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 I am behind the news curve on this one but here’s a good article from InsideDefense.com ( Hat tip Chris Castelli) on the controversey over the call by USMC General James Mattis to banish “EBO” (Effects-Based Operations) and “Systems” terminology from military doctrine. Unsurprisingly, the U.S. Air Force is less than pleased:

Mattis Sparks Vigorous Debate

….How Mattis’ guidance will be implemented remains unclear, but the memo signals a sea change in the way JFCOM will address EBO.

By declaring that JFCOM will no longer use, sponsor or export the terms and concepts related to EBO, ONA and SoSA in its training, doctrine development and support of military education, Mattis tees up a major opportunity for EBO critics to curtail the use of these terms and ideas in American military discourse. Some EBO proponents see this as a threat, while other EBO advocates see an opportunity to hone the concept and discard unhelpful baggage.

Mattis explicitly calls for refining two joint doctrine publications that dictate how military officials use effects in joint operations in terms of desired outcomes.

….Before Deptula provided comments on the missive to ITP, Air Force headquarters referred questions on the topic to retired officers like McInerney, who unloaded heaps of criticism.

“Even though I am no longer on active duty I am embarrassed for a combatant commander to publish such a document,” McInerney says. “I am a fan of Mattis but this is too much.”

McInerney even encouraged combatant commanders to “ignore” what he sees as a shocking memo.In an e-mail to ITP, McInerney calls JFCOM’s missive the “most parochial, un-joint, biased, one-sided document launched against a concept that was key in the transformation of warfare — and proven in the most successful U.S. military conflicts of the past 20 years (Desert Storm and Allied Force).”

He belittles the two-page memo as a “tantrum” and the accompanying five-page guidance as “puerile” and “totally unbecoming” of a JFCOM commander.Mattis should be “encouraging multiple perspectives for the enhancement of joint operations — not trashing them,” McInerney asserts. The JFCOM memo is “intellectually bankrupt” and the policy’s conclusions are “profoundly out of touch with reality,” he adds.”The rationale ignores any notion of strategic art much less operational art, and instead relies on centuries’ old, discredited ‘commander’s intuition’ to design, plan and execute campaigns rather than offering a demonstrated better alternative,” he insists.

All strategic theories as they percolate through a massive bureaucracy tend to become distorted, misunderstood, inflated, stretched to cover pre-existing agendas, get advanced in tandem with career interests and be misapplied to situations for which they were never intended. EBO is no exception but “banning” concepts wholesale from discussion is less healthy for the long term intellectual good of an organization than is simply subjecting them to warranted criticism.

Those interested in a USAF practitioner’s counterpoint might look at a series from the now defunct FX-Based blog where Sonny was responding to an op-ed by  Ralph Peters, one of the more colorful EBO critics:

In Defense of EBO

In Defense of EBO, Part II.

In Defense of EBO, Part III.

In Defense of EBO, Part IV.

Extensive discussion of the Mattis pronunciamento can be found ( and engaged in) at The Small Wars Council.

From time to time, an email or comment by a reader is so good it deserves a post of it’s own. The following is by Seerov, a regular commenter, who was responding to the new JFCOM insights doc post. He hits all the right notes, in my view:

Some of you have brought up the very important point of what happens when the networks go down or the censers stop working.  This is correct to point out, and military personal will still need to train on “the basics” in case this happens. 

But networks or not, the most important aspect of any kind of military organization is leadership.  We need leaders who can make decisions and accomplish the mission no matter what situation they face. Instead of a network-centric military, we need a leader-centric military.

During OIF I we had terrible intelligence and really had no idea of the real enemy situation during most of the war.  During the train up in Kuwait, we were preparing to fight a mechanized force with tanks and APCs.  While some units did face this kind of force, most engagements were against small teams of infantry and militias. 

I thought this lack of information was just how it was at the small unit level. But after reading the book “Take-down: The 3rd Infantry Division Twenty-One Day Assault on Baghdad” I realized that no-one really knew what waited for them the next town over.  In Al Samawah, there was literally a parade planned for the unit moving there (This information came from a CIA officer that was in country weeks before the war).  When the unit got there, it found itself in one of the fiercest battles of the war.

And this is how it was during the whole run to Baghdad.  We would receive a FRAGO on the next objective and no-one had any idea what kind of enemy we would face.  There were some units in 3rd ID that were literally minutes away from being over-run.  The Iraqis were more than willing to die and had no problem throwing waves of men and trucks at 3rd ID.  Despite what some might think, air support isn’t always available.

While we did have the technological edge, what stuck out in the book was the decision making and leadership of the officers and NCO’s.  This was especially true of the Company Commanders, Battalion Commanders, and Senior NCOs.  Because I seen the war at such a micro-level, this book literally opened my eyes at how important leadership was for our success.  Many people have said our success was due to technology.  But these same people forget that US forces were literally out numbered at least 5 to 1 on the ground and even more important, we were fighting on the Iraqis “home turf.”  Its also important to remember that we held the technological edge in Vietnam and it didn’t really matter.  

While it may sound cliche, I just can’t emphasize enough how important it is for our military to have well trained leaders.  And this is especially true since small unit leaders will be expected to do more and more.  Today, a squad is counted on to do what a platoon did in Vietnam and what a company did in WWII.  Because of this, we need squad leaders who are as competent as company commanders were 70 years ago.  

Major Vandergriff has probably done the most to address the quality of leadership in the Army in the last 10 years.  Most of his ideas are geared towards officers so we also need to think about NCO’s and solders.  The military needs to attract the best talent this country has, and this isn’t going to be done by paying privates $900.00 a month.  Attracting the best talent, and then giving them the best training possible is much more important than any weapon system we have.  There’s no reason why an E6 squad leader in the Army shouldn’t be making $60.000-$70,000 a year?  Right now, the military has dropped its standards and my connections on Sand Hill (Infantry Basic Training) are telling me that it shows.  

I could go on but I think you get my point.  I’m not saying we shouldn’t go net-centric but we need a leadership-centric force first.  Remember what John Boyd said:

“Machines don’t fight wars, people do, and they use their brains to do it.”

Listening to Gov. Sarah Palin. Nothing to change my mind regarding her qualifications to be Veep but the woman has first-rate political skills coupled with a genuine mean-streak that she can execute on live TV without looking like a cast-iron beeatch. That’s a neat trick that most VP and Prez candidates never master ( ask Bob Dole).

Joe Biden just went from heavy debate favorite to underdog.

Addendum:

Against most of my expectations,  a home run. No, make that a grand slam home run. McCain rolled the dice on his career with Palin and raked in the chips.

Addendum II:

Spengler on Palin and Biden. Hat tip to Dan of tdaxp.

The Pentagon’s Joint Forces Command has released the 2nd edition of “Joint Operations, Insights and Best Practices “, a 55 page doc of explanation and synthesis.  Good evidence of Boyd’s thought making further inroads into current military thinking but John Robb offers some caveats:

“Unfortunately, despite the good thinking in this report, the US military is getting more rigid and centralized by the day. Why? An improper usage of modern technology is enabling the automation of control and EXTREME micromanagement”

Agreed. Bureaucracy and middle level management, whose existence and authority are being marginalized by the leveling effect of information technology and network structures, are fighting a rearguard effort to use tech for panopticon monitoring of subordinates in order to eliminate discretion, paralyze autonomy and initiative while maximizing hierarchical control. Sort of a Taylorism on steroids.

Has been added to the blogroll.

A wise friend described him as a “talented jagoff”. Good enough for me.