When does a phrase represent the genesis of a truly new concept and when is it just a phrase? The idea of “effects based operations” or EBO has been touted as a shortcut the grinding methods of historical warfare. One definition of EBO is:
The Joint Forces Command Glossary defines effects-based operations (EBO) as “a process for obtaining a desired strategic outcome or ‘effect’ on the enemy, through the synergistic, multiplicative, and cumulative application of the full range of military and nonmilitary capabilities at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels”. As such, all types of armed forces have performed EBO for centuries—albeit without the same dynamics as have appeared since the beginning of practical airpower in the early twentieth century.
The idea is to find the keystone of the enemy’s strength and with a precision push, take the whole of the enemy’s force down. The idea grew, over time, to encompass not just traditional force but a cocktail of methods, including economic, information and brutal. But the core idea remained the same: to concentrate on finding the Magic Bullet rather than wrassling it out with the enemy. The only problem has been to find a sure method of identifying the Magic Bullet in a given situation. General James Mattis, USMC has criticized the EBO method in the autumn edition of Parameters. Here’s what he has to say:
all operating environments are dynamic with an infinite number of variables; therefore, it is not scientifically possible to accurately predict the outcome of an action. To suggest otherwise runs contrary to historical experience and the nature of war. Fourth, we are in error when we think that what works (or does not work) in one theater is universally applicable to all theaters. Finally, to quote General Sherman, “Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.” History is replete with examples and further denies us any confidence that the acute predictability promised by EBO’s long assessment cycle can strengthen our doctrine.
In other words, many of the traditional disciplines of combat are part of the process of discovering the enemy’s key weaknesses. Mattis appears to reject the idea of standing back and, from a distance, engage in long assessment cycles which are expected to identify the magic spot against which the silver bullet will be fired. He cites Israel’s 2006 War with Hezbollah as an example of the failure of EBO.
The Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF’s) use of EBO during the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in the summer of 2006 is informative. Although there are several reasons why the IDF performed poorly during the war, various postconflict assessments have concluded that overreliance on EBO concepts was one of the primary contributing factors for their defeat. After the war, one Israeli general observed that the new (EBO) doctrine was “in complete contradiction to the most important basic principles of operating an army in general . . . and is not based upon, and even ignores, the universal fundamentals of warfare. . . . This is not a concept that is better or worse. It is a completely mistaken concept that could not succeed and should never have been relied upon.”
Among Mattis’ criticisms of EBO are the following:
- Assumes a level of unachievable predictability.
- Cannot correctly anticipate reactions of complex systems (for example, leadership, societies, political systems, and so forth).
- Calls for an unattainable level of
knowledge of the enemy. - Is too prescriptive and overengineered.
- Discounts the human dimensions of war for example, passion, imagination, willpower, and unpredictability).
- Promotes centralization and leads to micromanagement from headquarters.
- Is staff, not command, led.
But however cogent these objections might be EBO, whatever its actual merits, is probably going to remain a popular doctrine because of its tremendous political attractions. One related concept — the idea of an “exit strategy” is already enshrined in popular political wisdom. The modern general is expected, upon pain of excoriation by the press, to predict when and under what circumstances he will complete his mission, even before he undertakes it. Any commander in chief who hazards combat without guaranteeing its outcome is considered incompetent, or worse, a liar who misleads his nation into war. When a politician for example, promises to “bring the boys home” by a date certain whatever the circumstances, he is actually buying into the idea that warfare can be waged according to a Washington-determined schedule. But as Mattis points out, warfare is never this simple. The enemy can often throw a monkey wrench into the works because he too is striving for effects, very often the opposite of the EBO projections. The veto power of unforseen events and enemy action or adaptation is perhaps one reason why in very many examples of historical example of warfare, the preordained never happens.
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76 Comments
1. Derek:One would think that the Iraq war, among others, would have disabused people of such notions. Of course, no one except Bush would have made those mistakes.
Oddly enough, in fact dangerously, the concept assumes first that one has the capability to carry out such a disruptive and debilitating action, and second that one has the leisure to figure it out.
And Mattis tells us the fatal flaw: Calls for an unattainable level of knowledge of the enemy.
Ahh, the wisdom that comes from inexperience.
Derek
Nov 19, 2008 - 9:29 pm 2. Charles:The stock market just went below 8000. Likely that means that oil will easily slice through $50@barrel.
Taliban gets their money from drugs. But AQ likely gets a lot of their money from surplus oil money.
US Preditors went deep into Pakistan to get Abdullah Azam al-Saudi, a senior member of Osama bin Laden’s terror network.
He was not in the tribal belt alongside Afghanistan but rather he was in the middle of country — almost halfway to Kashmir.
According to the article:
Sources in the Taliban said al-Saudi was also a member of Taliban’s supreme council, or Shura, under its fugitive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar when it moved from Afghanistan to the Pakistani side of the border about a year ago.
“He was closely linked to Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri,” a Taliban source added.
Following the strike, al-Zawahiri warned US president-elect Barack Obama against sending more troops to Afghanistan saying that US policy was “doomed to failure” in an Internet audio message.
A security official said the US missile strike was carried out on intelligence that al-Saudi was in a house belonging to a tribesman in the Bannu district, which borders restive North Waziristan.
It was the first alleged US missile strike outside the tribal region which is described by the United States as home to Al-Qaeda’s command and control structure.
Nov 19, 2008 - 9:59 pm 3. El Jefe Maximo:In the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, it was Hezbollah that more completely pursued EBO, using the media to “find the keystone of the enemy’s strength and with a precision push, take the whole of the enemy’s force down.” They were able to obtain the “desired strategic outcome or ‘effect’ on the enemy. . .” and thanks to the free press, they did not suffer from lack of knowledge of the enemy or of the effects of their efforts.
The media is as much a weapon now as an air wing or an armored brigade. Unless and until democratic nation states and their armed forces can figure out away to apply media power, they’re going to come off second best, particularlly in struggles with non-state actors and authoritarian states, because they cannot protect their centers of gravity — the support of the home population and its politicians, from action by the enemy.
Nov 19, 2008 - 10:00 pm 4. Lifeofthemind:For those who insist on hearing the basics with the $5 name attached. “Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.” – K. von Clausewitz
War is not and can not be a matter of having a six person team, with photogenic balance for race and gender, inserted into an exotic locale to solve all problems in 37 minutes, plus commercials. War means having the entire nation, Mom and Pop and that funny guy you don’t like on the train and the angry lady who lives with cats, all committed to sacrifice and suffer as Junior (and Sis) go with all the other young adults and a few professionals go to muddle through and try things out and hopefully survive until they finally get it right and the enemy is no longer a threat.
There may be situations that can be handled by the Ninja team in black sweaters but they aren’t wars. That is why we have run covert operations out of the civilian CIA. When they go bad they can become wars.
Nov 19, 2008 - 10:02 pm 5. Alexis:During World War II, the EBO concept was called the Wunderwaffe — the “Wonder Weapon”. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.
Even nuclear weapons weren’t truly “wonder weapons”. Nuclear weapons only work in tandem with a strong military. Unless there is a strong military to defend nuclear missiles, the missiles themselves become inviting targets from a stronger military. Hence, the Pakistani military’s weakness and its government’s endemic corruption lead its nuclear weapons to become prizes instead of deterrents. This is especially the case given the Pakistani military’s wacky strategic doctrine.
One the main reasons for combat is reconnaissance. It isn’t just reconnaissance for knowing the enemy’s disposition, but it is also about learning how the enemy fights and how the enemy thinks. The key is to learn faster than the other side, principally gaining veteran experience while keeping the enemy from gaining veteran experience.
Situations change, social conditions change, fashions change, and an enemy can often learn from experience. An EBO concept is nice in theory, but only reconnaissance can discover what the EBO is in any given situation. And once an EBO is discovered, it is likely a “one use” tactic or weapon because its success will lead military observers throughout the world to take notice and either (1) emulate the tactic or (2) take countermeasures to make sure the tactic doesn’t work against them.
Nov 19, 2008 - 10:05 pm 6. Charles:In fact, I think it could be argued by someone knowledgeable of both money and the military — that the drone attacks against Al Qaeda have been more accurate and telling than the money tranches fired against the wall of failing institutions during the current economic crises.
Someone might argue that the collapse of oil prices has been better than any of the monetary or fiscal stimulative pushed at the world economy.
It would be interesting to apply to the first paragraph of Wretchard post to The Treasury & the Fed’s fight against the current downturn.
The Dept Of Treasury defines effects-based operations (EBO) as “a process for obtaining a desired strategic outcome or ‘effect’ on economic downturns, through the synergistic, multiplicative, and cumulative application of the full range of fiscal and monetary capabilities at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels”. As such, all types of central banks have performed EBO for centuries—albeit without the same dynamics as have appeared since the beginning of the oil industry in the early twentieth century.
Nov 19, 2008 - 10:12 pm 7. Lifeofthemind:If you view the run up in oil prices as part of an attack on the American economy, a not wholly implausible view given that the mortgage financial collapse was a possibly engineered push that decided the presidential election, then the best rally that the US side had was when the President pushed for offshore drilling and Congress blinked. Oil prices immediately began to decline. If the US had put a real all sources energy policy in place two years ago then our foreign enemies, Putin, Chavez and Ahmasmadasahatter, would be essentially defanged. A controlled international scene would have empowered the President to deal with Fannie and Freddie. To come full circle that may be precisely why the Democrats fought energy independence.
Nov 19, 2008 - 10:30 pm 8. Leo Linbeck III:a process for obtaining a desired strategic outcome or ‘effect’ on the enemy, through the synergistic, multiplicative, and cumulative application of the full range of military and nonmilitary capabilities at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels.
The definition of EBO? I thought this was the definition of war.
Silly me.
L3
Nov 19, 2008 - 11:04 pm 9. Leo Linbeck III:But the core idea remained the same: to concentrate on finding the Magic Bullet rather than wrassling it out with the enemy.
Look no further. I’ve found it.
http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Bullet-Express-17-Piece-High-Speed/dp/B000AEZVRS/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1_s9_rk?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&s9r=8a1080b612e178a20112f9b52b7b0291&itemPosition=1&qid=1227161184&sr=8-1
Cheers.
L3
Nov 19, 2008 - 11:06 pm 10. JMH:Just as there will always be a market for charlatans offering no-pain weight loss pills, there will always be those who can’t resist an offer to make war less messy and dangerous. But a nation would be foolish to make a serial fad-diet junkie the Surgeon General, and woudl be equally foolish letting EBO fans run the War Department.
Nov 19, 2008 - 11:13 pm 11. Leo Linbeck III:OK, now that the snark is out of the way…
The belief that a complex system has a keystone is precious. If there is a keystone, it is probably because the design was the result of a top-down process that was never tested in the real world. In the real world, robust designs have multiple layers of redundancy. This is especially true of network-based systems. Failure? Just route around it.
For some reason, people like to believe that there are simple explanations for complex problems. Who wants to follow the complex timelines, strategic considerations, ambiguities of authority, inadequate messaging capabilities, faulty intelligence gathering and interpretation, international legal constraints, diplomatic maneuvering, and interagency rivalries that comprise the complete explanation for the post-invasion deterioration of Iraq?
It’s a lot easier to simply shout “Bush Lied, People Died!” Plus, it fits nicely on the rear window of a late-model Volvo stationwagon, next to the “Free Mumia” bumpersticker.
Every complex problem has a simple solution. The only problem is that it’s always wrong.
L3
Nov 19, 2008 - 11:30 pm 12. Alexis:On MSNBC, I was watching people (I kid you not) claiming that because Americans voted for Barack Hussein Obama, there’s this wave of pro-Americanism now washing through the Islamic world. We are now being told that Barack Hussein Obama’s Islamic roots undermine al-Qaeda’s narrative about the United States, how the “International Community” loves Barack Obama now, and how America’s diplomatic standing in the world has vastly increased because Barack Hussein Obama is now our President-Elect.
I’m deeply skeptical about the narrative that just because America has elected Barack Hussein Obama, the Islamic world is now in a lovefest of pro-Americanism. The Middle East is a very very racist place. Ayman al-Zawahiri appeals to Arab racism when he uses the N-word to describe Barack Obama, and his depiction of Barack Obama is no different from how Arab cartoons have routinely portrayed Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice in the past.
Past is prologue. I would be surprised if the Arab press doesn’t put out a barrage of anti-black racism against President-Elect Obama so severe in its invective that it would make a lot of Klan propaganda look bland in comparison.
Nov 20, 2008 - 12:07 am 13. Charles:The idea is to find the keystone of the enemy’s strength and with a precision push, take the whole of the enemy’s force down.
……….
actually when you think about …. this was AQ’s idea with the 9/11 attack.
They weren’t interested in symbols. They thought they could bring down the system with an attack on the WTC the pentagon and the congress.
The attack we’re seeing now on the world economy is much more sophisticated than the attack on the WTC.
Whereas the attack on the WTC was intentional ,… the current economic crises has many sources/fathers/causes
Nov 20, 2008 - 12:18 am 14. Nomenklatura:“Any commander in chief who hazards combat without guaranteeing its outcome is considered incompetent, or worse, a liar who misleads his nation into war. When a politician for example, promises to “bring the boys home” by a date certain whatever the circumstances, he is actually buying into the idea that warfare can be waged according to a Washington-determined schedule.”
It’s much worse than that. Any General or Commander in Chief hamstrung by public commitments like these becomes a relatively easy opponent for a wily, duplicitous foe with access to greater operational and strategic flexibility.
Just like the financial crisis, this issue is really more about certain scruples and preferences Western publics have grown used to awarding themselves and feel they can still afford, but in reality cannot, rather than any technical difficulties preventing us getting the job done were we to tackle them seriously.
Nov 20, 2008 - 12:26 am 15. Barry Meislin:So, President-for-Life, Sir, Headest-of-All-Honchos, Most Dentist-in-Chief, Liberator-of-Palestine (and Lebanon), and Leader-of-All-Resistance-Everywhere-and-Forever, should we keep feeding them ze bullshit??
But of course. Slowly, though. They love it so….
Nov 20, 2008 - 12:27 am 16. Barry Meislin:Sorry, this last comment was intended for the Stories post, below.
Nov 20, 2008 - 12:30 am 17. Charles:I’m still pretty impressed by the intelligence that went behind the preditor take down of the AQ guy.
I don’t think that was an american cia guy who fingered Abdullah Azam al-Saudi. Rather, I bet it was a Pakistani ISI who put the red dot on him.
But then I’m biased. I think the center of gravity as its been called in earlier blogs –or the keystone as its called in this blog — in the Pakistani war ….is the Paki ISI.
And I think that bombing of the government offices a month or two ago–shifted them over to the US side.
AQ has made these kinds of dumb mistakes before in Saudi Arabia Jordan and Iraq. AQ just can’t help but reach out and bite the people who love them best. They alienate their core constituencies in ways that make John McCain look like a genius.
I don’t know what the center of gravity or the keystone is for the economic biz. Might be the US dollar. Might be the price of oil.
The way out of the current economic mess imho is dirt cheap oil prices for two years followed by more years of dirt cheap oil prices as the US and the rest of the world weans themselves off dependence on foreign oil as demand for energy rises.
T Boone pickens says the key for the US is to get American Trucks off diesal and get them onto gas. He thinks that’s doable in a couple years. I believe him.
That would take a full 25% off US demand for oil.
That would be a good start.
Nov 20, 2008 - 12:32 am 18. Beverly:One would think that the record of all wars in recorded history would disabuse people of such notions.
Oh, right: who reads history any more? And what is objective truth? And what are we fighting for, anyway?
Nov 20, 2008 - 12:36 am 19. winslow:Life of the Mind and Leo Linbeck have partially described the EBO conducted against the Republicans almost since 9/11. These operations have included finance, legal and illegal, the media, deception and fraud, accusations of scandal against key Republicans, market manipulations (oil and mortgage securities — not to mention short selling), slogans (”Bush lied.”), legislation (Sarbanes Oxley, McCain Feingold) inciting various ethnic groups the Alinsky technique, misdirection, global warming… The list is almost endless and a perfect example of the process Wretchard has described.
The criticisms Wretchard cites seem to me to miss the mark. The idea of a silver bullet seems antithetical to the whole premise of EBO.
Nov 20, 2008 - 4:41 am 20. Pseudo-Polymath » Blog Archive » Thursday Highlights:[...] War and methods of confrontation. I’m curious, has any one ever seen a progressive/liberal blog discussing Clausewitz? or [...]
Nov 20, 2008 - 7:08 am 21. Stones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Things Heard: e41v4:[...] War and methods of confrontation. I’m curious, has any one ever seen a progressive/liberal blog discussing Clausewitz? or [...]
Nov 20, 2008 - 7:10 am 22. tomw:Seems to me that someone once said that a plan does not survive the first few minutes of battle. Given that OBVIOUS statement, which took guts to proffer to ‘upper management’, is it not also obvious that EBO would suffer such contrariness in the intended target?
Nov 20, 2008 - 7:26 am 23. Bob W.:In other words, you can try to run Rommel all the way East, so he runs out of beans, bullets and oil, but he realizes this, just as you do, and puts sails on his tanks so they can run before the wind. (obvious absurdity, but my brain just aint what it used to)
Rommel – EBO was supply tail. And he nixed the plan from the get-go.
I’m not an armchair admiral..
tom
People have disparaged the concept of EBO a little too much, in my opinion. EBO was based on the idea of looking at a military problem holistically, then designing a campaign at the strategic/operational level of war to achieve objectives within that environment.
The problem was not the tool, it was the mechanics who employed it. The complexity of EBO required more education and training on the part of military planners/commanders; to truly understand EBO, a person needed some background info on things like systems theory.
Second, EBO never was truly integrated into military doctrine, it was always an outlier contained in books, magazine articles, and pamphlets. It always seemed more of an intellectual exercise rather than a practical endeavor.
Finally, like any tool, it is only as good as its users. It takes a requisite amount of skill, both innate and learned to design a good operational plan and execute it, adjusting it as conditions warrant it; if a commander and his staff is unable to understand the environement and determine how to proceed, no analytical process is going to ensure success.
Effects Based Operations has been around for a long time, and it is doubtful it is going to disappear any time soon. Weaponeers still talk about the effects they want achieved in the battlespace; the military is still being asked to do incredibly complex tasks in dynamic environments; understanding the environment as a complex, adaptive system is helpful to achieving objectives out there.
Nov 20, 2008 - 7:30 am 24. Charles:A helpful metric for EBO as it relates to oil prices is this article which has the break even prices for oil among OPEC countries. Interestingly Iran’s break even is 90@barrel. For Saudi Arabia, the break even price is $49. For Iraq the break even price is $111. That seems high. But likely that also means that they’re going to need their US cash reserves.
Nov 20, 2008 - 8:04 am 25. buddy larsen:o/t, but “A Simple Plan” is the Coen Bros first title; a nearby thread commenter quoted (the ‘dismal tide’ riff) the bro’s penultimate “No Country for Old Men”. Nice to see the boy’s mithridizing dark humor in currency.
Nov 20, 2008 - 8:06 am 26. Charles:Keep in mind that those numbersn (break even prices for oil among OPEC countries) are not the cost to produce a barrel of oil. It is the price they need for the oil they export to balance their current level of spending.
Iraq’s number will be very dependent upon how much oil they used for the number of barrels to export. Their export volume has been climbing steadily. If using the yearly average instead of their current capability, it would show a higher price required than current production rates would actually require.
Nov 20, 2008 - 8:10 am 27. Charles:The following is a list of selected oil exporters’ break-even prices for 2008 Fiscal Accounts (in US$/barrel): [10]
Algeria 56
Iran 90
Iraq 111
Libya 47
Kuwait 33
Bahrain 75
Oman 77
Qatar 24
Saudi Arabia 49
UAE 23
Average GCC 47
Iran, the second largest oil producer among OPEC members, is likely to feel the pain of declining oil prices more severely than any other oil-producing country in the Middle East. Unlike the GCC member countries, Iran’s price stabilization fund, which was to receive windfall profits to be used when oil revenues decline, has been nearly depleted as a result of poorly managed economic policies by the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The criticism in the Iranian press of Ahmadinejad’s stewardship of the national economy is a daily occurrence.
link
Nov 20, 2008 - 8:12 am 28. Charles:Buddy
what do you mean by “mithridizing” here?
(for example is the root word mithra )
Just curious.
Nov 20, 2008 - 8:17 am 29. Charles:Interestingly, the US supreme court has scheduled a “”conference” Dec. 5, just 10 days before the Electoral College is scheduled to meet to make formal the election of Obama as the nation’s next president.
A case that challenges President-elect Barack Obama’s name on the 2008 election ballot citing questions over his citizenship has been scheduled for a “conference” at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Conferences are private meetings of the justices at which they review cases and decide which ones to accept for formal review.
The Supreme Court’s website listed the date for the case brought by Leo C. Donofrio against Nina Wells, the secretary of state
in New Jersey, over not only Obama’s name on the 2008 election ballot but those of two others, Sen. John McCain and Roger Calero.
If four of the nine justices vote to hear the case in full, oral argument may be scheduled.
The action questions whether any of the three candidates is qualified under the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that a president be a “natural-born citizen.”"
Nov 20, 2008 - 8:31 am 30. buddy larsen:………….
Try to understand. If the supremes let this case come before them, then Obama has to come up with a birth certificate. If they don’t let the case come before them, then the number of lawsuits proliferates.
charles, it’s just a synonym for ‘vaccinating’ or ‘innoculating’. I’m thinking i used it wrong now that you mention it –should’ve been ‘mithridating’ not ‘mithridizing’. oh well –
Nov 20, 2008 - 8:47 am 31. Marcus Aurelius:I wrote a whole bunch on the magic bullet idea, but it doesn’t appear this is what EBO really is, at least based on the opening definition. It is using all means available to defeat an enemy. There are many aspects to defeating an enemy not all involve sending PFCs with rifles to kill other PFCs or JFCs (Jihadi First Class) with rifles.
Remember, General Mattis is the guy who got into a media controversy about saying how fun it was to go out and kill bad guys – clearly he wants to be in the field leading men in combat and therefore stresses kinetic combat operations (i.e. PFCs with rifles).
War consists of more than field operations, it also entails politics and diplomacy (and diplomacy is far more than champagne glass clinking). Now a days we can add PR to this.
Fallujah I and Fallujah II amply demonstrate this idea that war fighting is more than sending in soldiers. Fallujah I was a rash and foolish action and failed. Fallujah II took into account political, diplomatic, and PR realities and hence succeeded.
Again it all comes down to operational organization. PFC with the rifle’s concern is survival and accomplishing his mission his division commander has also to be concerned with other aspects of his job.
Nov 20, 2008 - 8:52 am 32. buddy larsen:old king mithra or Mithradates would eat a little poison every day to build resistance so that no one could poison him. my conceit was that artfully executed dark, savage, hyper-ironic black humor sorta does that for we the baffled boom-riders on the storm.
Nov 20, 2008 - 8:56 am 33. steveaz:Wretchard,
To help our team find the “keystone of the enemy’s strength,” here’re the lede-graphs from an essay I’m working on…
FWIW: Four conjoined issues, all coincidental, got me thinking. The hard work of maintaining our pluralistic, cellular social (ie. Constitutional) design, the proliferation (some say “atomization”) of subsidiary extra-national networks over the past thirty years (ie. “NGO’s” and the like), the advent of the real threat of global nuclear terror, and, last, the apparent ascent of a collectivist apparat in Washington DC, all got me thinking.
Both the USMC and EBO-supporters may find some value in the the socio-analytical template I find in the Helenistic stone-mason’s idea of “Kampos”
Perhaps, because tribes, peer-groups, harems, madrassas, and fundamentalist religious-frameworks are all explicit campuses (or subisidiary-ones) which rank, sort and dispose of human-media, the “Campus-Concept” might be of help.
Nov 20, 2008 - 9:36 am 34. Charles:we the baffled boom-riders on the storm.
Nov 20, 2008 - 9:59 am 35. Insufficiently Sensitive:……
Yeah Buddy. And here’s the music
War means having the entire nation, Mom and Pop and that funny guy you don’t like on the train and the angry lady who lives with cats, all committed to sacrifice and suffer as Junior (and Sis) go with all the other young adults and a few professionals go to muddle through…
And when GWB requested, and Congress voted overwhelmingly for, permission to invade Iraq, the US was then committeed to just such a national task. And in the real world of military actions, no timetable could be substituted for events on the ground if success was the goal.
But some despicable acts then followed. The MSM very shortly commenced a relentless campaign to undermine that commitment. Its silver bullet was aimed directly at the keystone of its enemy’s strength: the public opinion and national will of the US. An unprecedented outpouring of defeatism was blasted into the living rooms of the citizens, and nearly succeeded in shattering that keystone. The Democratic party followed that lead, abandoned Mom and Pop and that funny guy you don’t like on the train and the angry lady who lives with cats and did its best to reverse that commitment, and to destroy the Executive in the process. Recall Hillary unctuously informing General Petraeus that to believe in the “surge” would require a willing suspension of disbelief – this after even the MSM had begun to grudgingly leak signs of its success. Recall Obama’s blind faith that the troops must be removed at all costs, right up through last spring.
They were still pecking away at that keystone.
Nov 20, 2008 - 10:07 am 36. Charles:another way to put it is that we are living in that moment Just after Jesus was crucified when his disciples and many others –including Paul — see him and talk to him.
Nov 20, 2008 - 10:23 am 37. Charles:John 20
24Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”
26A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
28Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
29Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Nov 20, 2008 - 10:31 am 38. goesh:-unachievable predictability, like the shock and awe of IEDs
Nov 20, 2008 - 10:36 am 39. Roderick Reilly:“”"”"”"”Fallujah I was a rash and foolish action and failed”"”"”"”"
Was it? And why did it “fail?”
That’s not my recollection. As I remember it, a relatively small force of Marines managed to herd their remaining enemy into the slum part of Fallujah when that corner of town was largely deserted by its inhabitants. The “rash and foolish” part came when Bush, for election reasons, and the timid Iraqi “leaders” installed by the provisional authority called the whole thing off. Had “Fallujah I” been allowed to continue, there may not have been a need for “Fallujah II,” and the war may have been shortened by such a show of resolve.
Nov 20, 2008 - 10:57 am 40. Lifeofthemind:@Insufficiently Sensitive,
Nov 20, 2008 - 11:00 am 41. Peter Boston:Exactly. When the President goes to Congress and asks for a Declaration of War, and to short circuit any nonsense that is exactly what the “Authorization for the Use of Force” was, although I would have considered throwing Robert Byrd a bone and titling it as such, then he should be explicit about what restrictions on dissent, subversion and foreign contacts or commerce, would be included in the package. Without those he simply cannot use conventional force, no matter what the justification. Now we like having a free society where people can call the President an idiot so we may not want to escalate from the Nija Ops to the Junior and Sis level of engagement. If we do we will have to include the risks to civil liberties in our calculations.
Col. John Boyd proved conclusively, to my mind at least, that success in warfare results from continuously employing your most capable assets (at the time) faster than the enemy can respond. Perhaps that is what EBO is intending to say also but when you have to read a paragraph more than 1x to decipher its intent it probably means nothing at all.
Israeli leadership in 2006 was pitiful. Actually something much worse but I cannot come up with a completely descriptive word. Watching columns of Israeli soldiers and armor clustered at the border while Hezbollah rockets screamed overhead into Israeli population centers is a sight I never expected to see.
Olmert and his cabinet lacked to will to defend their country. The rationale is unimportant.
Nov 20, 2008 - 11:00 am 42. Mongoose:Buddy, see href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridate”>Mithridate.
I’d bet that it is more of an anesthetic than an inoculation — Soviet ear jokes are the best, but best savored over of a pint in London or a stiff one in New York.
Opiate of the flummoxed.
Nov 20, 2008 - 11:21 am 43. dkite:>The problem was not the tool, it was the mechanics who employed it.
Oh, a nickel every time I have heard that very thing.
Another way to say it is that the idea didn’t survive reality. But that would put the blame on those brilliant people who came up with the idea instead of the poor sods who had to implement it.
It’s great words. But it assumes knowledge that the planners don’t have, can’t have, and can’t get without winning the war first.
I suppose that’s the wonderfulness of it all. Once we know everything by winning the war, dismantling the opposition, then the smart people can second guess every decision, which then can be applied to the next war. Except it won’t work, because it’s different.
And a generation of generals, and how many ground troops need to be killed/removed before some smart fellow on the ground realizes the problem, comes up with a solution, implements it and wins.
Derek
Nov 20, 2008 - 11:27 am 44. Mongoose:sorry, it stripped out my anchor tags for some reason.
Nov 20, 2008 - 11:27 am 45. RWE:I strongly recommend the Kagan book “Finding the Target” which deals with the development of EBO concepts under their various names, such as “Shock and Awe.” It really helped explain things I saw going on at the Pentagon. As well as confirming that the EBO concepts were so hard to understand was that in some cases there really was nothing to understand.
Peter Boston: Yes, the Kagan book talks about how many of these ideas evolved from Col Boyd’s.
By the way, a recent article in Av Week said that the Air Force was preferring to go with larger and more powerful UAVs rather than the Predator, which only flys at 77 knots. 77 KNOTS?!? I fly faster than that even when I’m not in a hurry.
Nov 20, 2008 - 12:05 pm 46. Marcus Aurelius:My recollection is, after Fallujah I our forces withdrew from Fallujah and a ragtag bunch of Iraqis went into control it and Fallujah rapidly returned to the situation it was before — is it your claim that was not a failure?
I am not implying the Marines failed to do their duty, they did and provided they had been allowed to follow it through I am very confident they would have succeeded, yes my statement that Fallujah I was rash and foolish goes to the high command of our armed forces. But a combination of forces our high command failed to account for prevented that mission from being a success.
After that, a thorough and comprehensive plan was developed and put into play. Then the Marines went into Fallujah and now it is a tolerable place to live. Fallujah II was 180 different from Fallujah I.
Nov 20, 2008 - 12:24 pm 47. dan:out of curiosity, has anyone adequately explained how, exactly, the taliban and its associated milita are armed?
as specifically as possible, please. is the culprit the ISI? the FSB? Chinese/whomever? it can’t just be halo’d shepherds in the Hindu Kush crafting AK-74s out of cave rock.
come on. doesn’t anyone want to know who this enemy really is?
Nov 20, 2008 - 12:29 pm 48. Peter Boston:AK-47s, legit and counterfeit, are manufactured all over the world. You gotta give the Russkies credit for developing war tools that are cheap to manufacture: T-34, MiG, AK-47, RPG.
You can buy an AK-47 in Peshwar easier than a beer.
Nov 20, 2008 - 12:48 pm 49. dan:so there’s just this unkillable, unarrestable swarm of military hardware being traded on the goats and smuggler routes and in the bazaars of the Pakistan FATA? sufficient to wage a war of attrition against the USA? there are no outside powers? they never run out of ammo?
i guess i’ve always been a little foggy on the logistics of the Afghan situation in general. it seems suspiciously under-reported.
Nov 20, 2008 - 1:05 pm 50. Bob W.:My point with EBO is that it goes beyond purely the center of gravity (schwerpunkt for all you clausewitzophiles) and forces planners to look holistically at the problems they face. This is invaluable in many of the situations the military finds itself in time after time after time. If the military problem becomes more of a social science problem than a “steel on target” problem, then understanding systems theory (the underpinning of EBO) is helpful.
Nov 20, 2008 - 1:34 pm 51. Kenny:“My opponent says there are no easy answers….Well..I say we just haven’t looked hard enough!”.
-a quote from Bart Simpson’s stump speech during his campaign for class president.
Nov 20, 2008 - 1:45 pm 52. Roderick Reilly:“”"”"”"”But a combination of forces our high command failed to account for prevented that mission from being a success.”"”"”"”
OK, that I can agree with.
Nov 20, 2008 - 1:48 pm 53. Alexis:We need to supply our troops in Afghanistan with supply routes other than Pakistan. The Pakistani route is too dangerous. This issue has been discussed frequently on earlier threads.
I doubt the Obama administration will shift our logistics train toward a sustainable long term strategy in Afghanistan. He’ll shift more troops in, and with more troops comes more supplies and more vulnerability to the Taliban and other looters. There are workable solutions to this problem that ought to be downright obvious to anybody who thinks carefully about the situation.
Much of the problem the federal government faces with logistics into Afghanistan appears to be that it actively prefers to leave key problems unsolved. It’s as if we’ve got “why don’t you yes but” applied to military logistics, with the effect that America’s logistical train through Pakistan’s northwest frontier looks like a “KICK ME” sign to the Taliban.
The weird thing isn’t that the Taliban attack American supply convoys. The weird thing is that American policy makers don’t seem to be learning from experience.
Nov 20, 2008 - 2:08 pm 54. programmer:dan,
Pakistan guns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arjc_tKofhA
Nov 20, 2008 - 2:16 pm 55. RWE:The Afghans and tribal people of the area are legendary for their ability to duplicate weapons, literally working in huts in the mountains. They were building their own Enfield rifles for years. AK’s are, if anything, even easier to replicate. They say that in those villages you can buy local copies of any gun in the world.
Now, that does not mean they are of equal quality to factory-produced weapons. The must have some big limitations on the available alloys, for example, but they are good enough.
Aside from that, the Communist nations of the world and their successors have never been very picky about who they sold weapons to. I can imagine small batches of guns and ammo being smuggled across the mountains from just about every conceivable direction. I don’t think Afghanistan borders on any countries where you could not find arms dealers willing to sell. And I would be very surprised indeed if there were not such dealers in Kabul itself.
Then there are the Chinese, who have all but reverted to the days of the warlords when it comes to selling weapons and anything else to anyone.
Interesting story – back in the 80’s an American wanted some Mig-15’s for use as “sport” planes. He went to China, viewed the merchandise (at a secret location), cut the deal and paid them. When the Migs were delivered they still had the 23MM and 37MM cannons installed. The buyer went running to the ATF and managed to avoid jail time. It never occurred to the Chinese that anyone would want to buy the fighters without the guns.
Then there was the time a farmer in Massachusetts accidentally bought a Nike Hercules missile – but that’s another story…
Nov 20, 2008 - 2:58 pm 56. dan:i’ve seen that video and made those inferences – this is a problem without a solution, then. i was hoping there was another answer. if they are essentially refabing assault rifles out of scrap and there is a population of 30 million aggrieved tribals, abetted by at least a few intelligence agencies, smackheads the world over, and an intoxicating sense of jihadi heroism… how is this a winning proposition for us? i don’t get it. what we need is for india to declare war on pakistan, yo. let’s make that happen!
Nov 20, 2008 - 3:19 pm 57. Mark:“The idea is to find the keystone of the enemy’s strength and with a precision push, take the whole of the enemy’s force down.”
As Charles notes: ” . . . this was AQ’s idea with the 9/11 attack. They weren’t interested in symbols. They thought they could bring down the system with an attack on the WTC the pentagon and the congress.”
The AQ attack was as good a plan as it could develop given its resources at the time. A $1-2T impact wasn’t an EBO, but it was a good facsimile.
An effective EBO might involve an electromagnetic pulse attack (which I see is the subject of an American Thinker post today). This is something the US could implement more readily than an antognist such as Iran.
Nov 20, 2008 - 3:34 pm 58. mariner:Lifeofthemind:
“If you view the run up in oil prices as part of an attack on the American economy,”
I wondered if I were the only one thinking in this direction.
I remember the run-up in crude prices in the months immediately before the 2004 election, and how the prices quickly went back down again once Bush was re-elected.
This time they started earlier and were able to run the prices up more.
I suspect the financial markets didn’t just fall in front of the train, they were pushed. But I need to think about that one a little more.
Nov 20, 2008 - 3:50 pm 59. mariner:Charles:
Obama has no worries.
By now they’ve had plenty of time to make sure the records to show what they need to be shown.
That case will go nowhere.
Nov 20, 2008 - 3:52 pm 60. Whitehall:History offers one clear example of EBO during WWII. Strategic bombing in Europe kept looking for that “keystone” target. They tried aircraft factories then when that proved ineffective, they tried ball bearing factories (the Sweinfurth raids). That too made little net difference.
When the bombers started to target oil refineries and other energy infrastructure (the Ploesti raids), they found the key. While the Germans still had extensive horse-drawn drayage, their fighter planes and tanks became severely limited in operations due to fuel shortages. Pity we didn’t hit on this sooner.
We saw the same effects in Japan but tactically delivered by submarine. One early goal of Japanese conquest was of Java and Indonesia and their oil fields. With oil tnakers as a priority target class, soon the Imperial Navy had only enough fuel to send its pride, the battleship Yamato, on a one-way mission with no fuel reserve for a return.
All warfare runs on excess energy. Cut off the energy and the warriors are stopped cold. Even the low level civil disorders require a full belly. That’s why we should NEVER tap our Strategic Petroleum Reserve except for emergency military uses.
Today, the US has targeted the financial support for AQ. That’s their energy-equivalent vulnerablity.
Nov 20, 2008 - 3:55 pm 61. PhilD:Gen. Mattis quoting Gen. Sherman put the idea to me that the March to the Sea was an EBO operation. By freeing the slaves and burning a path through Georgia and South Carolina, Sherman destroyed the confederacy’s economy and their will to fight while simultaneously making Lee’s position in Petersburg untenable.
Nov 20, 2008 - 3:59 pm 62. Wadeusaf:Would the Special ops groups helping the Northern Alliance be considered EBO?
Nov 20, 2008 - 6:07 pm 63. Charles:Charles:
Obama has no worries.
By now they’ve had plenty of time to make sure the records to show what they need to be shown.
That case will go nowhere.
………….
I don’t know. Every time someone says this is a dead letter box — another letter gets delivered to the box. Eventually the box will fill up.
But you yourself have said that the likelihood is great that the supremes will think it reasonable that the candidates produce a legitimate birth certificate. Its pro forma that they would do so. But your suggestion is that Obama will have had time to make a forgery.
The bloggers back in June and July showed that whatever obama produced back in June was a forgery.
Obama stonewalling even after the election suggests there is some kind of problem. It may be just that the truth is an embarrassement. Like that his true dad is that communist guy that was a “family friend” back in Hawaii.
Nov 20, 2008 - 8:18 pm 64. whiskey:The problem with EBO is that the theater is global. For example, if AQ is patient and aggressive enough, they can “borrow” a nuke from Pakistan’s armory and nuke NYC.
That’s a global war theater with no place safe. With the enemy able to strike at will just like we can. There is also no civilian forces exempt from attacks, obviously.
Ultimately this means that the two effects will be to militarize all of society (and the enemy’s) without reservation.
Nov 20, 2008 - 8:38 pm 65. Charles:The big thing here in this discussion of EBO –that is being left out is the answer to this question:
Is US in theatre intelligence in Pakistan getting better? Is US strike ability into Pakistan improving.
If the answer to both of these are yes…then AQ has a problem of which they are well aware.
Its probably no coincidence that soon after
al-Saudi was hit Ayman al-Zawahir warned US president-elect Barack Obama against sending more troops to Afghanistan saying that US policy was “doomed to failure” in an Internet audio message.
Why would al Zawahiri make such a statement.
The problem of senior staff getting hit would be best solved by AQ standards if American will to win the war was sapped.
Why?
AQ solutions to the problem of improved intelligence and improved strike ability will make them either more vulnerable or more ineffective in their sanctuaries.
Nov 20, 2008 - 9:28 pm 66. Lifeofthemind:@Charles,
Just purely for speculation consider if you are correct. Obama is forced to reveal deep secrets such as he was Fathered by Uncle Frank, it won’t matter. He can be the bastard child of Strom Thurmond and he will still become the President as long as he was born in the United States. The rest of the Berg argument is a claim that he traveled on an Indonesian passport when he was 19 years old and therefore as an adult renounced his US citizenship. That could be used in a creative stretch if the SCOTUS wanted to but I doubt it.
What is interesting in that argument is how it compares with the treason case against Lord Haw Haw. It is true that the British hung William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) because he traveled to Germany on his British passport. That gave the lie to his claim that he was not a British subject when he renounced allegience to the Crown and traveled to Germany to serve England’s enemy. In fact Joyce had been born in America and could have claimed US citizenship and then traveled on the passport of what was at the time a neutral country.
Nov 21, 2008 - 12:30 am 67. exhelodrvr:It may not be a sound strategy to base everything on, but the leadership needs to be flexible enough to shift focus and grab those types of opportunities if they present themselves.
Nov 21, 2008 - 5:31 am 68. Lifeofthemind:I’ve been thinking more about the Dead Thread on the auto bailout. Presidents are reflexively reluctant to deliver bad news, partly because they are afraid of being accused of responsibility for talking down a market. McCain thought he was being Presidential, like FDR’s “nothing to fear but fear itself,” when he said the economy was “fundamentally sound.” Obama was given a pass by the MSM when he claimed we were in a recession. Schumer got away with causing a bank collapse that no Republican could have gotten away with.
Now the Democrats are demanding billions and trillions of dollars to subsidize their unions and fraudulent housing loans. Bush should fight this by preparing the American people to accept a bankruptcy by GM. He could do this by reviewing other large bankruptcies, that while painful and sad, were part of the American system. Most of the electorate are to young to remember the collapse of the Penn-Central railroad, or the NY Herald Tribune, or Railway-Express, or Eastern, Pan Am and TWA. US Steel is a shadow of its former self. We have been here before and survived.
Nov 21, 2008 - 8:02 am 69. Michael Hoskins:I stopped reading this thread somewhere in the 50’s.
Yes we need to carefully evaluate the situation, against our national goals, understanding of the enemies goals, available real time information and our limited resources… STOP..INCOMING EXOCET…
Nov 21, 2008 - 8:06 am 70. Michael Hoskins:Just remember Robert Strange McNamara and Les Aspin. (Les was in his 20’s when on Strange’s staff)
Nov 21, 2008 - 8:11 am 71. Doug:Pope Spoke About Imminent Market Collapse Back in 1985
Nov 21, 2008 - 8:25 am 72. Richard Aubrey:In WW II, the Germans, due to a perceived lack of total combat power, sought wonder weapons which would win the war with effectiveness all out of proportion to the resources devoted to building them. Some, such as the V3 Tausenfelser (sp?) depended on the Brits reacting stupidly.
Nov 21, 2008 - 9:12 am 73. Charles:The Brits, probably due to the casualties of WW I, sought choke points, silver bullets, and raised innumerable special units. The success of this technique failed in the face of the resilience of a modern state.
As Gen. Dennis said in “Command Decision”, more or less, yeah, we destroyed the Nautilus torpedo factory. The last one we destroy will be a problem for the Germans. The first nineteen will hardly inconvenience them.
The assumption of this thread is that the intel for the preditors is US generated–I think–is wrong.
I think the intel is coming from the ISI.
They have been the center of gravity for the Paki war.
They have played a double game for decades.
But I think the recent incredibly cold attack on the government that Wretchard commented on…ie…the initial fire in the truck… that brought in government soldiers to put out the fire…and then the fireball explosion.
There’s no chance the ISI didn’t see that footage and see the utterly cold mercilessness of the people who would do them harm.
The idea was to make them afraid.
Sure did. It made them afraid for their lives.
But men cower only when they have no other defense.
The ISI will experience a certain pleasure in giving AQ a taste of their own medicine.
Wouldn’t be the first time that AQ overplayed their hand.
Nov 21, 2008 - 11:10 am 74. Charles:66. Lifeofthemind:
@Charles,
Just purely for speculation consider if you are correct. Obama is forced to reveal deep secrets such as he was Fathered by Uncle Frank, it won’t matter. He can be the bastard child of Strom Thurmond and he will still become the President as long as he was born in the United States. The rest of the Berg argument is a claim that he traveled on an Indonesian passport when he was 19 years old and therefore as an adult renounced his US citizenship. That could be used in a creative stretch if the SCOTUS wanted to but I doubt it.
…………
If Obama is fathered by uncle frank then he is embarrased but still president since uncle frank was an american.
however, if he was born in Kenya and hustled to hawaii to have his birth registered– then there will be trouble.
The truth would presumably come out with birth certificate in Hawaiian state hands.
The Berg suit was badly formulated. The suit that the supremes are responding to is one that was filed in New Jersey. The Ps&Qs there are all correct. The suit calls for all the candidates to show their birth certificates. Should be pro forma no brainer.
There’s another lawsuit that’s been filed in California by Alan Keyes.
Here is a google news search for obama birth certificate There’s an immense amount of stuff on it but its all second tier. It probably won’t make first tier until Dec 5 or there abouts.
There are now more than a half dozen legal challenges to Obama’s citizenship.
New Jersey suit was first rejected by Justice David Souter but then reinstated for consideration by Justice Clarence Thomas.
Nov 21, 2008 - 11:30 am 75. Charles:A detroit radio station called the Kenyan embassy after the election of Obama. After a lot of trouble they get through to the ambassador of Kenya.
The ambassador of Kenya says that obama was born in Kenya and that his birth place has become a national shrine.
Listen to the recording here
Nov 21, 2008 - 11:57 am 76. LarryD:Dan, I think you are asking the question wrongly.
You asked who was making the guns. You should be asking, who are the patrons supporting the Taliban et al with money, material, intel., and propaganda? It’s not just one entity, though Iran gets a prominent position on the list.
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