anyone experiencing the frustration of trying
to find a burned out Christmas tree light on a series circuit versus a
parallel circuit will immediately understand the concept. A series
circuit requires electrons to flow sequentially through each light
bulb. Accordingly, one light must be lit before the next one does.
Conversely, in a parallel circuit, the electricity reaches all the
lights at the same time - simultaneous flow. Applying the same
concept to the application of force in war yields the terms: serial
(sequential) and parallel (simultaneous).

In air campaigns before Desert Storm, force was applied sequentially to
"roll back" enemy defenses before attacking targets of the highest
value. In series warfare, each target-set must be cleared in order to
get to the next one. This continues until one eventually gets to the
target-set of highest value. In parallel warfare, force is applied
against multiple high value target-sets at the same time -
leadership; key essentials; command and control; fielded military
forces; and the communications between them. This magnifies surprise,
widens enemy paralysis, and inflicts fewer casualties in shorter time,
and with greater probability of imposing effective control over the
adversary.

The Impact of Effects-Based Planning

Targeting manuals include words about targeting to achieve effects, but
pages and chapters are written about damage expectancy, probability of
damage, and "weaponeering" to achieve levels of destruction. This
focus on destruction results from two traditional concepts of war -
annihilate an enemy through outright destruction, or exhaust an enemy
before he exhausts you (attrition).

An alternative concept of warfare is based on control - the idea that
an enemy organization's ability to operate as desired is ultimately
more important than destruction of the forces it relies on for defense.
In terms of securing favorable conflict termination, rendering the
enemy force useless is just as effective as eliminating that enemy
force. Furthermore, controlling an adversary can be accomplished
quicker, and with far fewer casualties. In words attributed to Sun Tzu:
"Those skilled in war subdue the enemy's army without battle. They
capture his cities without assaulting them and over-throw his state
without protracted operations."

Centuries later, B.H. Liddell Hart expanded on this idea adding,
"While such bloodless victories have been exceptional, their rarity
enhances rather than detracts from their value - as an indication of
latent potentialities, in strategy and grand strategy." To be sure,
neither strategist suggests reliance on achieving victory without
bloody engagements. Instead, they advocate seeking alternative means to
achieve victory - those that may, with favorable settings, do so more
swiftly, and at less cost. Simply put, rather than the operative means
to inhibit enemy activity, destruction should be viewed as only one
means to achieve control over an enemy. In this approach, destruction
is used to achieve effects on each of the systems the enemy
organization relies on to conduct operations or exert influence - not
to destroy the systems, but to prevent them from being used as the
adversary desires. Effective control over adversary systems facilitates
achieving the political objectives that warrant the use of force.

During Desert Storm, conventional planners and intelligence personnel
tended to think about targeting in terms of "the required number of
sorties to achieve the
desired damage against each target." The bread and butter of a
targeting officer involved "determining the quantity of a specific
weapon required to achieve a specified level of damage to a given
target." A conventional evaluation of the effectiveness of one of the
target sets during Desert Storm by traditional intelligence analysis
demonstrated how focus on individual target damage rather than the
effects of attacks on the system under attack can be misleading.

On February 15, 1991 , the Iraq target-planning cell received a report
from the Central Command intelligence staff on the progress of the air
campaign in accomplishing the electric target set objectives. The
report stated that because all the individual targets in the primary
and secondary electric target set were not destroyed or damaged to a
specific percentage, the analysis concluded the objective had not been
met. In fact, the electric system was not operating in Baghdad , and
the power grid in the rest of the country was not much better off. The
effect desired by the air campaign planners in attacking this system
was not the destruction of each of the electric sites - it was to
temporarily stop the production of electricity in certain areas of Iraq
.. The planning cell knew the operating status of the Iraqi electric
grid and had already reduced actions against electric sites to
maintenance levels. The determinant of whether to act (with lethal or
non-lethal means) to effect an individual site was whether the electric
system was operating in the area of interest, not the level of damage,
or lack thereof, to an individual site. During the war, some Iraqi
power plant managers shut down their electric plants to avoid targeting
thereby creating the desired effect without exposing Coalition members
to danger, and freeing up air resources for another task - Sun
Tzu's dictum fulfilled.

While the virtues of planning to achieve systemic effects were
discussed early in the conceptual phase of the air campaign planning
effort, initial attack planning was done on the basis of traditional
destruction-based methodology. For example, early in the process,
intelligence identified two major sector operations centers (SOCs)
providing command and control of Iraqi air defenses - one in Baghdad
and one at Tallil air base in southern Iraq. Each was hardened to
protect two underground command and control bunkers. Weapons experts
and target planners determined it would take eight F-117s with a mix of
Guided Bomb Units (GBU)-27 and GBU-10 2000-pound bombs to destroy the
bunkers at each SOC. Since only 16 F-117s were available for planning
at the time, destroying the two SOCs meant using all the available
F-117s - an 8-to-1 aircraft-to-target ratio.

Intensive planning for the offensive air campaign began in theater on
August 21, 1990 . By August 30, the known targets in the strategic air
defense system expanded almost tenfold. Further intelligence analysis
of the Iraqi air defense network found not just two SOCs in Iraq , but
four, and associated with each of these SOCs were three to five
interceptor operations centers (IOCs), and associated with the IOCs
were a number of radar reporting posts. The new information
significantly increased the challenge of attaining the operational
objective to "render Iraq defenseless and minimize the threat to
allied forces." For the initial attack plan, the effect desired was
to shut down the air defense command and control system in certain
areas enabling non-stealthy aircraft to approach their targets without
resistance. However, there were not enough stealthy F-117s to destroy
each of the newly discovered nodes of the air defense system
simultaneously.

The solution lay in effects-based rather than destruction-based
targeting. Postulating that a 2000-pound bomb could go off in the other
end of the building in which the US air campaign planners were working,
a case was made that the planning group might survive, and if so we
would abandon the facility to seek shelter. The point was that the SOCs
and IOCs did not require destruction. Targeting only had to render them
ineffective, unable to conduct operations through the period of the
ensuing attacks by non-stealthy aircraft.

By September 6, the attack plan was rewritten putting no more than two
F-117 loads on any particular SOC. This greatly multiplied the number
of stealth and precision strikes for use against other critical
targets. Consequently, the opening 24 hours of the air war found 42
F-117 sorties flying 76 target attacks - almost a 1-to-2
aircraft-to-target ratio. This constituted just over 2 1/2 times the
number of stealth strike sorties (from the original plan of 16). Yet,
stealth platforms were now attacking 38 times the target base.

Linking Tactical Tasks to Strategic Objectives

The key to the success of effects-based operations is a top down
approach where coalition strategy is translated to specific objectives
at each level down to specific tactical level tasks. Each tactical
level task must be directly related to the highest order objectives of
the operation. Failure to do so will result in random attacks of
discrete enemy elements unrelated to the ultimate objectives - not
unlike what happened in Vietnam, and what some might say happened in
the first half of the air war over Serbia in 1999.

In order to establish and maintain this linkage, a system to delineate
the ties between the political objectives and tactical actions is
required. In Desert Storm, we used the center of gravity model, and
identified centers of gravity at the strategic, operational, and
tactical levels that became respectively the target systems, the target
sets, and the individual targets themselves. For each target set,
specific effects-based objectives were identified and used by the
principal air campaign planner to determine if additional weight of
effort was required to achieve the objective. Additionally, every new
target that came into the planning cell for consideration was evaluated
according to how well it could contribute to accomplishing those
objectives.

So where do we go from here? How should we approach the future?
Improved battlespace awareness, stealth, precision, and cyber war
enable the production of the effects of mass without having to mass as
we have in the past. The ability to impose effects can be independent
of the massing of forces - the projection of force is becoming more
important than the continual presence of force. Accordingly, what moves
into a theater, and when, should be determined by the degree of effect
it can have on an adversary. Operational timelines should be driven by
the massing of joint effects, not simply numbers of forces.

Transformation

Technology is enabling new concepts of operations (CONOPS) that if
properly exploited have the potential of radically transforming the
means of warfare. Some of this potential was witnessed in the execution
of Operation Iraqi Freedom where a joint force was effectively employed
that was much smaller than legacy force-on-force attrition-based
strategy dictate. Yet much more potential exists. In general,
traditional joint employment strategies still lag behind actual
capabilities that we currently possess. The promise of aerospace power
is now reality - we need to capitalize on this capability. It allows
for the unprecedented application of joint force simultaneously across
the breadth and depth of any theater. New possibilities of engagement
such as cyber war, nanotechnology, and biotechnology are emerging
rapidly. It is necessary to be open to how they can be applied in
concert with, or in lieu of, traditional military means to coerce
potential adversaries to act in accordance with our desired strategic
interests.

Transformation is much more than simply modernization. It consists of
fundamental change involving three principal elements, and their
interactions with one another: one; advanced technologies, because of
the new capability that they yield, enable two; innovative and new
concepts of operations that produce near order of magnitude increases
in our ability to achieve desired effects, and three; organizational
change that codifies the changes in the previous elements, or enhances
our ability to execute our national security strategy.

The evolving security environment requires: Responsiveness - acting
within hours rather than in weeks or months; Long range, and effective
delivery - spanning the globe, delivering weapons or relief with
precision to achieve desired effects, and; High leverage - reducing
personnel, support, and overall dollar cost. Future military force
structure should be determined by the technology-driven transformation
in operational concepts that is affecting the relationship between
manoeuvre, fire, and information. Each of the Services has a role to
play in this future but it must be remembered that jointness is using
the right force at the right place at the right time - it is not
using every force, every place, all the time.

Summary

Most contemporary military thinking is still burdened to a degree by
industrial-age assumptions about change. The weapons engineers of World
War II had very few options, almost all of which were bounded by
materials. Today, the situation is reversed and one of the biggest
challenges is choosing the most potent options from among a
near-limitless array of promising possibilities.

EBO has the potential to reduce the force requirements, casualties,
duration of conflict, and deployment sizes previously required to
prevail in conflict. In other words to achieve the effects of mass
without having to mass forces as we have in the past. Accordingly,
effects-based methodology should drive our measures of merit, and
evaluation. With the leverage this approach delivers, it may be an
appropriate foundation for operational decisions, defense planning, and
resource allocation. Too many people still view cost per weapon or
platform as a valid measure of merit. Cost per target engaged or cost
per effect desired is a much more valid measure of value of a weapon
system, platform, or a concept of operations.

EBO is not an organization, or a system. It is a methodology, a way of
thinking. Accordingly, EBO has value beyond its military utility. As a
means of integrating the pillars of national security, perhaps it
stands to achieve its most profound value. In fact, the effects-based
approach is a springboard for better linking military, economic,
information, and political elements to conduct national security in
depth. Simply put, focusing on creating the effects underlying an
objective forces exploration of the whole array of security options. In
those cases where military force is required, this approach will move
us away from massing forces to destroy an adversary, to a much broader
application of security tools to achieve rapid coercion - an approach
inherently less costly in lives and resources.

Winston Churchill once said, "Man will occasionally stumble over the
truth, but most times he will pick himself up and carry on." If we
are to meet the security challenges of the future in an era of
constrained resources for defense, we have got to pick up the truth and
hold on to it, and an effects-based methodology provides us a means to
do that.



LG David A. Deptula is Vice Commander, Pacific Air Forces, Hickam Air
Force Base, Hawaii. PACAF is responsible for Air Force activities over
half the globe in a command that supports 45,000 Air Force personnel
serving principally in Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, Korea and Japan. LG
Deptula has significant experience in combat and leadership in several
major joint contingency operations. He was the principal planner for
attack operations for the Desert Storm coalition air campaign. He was
also the Joint Task Force Commander for Operation Northern Watch during
a period of renewed Iraqi aggression where he flew 82 combat missions.
More recently in early 2005, he was the Joint Force Component Commander
for Operation Unified Assistance, the South East Asia Tsunami Relief
Effort. LG Deptula holds a MSc in Systems Engineering from the
University of Virginia.

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