Lt Col Paul D. Berg USAF, Chief, Professional Journals for Air and Space Power,
Washington DC: The term effects-based operations (EBO) entered the military lexicon during the Gulf War of 1991 and has propagated widely since then. Initially some Air Force members used EBO to help explain that war's dramatically successful outcome.
Many EBO pioneers were Air Force members, but the concept has now spread to other US military services and even the militaries of other nations.
This dispersion hints at EBO's potentially profound influence, yet its definitions vary, and its theoretical concepts remain hard to explain and apply. Not a template for action, EBO is instead a mind-set focused on exploiting cause-and-effect relationships. It requires disciplined analysis to plan and elicit effects that contribute to strategic goals as well as constant communication and assessment to track progress towards producing those effects.
EBO has a commonsense quality, but efforts to explain it have spawned an array of related terms such as first-order effects and causal linkages. Even a basic term like effect can resist precise definition. Effects-based terminology is popular yet sometimes misapplied to legitimize new operational concepts.
Merely insinuating effects-based jargon into a briefing does not make something effects based. The term effects-based operations itself has proliferated to include effects-based planning, effects-based assessment, and so forth. Indeed, EBO rivals transformation, a very fashionable buzzword in military circles.
Is EBO an important concept or a passing fad? Only time will tell, but one way to gauge its potential involves viewing it through the lens of another influential concept, the revolution in military affairs (RMA).
Andrew Marshall, longtime director of the Office of Net Assessment, defined an RMA as “a major change in the nature of warfare brought about by the innovative application of new technologies which, combined with dramatic changes in military doctrine and operational and organizational concepts, fundamentally alters the character and conduct of military operations” (“Revolution in Military Affairs,” Center for Media and Democracy,).
Key elements of that definition include new technologies applied to warfare, doctrinal change, and organizational change. Armored warfare is a classic example of an RMA. Internal-combustion-engine technology applied to armored vehicles yielded the tank.
Thinkers and practitioners such as Gen Heinz Guderian of Germany developed a new doctrine of massing tanks and aircraft at critical points to break through enemy lines and disrupt rear areas.
A new organization known as the panzer division implemented that doctrine. When World War II began, many countries had tanks, but German doctrine and organization made the blitzkrieg seem invincible. An RMA's doctrinal and organizational changes translate technology into military power.
When one views current EBO efforts in RMA terms, several points emerge.
First, the data-intensive nature of EBO demands powerful sensor, communication, and computer networks to help us understand changing battlespace conditions and produce desired effects. The US military is attempting to apply such technologies in effects-based ways, but incomplete understanding of EBO remains an obstacle.
Second, to exploit these technologies within an effects-based framework, we are developing the appropriate doctrine
