At 6 of June 2006 the Military Committee (MC) of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has issued the MCM-0052-2006 paper expressing the MC position of the effect based approach to operation. The background paragraph of this paper referring on the   "Comprehensive Political Guidance" and quotes: "in the evolving complex and global security environment there is a premium on practical close cooperation and coordination with International Organizations playing their respective, interconnected roles in crises prevention and management."¹ The same document identifies the requirement for the further development of an effect based approach to operation. The effect-based operation as a method and planning tool has been dominating at the United State Armed Forces doctrine also. The Joint Warfighting Center Commander's Handbook for Effect-Based Approach to Joint Operations writes: "An effect-based approach to joint operation calls for thinking differently about how to best employ national instrument of power. The Joint Force Commanders (JFCs) seek a broader and deeper understanding of the operational environment: a system perspective of the operational area."² Present article makes an attempt to summarize the essential results coming from different sources and an effort to define the possible future application of this new idea.

Why effect based operation

During the Cold War, the dominant principle of military planning was the ability to mass forces at key points while preventing the adversary from doing the same. Success in battle was understood to depend on the ability to dominate the enemy in an extended attrition campaign. However after Cold War period the militaries have been called on to execute have changed in character. They are typically against the opponents who have nowhere, and they are not limited to the classic cross-border invasion that leads to defined battle lines, with success measured by territory defends or gained. As demonstrated by Operation Allied Force in Kosovo and the Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and also Iraq Freedom in Iraq, consideration of military superiority at strategic or operational levels are inappropriate when compared with other factors, such as the enemy's will to fight and local consideration of military force that allow for asymmetric capabilities to be employed effectively.

The new concept, the effect-based operation, seeks control the duration and scale of a conflict, and allows achieving strategic objective at an acceptable cost. Efforts to achieve the desired effect are pursued under the dual objective of operational efficiency and political effectiveness. By juxtaposing the effectiveness of political outcomes with quantitative measures of military operation, assessment can incorporate qualitative values. While such analytical products cannot by their nature provide objectivity, simplicity, and precision, they do provide the commander with improved contextual awareness, increased ability to select measures of effectiveness, and the chance to assess relationships between action and political outcomes. The result is an operational pattern that couples the use of force with purposeful political behavior and allows operators to take the most efficient path to achieve the most desirable political outcome - namely, to establish the linkage between ends and means.

Effect-based operation constitutes a shift away from traditional force-on-force analysis, in which the central concerns have been the ability to mass forces and deny the adversary the ability to do the same. Due to changes in the international system over the last decades, victory is unlikely to be achieved through the massing of forces and must be pursed instead through the skillful use of force in conjunction with diplomatic, economic, legal, and other instrument of power. As the NATO countries are asked to confront terrorism, drug trafficking, organized crime, environmental and humanitarian crises, and armed conflict devoid of any centralized leadership on the part of the adversaries, distinctions between combat and political events will continue to blur, making the political effects of military activities increasingly important. Consequently the effect-based operation is a natural and logical adjustment to changes in the security environment and the diminishing barriers between military and political activities and outcomes.

Conceptual differences between effect and attrition based operation

The difference between strategic outlooks of effect-based operations and attrition- based is that each demands distinctly different tool sets for execution. Attrition-based strategies rest upon exhaustion of adversary's physical, psychological, and social will. The success or failure of attrition based strategies depends upon choosing the appropriate measures of comparison, accurate estimates of inventories and production capabilities, and operational execution.

In contrary the effect-based operation is 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. By coupling strategic outcome with military operations, effect-based operation is as much about a change in emphasis and concept as it is about force structure and operations. It is new because it brings the justification and measures of effectiveness of military operations to the forefront of planning process. By explicitly recognizing the relationship between military operation and political goals, a framework for understanding when, why, and how the Alliance will undertake military operation becomes clearer. Discussion and planning can move the identification of military objectives and incorporate the logic why we act into determining how we act.

Consider the example of Alliance operation in places where clear military objectives and measures are difficult to establish, such as peacekeeping operations. These operations may be better by their intended strategic effects, such as ensuring that political instability does not spread to surrounding countries or demonstrating our commitment to current or future allied objectives and priorities. While efficacy of such action may be debatable, evaluating their success or failure based on desired political outcomes constitutes the appropriate forum for the debate. Decision can be judged as wise or foolish only based on their original motivational contexts.

Although the strategic logic behind effect-based operation is certainly not revolutionary, operationalizing it nevertheless may demand dramatic new military capabilities and forms of organizations. Emphasizing the ability to achieve desired political effects within a set of constrains requires that military organizations increase their flexibility, and formulate novel approaches to achieve a particular political effect. This will require the members of the Alliance to work toward the development of interoperability and flexibility in their mission packages and organizational structures to ensure that planners can select tools, forms, and tactics with the desired political ends. Specifically, the military tools and organizations must be adaptive enough to ensure that organizational and technological constrains are kept to a minimum, thus maximizing the options available to policymaker.

Applied definition of the effect based operation

The literature of the effect-based operation is abundant in definitions. For saving the time and to simplify the analysis only three examples will be collated to classify the common features of the definition. These instances come from the US Joint Force Command, the NATO and the RAND Corporation.

The US Joint Forces Command accepted the definition below:

"Operation that are planned, executed, assessed, and adapted based on a holistic understanding of the operational environment in order to influence or change system behavior or capabilities using the integrated application of selected instruments of power to achieve directed policy aims."³

The following key terms associated with the upper meaning:

• An effect is the physical and/or behavioral state of political, military, economic, social, infrastructure and information system that results from a military or nonmilitary action or set of actions.
• The operational environment is a composite of the elements, conditions, and influences that affect the employment of resources and capabilities and that bear on the decisions of the unit commander.
• A system is a functionally, psychically, or behaviorally related group of regularly interactive elements that interact together as a whole. To facilitate a system-of-systems analysis, effect-based operation currently considers that the operational environment is comprised of political, military, economic, social, infrastructure, and information systems. Analysis of these systems and their interrelationship provides the "holistic understanding" mentioned in the definition.
• The integrated application is the harmonized operation that results from an adaptable effect-based planning, execution, and assessment process.
• Instruments of power include all ways and means - diplomatic, informational, military, economic, and others - available to influence the operational environment.
• Directed policy aims are the objectives that comprise the desired national end state relevant to the operation at hand.

The NATO MC adapts the following:

"The Effect Based Approach to Operation is the coherent and comprehensive application of the various instrument of the Alliance, combined with the practical cooperation along with involved non-NATO actors, to create effects necessary to achieve planned objectives and ultimately the NATO end state."

For the description of the concept the following definitions are used:

• The Engagement Space is that part of the environment in which the Alliance decides to engage or is engaged. To gain a better understanding of the Engagement Space, it is divided into the Political, Military, Civil and Economic domains.
• NATO end state is a single agreed, unambiguous concluding situation attained by the achievement of one or more strategic objectives determined by the North Atlantic Council.
• An objective is a clearly defined goal in the Engagement Space, essential to political rulers and military commanders plan at their respective levels, to achieve the end state. Objectives will be achieved by the outcome of an aggregation of intended effects. Objectives are derived from the end state and their achievement should lead to the completion of the end state.
• An effect is the cumulative consequence of one or more actions across the Engagement Space that leads to a change in the situation in one or more domains. Aggregation of intended effects leads to the achievement of objectives. Effects can be grouped into two categories, physical and cognitive. Although all physical effect will lead to some form of cognitive effect, their primary purpose will be to influence the capabilities of actors. Cognitive effects will influence the actors' behavior. Within the physical and cognitive categories, the following types of effects occur:
  • Desired effects are those that have a positive impact on the achievement of the objectives.
  • Undesired effects are those that disrupt or jeopardize the achievement of objectives.
  • Intended effects are pre-determined effects, anticipated to result from the action taken.
  • Unintended effects are those that are not anticipated or envisioned to be associated with the objectives and actions taken. These effects may be desired or undesired.

The RAND Corporation established the definition below:

"Effect-based Operations are operations conceived and planned in a system framework that considers the full range of direct, indirect, and cascading effects, which may-with different degrees of probability - be achieved by the application of military, diplomatic, psychological, and economic instruments."⁴

This definition includes several features:

• System framework;
• The intent to address not only direct physical effects, but also a range of indirect effects, which may accumulate and reinforce each other;
• The potential use of all applicable instruments of influence;
• The explicit mention on probability.

As it can be concluded from definitions above, the wording of effect-based approach to operation, used by different organizations, is slightly different, but the theoretical meaning of them almost the same. The most essential features of them are:

• directed political aims;
• application of instrument of power (political, military, civilian, economic);
• systems perspective.

The desired political outcome has always linked to strategic planning of the military operations. The political objective is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose. Success or failure in warfare has always been judged on political outcomes and result, no matter how skilled or poor the military conduct. Coupling the conduct of military operation to the attainment of political objectives remains the primary challenge facing political and military leadership. Effect-based operation constitutes an important development in the planning and conduct of military operations, precisely because it makes a direct linkage between military operations and the desired political effects. It is an explicit endorsement of seeking victory through the manipulation, threatening, and destruction of an adversary's center of gravity as opposed to engaging in costly contests of attrition in which success or failure is a matter of quantitative comparisons of gains and losses.

Application of instruments of power comprises all major elements within the operational environment that are potentially relevant to the success of the operation. These include elements (and their interrelationship) in friendly, adversary, and neutral or unaligned systems. Typical systems relevant to joint operations can be characterized as political, military, economical, and civil. The definitions of these elements are the next:

• Political instrument refers to the use of political power, in particular in the diplomatic arena, cooperating with various actors (allies, partners, neutrals, military and civilian Governmental and Non-Governmental and also International organizations) to influence an adversary or to create advantageous conditions.
• The military instrument refers to the application of military power, including the threat of use the force.
• The civilian instrument refers to the use of powers contained within areas such as the judiciary, constabulary, education, public information, civilian administration and support infrastructure, which can lead to assess to medical care, food, power, water and administrative capabilities of nations and non-governmental organizations.
• The economic instrument refers generally to the use of financial incentives or disincentives aimed at addressing a crisis. This instrument would likely be exercised either nationally or through international organizations.

A system perspective describes the nature of today's operational environment as a system of interconnected systems- military and non-military. This system perspective provides a comprehensive, holistic view of the fundamental elements (nodes) and their relationships (links) to each relevant system. The "Figure 1" shows the theoretical connections among the element of a general system.

From the effect-based operation point of view the system is a functionally, physically and behaviorally related group of regularly interacting or independent elements. That group of elements form a unified whole. The node is an element of a system that represent a person, place or thing and the link is an element of a system that represent a behavioral, physical, or functional relationship between nodes.

During the planning process the staff should concentrate on those relevant system, nodes, and links, which are crucial to a holistic perspective of the operational environment. The method that is used for the execution of this assessment is called system-of-systems analysis.

System of systems analysis

A system approach to understanding the designated operational area considers more than just an adversary's military capabilities, order of battle, and tactics. The system-of systems analysis typically categorizes systems - friendly - adversarial - neutral - as political, military, economic, social, infrastructure, informational and others as appropriate.

System nodes are the tangible elements within a system that can be "targeted" for action, such as people, materiel, and facilities. Links are the behavioral or functional relationships between nodes, such as the command or supervisory arrangement that connects a superior to a subordinate; relationship of a vehicle to a fuel source; and the ideology that connect a propagandist to a group of terrorist. Links establish the interconnectivity between nodes that allows them to function as a system - to behave in a specific way. Thus, the purpose in taking action against specific nodes is often to destroy, interrupt, or otherwise affect the relationship between them and other nodes, which ultimately influence the system as a whole.

Analysis links nodes to each other with sufficient details in order to figure out the potential key nodes, which are related to a strategic or operational effect or a center of gravity. Some of them may become decisive point for military operation, because could allow to gain a marked advantage over the adversary or contribute materially to attain a desired effect. Key nodes are linked to, or resident in, multiply systems. Since each adversary system is composed of nodes and links, the capabilities of instruments of power can be employed against selected nodes to attain operational or strategic effect.

Every system can be analyzed using a node-link analysis. The scale of the analysis depends on the needs and the level of the operation, starting on the strategic objective, mission and desired effect and going down to more detailed aspects of these systems as required. A subordinated staff should understand the higher order aspects of these systems, but could conduct a more exhaustive analysis of specific systems, nodes and links.

System-of-systems analysis of the operational area promotes a holistic view of the operational environment that focus on those key nodes that could influence the outcomes of an operation. By viewing the operational environment in terms of systems, nodes and their associated link the military leaders can concentrate on understanding more thoroughly to aspects of adversary behaviors and capabilities that directly impact attainment of strategic and operational objectives.

Major elements of the effect-based operations

Effect-based operations comprise three major elements:

• effect-based planning;
• effect-based execution;
• effect-based assessment.

Effect-based planning. Effect-based planning is fundamentally about integrating all diplomatic, informational, military, and economic actions within the operational environment in time, space, and purpose to create the desired effects to achieve the commander's objectives. It emphasizes connecting theater objectives to tactical tasks through the attainment of desired effect within the operational environment. In effect-based planning planners seek to promote unity of effort - to harmonize joint, combined, and interagency actions associated with the diplomatic, informational, military, and economic instruments of power into an integrated, comprehensive plan to achieve desired effects.

Effect-based execution. Integration of diplomatic, informational, military, and economic considerations and capabilities during planning is the bases for effective integration of their action during execution. The commander and his staff match military task or actions to military forces and resources and harmonize military efforts with other diplomatic, informational, military, and economic actions. In some cases, military operations will support diplomatic, informational, and economic activities, while at other times diplomatic, informational and economic actions will support military operations. As the commander's staff identifies required tasks and assigns responsibility for execution, it develops orders to direct military operations. During the execution, the commander and staff continuously assess progress toward attaining the desired effects. They redirect military actions as the situation requires, integrate alternate nonmilitary actions, and reapportion resources in other seize opportunities and mitigate shortfalls.

Effect-based assessment. An integrated and rigorous assessment process is an integral part of effect-based operations. The primary purpose of assessment is to identify progress toward accomplishment of objectives at any point in time, which provides the bases for plan adjustment. Effect-based assessment builds on combat assessment by using two primary criteria - measures of performance and measures of effectiveness - to assess task accomplishment and effects attainment, respectively. Together they support an overall assessment of objective accomplishment.

Measures of performance focus on task accomplishment - was the task or action performed as the commander intended? Effect-based operations use measure of performance as the starting point for effect-based assessment in that we expect to see results of desired influence or changes in the system behavior after assigned tasks have been accomplished. 

Measures of effectiveness focus on effects attainment. They show the impact that our completed actions have had in attaining the adversary behaviors we desired. In other words, having done things right, are we doing the right things or are alternate or additional actions required? There are important differences between "task accomplishment" and "effect attainment". Measures of effectiveness measure changes to political, military, economical and civilian systems and whether these are conforming to the commander's intent. Effect assessment drives the subsequent battle staff planning and execution process. Not only does it act the primary feedback mechanism to the commander, it also clarifies for planners and operators the potential set of military actions most likely to achieve the desired operational effects as well as those actions that would produce unintended or undesirable effects.

Measures of performance and measures of effectiveness are used collectively to provide an assessment of current operations performance and identify trends that can affect future operations. This assessment forms bases for a continuing review of campaign plan, existing orders, and supporting activities to determine if the operations should continue as planned or be adapted to achieve the commander's specific effects.

Using effects assessment as a picture of the current and projected state of conditions within the operational environment, planners and commanders identify the "delta" between current and desired conditions as they relate to campaign execution. Campaign assessment review what has happened and validates current and projected plans. These help the commander direct near-term changes to impending operations and refine future planning to ensure the campaign objective.

Conclusion

As a term, effect-based operations evoke an overarching construct for joint operations. Regardless, in effect-based operation's evolution as a concept, aspects important to an  effect-based approach have become widely recognized, espoused, and even practiced in numerous current joint operations. These aspects include the following:

• A clear definition of an attainable and state and objectives;
• A system approach to understanding and affecting the adversary and the operational environment;
• Synchronization of effects and actions and development options;
• The integrated application of friendly instruments of power;
• Fully integrated collaboration capabilities;
• A comprehensive, rigorous effect assessment process.

As effect-based operation matures, it can be expected significant refinements to the concept. This maturation is likely to transpire over number of years, but no matter the scope or rapidity of these refinements, effect-based operation likely will be judged as an important stimulus to future improvements of operation art.

References:

[1] Commander's Handbook for an Effect-Based Approach to Joint Operations, Standing Joint Force Headquarters, Joint Warfighting Center. Joint Concept Development and Experimentation Directorate, 24 February 2006.

[2]Desmond Saunders-Newton and Aaron B Frank, Effect-Based Operation: Building the Analytic Tools, Defense Horizons October 2002.

[3]MC position on an effect based approach to operation.  North Atlantic Military Committee, MCM-0052-2006.

[4]Pamphlet 7, Operational Implication of Effect-based Operations (EBO), United States Joint Forces Command, The Joint Warfighting Center ,17 November 2004.

 [5]Paul K. Davis, Effect-Based Operation: A Grand Challenge for the Analytical Community (RAND, 2001) RAND Corporation, Effect-Based Operations.

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