Effects-Based Operations: A New Operational Model?

Abstract

Abstract : The post cold-war environment has caused the U.S. military to reexamine the way it will conduct military operations in the future. Today technological advances and changes in the international security environment may redefine how the United States will wage Success in meeting the national security challenges depends on the adequacy of national military strategy and the ability of the armed forces to execute their assigned tasks. Toward that end, the United States Joint Forces Command is examining current trends and emerging concepts regarding the application of military and other elements of national power. Such examination depends on, among other inputs, experience, which must provide critical source for validating current and generating new concepts. From observation of the 1990-1991 Gulf War, some in the United States argue that the war portended new construct for the American way of war. They posit that recent conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo have also demonstrated maturation of the new concept of effects-based operations. According to the proponents of effects-based operations, rather than relying on the old approaches of annihilation or attrition, the new way of conducting operations focuses on generating desired effects rather than focusing on objectives or the physical destruction of targets. Examination of this concept resulted in the publication of White Paper by the J9 Concepts Department of the United States Joint Forces Command on 18 October 2001 titled Effects Based Operations. The White Paper is, according to J9, a result of pre-concept topic area exploration and subsequent command decision to proceed with concept development. It describes effects-based operations as an enabler of the Rapid Decisive Operations Concept. This study will analyze the concept of effects-based operations and attempt to answer the questions, what, in the end, is effects-based operations?