RAPID DECISIVE OPERATIONS:

AN ASSUMPTIONS-BASED CRITIQUE

Antulio J. Echevarria II

November 2001
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ISBN 1-58487-073-7

ii
FOREWORD

Most experts agree that no genuine military transformation or

revolution will occur without a corresponding change in operational

concepts. Merely replacing old equipment with new is not enough.

Militaries must also develop new ways to link tactical actions to

strategic ends. For this reason Rapid Decisive Operations (RDO), an

emerging concept currently under development by the Joint Futures

Lab (J9) of Joint Forces Command, is particularly important for the

transformation of U.S. military forces today. An innovative and

viable concept will not only stimulate the development of new

technologies; it will also help balance the advantages and

disadvantages that the introduction of such technologies always

entails. On the other hand, a flawed concept will only lead to

frustration in training and disappointment in combat as results fail

to match expectations.

In support of the Joint community’s efforts to develop a viable

operational concept, Lieutenant Colonel Antulio J. Echevarria II has

written an assumptions-based critique of RDO. He argues that the

concept’s developers deserve high praise for attempting to link two

relative properties—speed and decisiveness—but that the definition

of RDO is at present incoherent and based on several deeply flawed

assumptions. He concludes that RDO creates dubious expectations

and will likely fail to balance the strengths and weaknesses

introduced by new technologies. Lieutenant Colonel Echevarria

further recommends a method for identifying and addressing an

operational concept’s critical assumptions. This method, which

offers a way to adjust operational concepts before they have claimed

too much in the way of resources, ought to become a standard part of

concept development.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute

iii
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

ANTULIO J. ECHEVARRIA II, a lieutenant colonel in the

U.S. Army, is currently assigned as the Director of Strategic

Research at the Strategic Studies Institute. He graduated

from the U.S. Military Academy in 1981, was commissioned

as an armor officer, and has held a variety of command and

staff assignments in Germany and Continental United

States; he has also served as an assistant professor of

European history at the U.S. Military Academy; Squadron

S3 of 3/16 Cavalry; Chief of BN/TF and Bde Doctrine at the

U.S. Army Armor Center at Fort Knox; as an action officer

at the Army After Next project at HQ TRADOC, Ft. Monroe,

VA; and as a speechwriter for the U.S. Army Chief of Staff.

He is a graduate of the U.S. Army’s Command and General

Staff College, and holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in History

from Princeton University. He has published articles in a

number of scholarly and professional journals to include the

Journal of Military History, War in History, War & Society,

Parameters, Joint Force Quarterly, Military Review, and

Airpower Journal. His book, After Clausewitz: German

Military Thinkers before the Great War, was published by

the University Press of Kansas in the spring of 2001.

iv
SUMMARY

Technological innovation plays a paradoxical role in

military transformation. With each problem it solves,

technological innovation tends to introduce new challenges

or complications. Operational concepts can partly reconcile

these tensions by finding the optimal balance between

technological strengths and weaknesses. In so doing, they

perform two vital functions (integrating and stimulating)

for military transformation.

The concept of Rapid Decisive Operations (RDO) also

attempts to perform each of these functions. However, its

definitional incoherence and faulty assumptions have

caused the concept’s stimulating function to exceed its

integrating one. This monograph examines the coherence of

the definition of RDO, identifies and analyzes several of its

critical assumptions, recommends a method for identifying

other assumptions, and then proposes a reasonable

alternative to RDO.

The Concept Defined.

RDO is incoherent, containing no rationale for rapid

operations and only an impartial definition of decisive ones.

While the White Paper identifies the requirements

necessary to make RDO rapid and decisive, it is not clear

whether RDO can occur if some of the requirements are

absent. It is also difficult to understand why the United

States should invest more defense dollars to develop RDO

when it has very limited application across the spectrum of

operations (i.e., the concept is most applicable in high-end,

smaller scale contingencies such as Grenada, Haiti,

Panama, and Desert Shield) and since it merely perfects an

approach to war in which the United States is already

superior. 

v
Critical Assumptions.

While definitional contradictions and inconsistencies

can be easily corrected, the same is not true of critical

assumptions. RDO’s first and most egregious assumption is

that the National Command Authorities (NCA) will desire

military forces that are rapid and decisive in all scenarios.

Political leaders might well prefer a gradual approach in

most cases.

The second faulty assumption is that U.S. forces will

possess perfect or near-perfect knowledge of the enemy.

Information technologies have not yet lived up to

expectations in this regard.

The third flawed assumption underpinning RDO is that

an adversary is a system of systems that can be paralyzed by

a few well-placed strikes against his critical nodes.

Although a worthy goal, history shows that such paralysis

rarely occurs.

A fourth faulty assumption is that one can identify,

attack, and destroy whatever an adversary values most, and 

in so doing break his will to fight. Ideology and political

realities make this a facile solution for some situations and

completely unrealistic for others.

The fifth faulty assumption underlying RDO is that all

elements of national power can be brought together in a

single operation that is both rapid and decisive. For

example, some of the most potent tools of economic

power—blockades and sanctions—generally require a great

deal of time to work and often entail a significant amount of

collateral damage.

Identifying and Analyzing Assumptions.

Concept development would benefit from a process that

required the identification and analysis of critical

assumptions. With minor effort one could modify the

Assumption-Based Planning tool developed by the RAND

vi
Corporation for such uses. Assumption-Based Planning

involves five steps: 1) identifying the explicit and implicit

assumptions expected to remain true over a reasonable time

horizon; 2) identifying assumption vulnerabilities; 3)

defining signposts that will indicate when one or more

assumptions has become vulnerable; 4) defining

appropriate shaping actions that avoid assumption

vulnerabilities; and 5) defining hedging actions that

minimize the impact of an assumption failure. However,

even Assumption-Based Planning is not a silver bullet.

An Alternative Concept.

Whereas RDO focuses on attacking an opponent’s center

of gravity or threatening “what he values most,” a concept

that concentrates on interdependent—or fully

Joint—maneuver would permit policymakers to determine

for themselves what the military instrument should

accomplish. The Joint Staff’s experimenters should analyze

the kinds of political objectives that U.S. military forces will

most likely have to accomplish over the next 15-20 years,

and then develop ways to get at them. Attacking what the

enemy values most is not always the best route to the

objective.

In sum, RDO fails in its integrative function. It is an

incoherent concept that rests on several faulty

assumptions. To prevent such concepts from creating false

expectations and leading to potentially disastrous results,

the U.S. military will need a process for identifying and

analyzing assumptions in concept development.

vii
RAPID DECISIVE OPERATIONS:

AN ASSUMPTIONS-BASED CRITIQUE

Antulio J. Echevarria II

Whether one believes that the current transformation of

the U.S. military is part of a comprehensive Revolution in

Military Affairs (RMA) or merely a reasonable response to

evolving operational and strategic demands, change is

clearly underway. Yet, technological innovation—a major

driver of such change—plays a paradoxical role in military

transformation. Today, a growing number of weapons can

strike with greater accuracy over extended distances;

however, those same or similar weapons in the hands of an

adversary will mean significant anti-access challenges for

friendly forces. Innovations in fuel and propulsion systems

may help to reduce the cumbersome logistical tail of

maneuver forces, but the longer distances that such forces

must traverse will, in turn, put additional strains on those

systems. Information and communication systems can

enhance operational control and facilitate decentralized

operations, yet they also require larger staffs and more

skilled junior leaders trained to operate independently. In a

final example, advances in biogenetic engineering have

already revealed several ways to increase (as well as

exploit) the physical capacities of individual soldiers;

however, they have also raised complex moral and ethical

questions about doing so. In short, with each problem they

solve, technological innovations tend to introduce new

challenges or complications.

Fortunately, operational concepts can partly reconcile

such tensions. They can find the optimal balance between

technological strengths and weaknesses. If technological

innovations do not permit the reduction of logistical tails,

for example, operational concepts could aim at achieving

1
the best possible results within existing logistical

constraints. Concepts also provide a mark on the wall for

technological development, stimulating the research and

development communities to move beyond current

capabilities toward those described in vision documents

such as Joint Vision 2020 (JV2020). In short, operational

concepts occupy the intellectual space between doctrine and

vision and help convert desired capabilities (vision) into

something practicable (doctrine). Hence, operational

concepts perform two vital functions (integrating and

stimulating) in the course of a military’s transformation.

The concept of Rapid Decisive Operations (RDO)

attempts to serve both purposes.

1

 Its developers clearly

intended to use it to put a very high mark on the wall in

order to stimulate research and development. For that, they

deserve high praise. They also deserve high praise for

having made numerous improvements in the concept,

especially over the last 6 months or so.

However, while stretching operational concepts can help

pull technological development, history shows that concepts

can sometimes get too far ahead of emerging capabilities.

When they do, such concepts tend to fail in their integrative

function and create expectations that can lead to

disappointing, if not disastrous, results. RDO’s developers

have, in fact, emphasized their concept’s stimulating

function at the cost of its integrating one and have

consequently generated a number of dubious expectations.

An objective analysis of the concept reveals that not only

is the definition of RDO incoherent, it rests on a number of

faulty assumptions. If left uncorrected, these faults will not

only undermine the concept’s overall effectiveness, they

could well result in adverse consequences for the military

forces of the United States. This monograph examines the

coherence of the definition of RDO, identifies and analyzes

several of its critical assumptions, recommends a method

for identifying other assumptions, and then proposes a

reasonable alternative to RDO.

2
The Concept Defined.

According to its White Paper (dated August 9, 2001),

RDO was intended to function as an integrating concept

oriented on high-end, small-scale contingencies in the 2015

time frame.

2

RDO:

will integrate knowledge, command and control, and

effects-based operations to achieve the desired

political/military effect. In preparing for and conducting an

RDO, the military acts in concert with and leverages the other

instruments of national power to understand and reduce the

regional adversary’s critical capabilities and coherence. The

United States and its allies asymmetrically assault the

adversary from directions and in dimensions against which he

has no counter, dictating the terms and tempo of the operation.

The adversary, suffering from the loss of coherence and unable

to achieve his objectives, chooses to cease actions that are

against U.S. interests or has his capabilities defeated.

3

Unfortunately, the definition is incoherent. For

example, it contains no mention of any rationale for making

RDO rapid. Everything in the definition would apply

equally well to an operation conducted in a gradual or

deliberate manner. Moreover, it implies that being decisive

means the adversary “chooses” to cease activities that “are

against U.S. interests.” However, a better definition of

decisive would include not only forcing the enemy to cease

certain activities—such as ethnic cleansing—but

compelling him to commence others, such as the withdrawal

of his armed forces.

The definition also states that, in RDO, the United

States and its allies would assault the adversary

“asymmetrically” from directions and in dimensions against

which he has “no counter.” This sentence implies that RDO

can occur only via asymmetric ways and will never take

place against an adversary that possesses an asymmetric

“counter,” however limited. Also, the emphasis on attacking

an opponent’s coherence (not defined until some pages later)

3
suggests that an enemy fighting incoherently is not a

concern. With the proliferation of Chemical, Biological,

Radiological, Nuclear, High-explosive/High-yield (CBRNE)

weapons that is expected to occur by 2015-20, even an

adversary “suffering from loss of coherence” can pose

serious security challenges to the United States and its

allies. It is also difficult to see how an incoherent adversary

can make his forces comply with desired peace terms.

The definition’s inconsistencies notwithstanding, RDO’s

developers deserve high praise for combining (or attempting

to combine) two sometimes conflicting properties—speed

and decisiveness—into a single operational concept. This is

a bold endeavor. Speed—defined as “accomplishing the

objectives of the campaign as rapidly as possible”—and

decisiveness—defined as “imposing our will on the enemy

by breaking his coherence and defeating his will and ability

to resist”—are relative properties.

4

 Each depends on an

adversary’s capabilities and will to resist. Historically, the

desire to arrive faster has competed with the need to have

the force necessary upon arrival to compel an adversary to

submit. Neither property should be stressed at the expense

of the other. Yet, while some advances in both maneuver

and firepower technologies will likely occur by 2015, the

probability remains high that some tension will still exist

between speed and decisiveness. Concept developers will

have to address that tension to ensure the synergy that

occurs when speed and decisiveness are combined is not

lost.

The White Paper also identifies the requirements

necessary to make RDO rapid and decisive. However, the

large number of requirements begs the question as to

whether RDO can occur if some of the requirements are

absent. If not, one has to wonder why the United States

should invest in a concept that is so brittle. For example, to

achieve speed, RDO must have:

• Knowledge: Detailed understanding of enemy and

ourselves; 

4
• Early start to planning, timely decisions;

• Forward presence and rapid movement;

• Tailored forces and sustainment;

• Intense high tempo of operations;

• Responsive C2 Systems, established joint

headquarters element, and compressed decision process.

5

Similarly, to achieve decisiveness, RDO must have:

• Knowledge: Identify and affect what is most valuable

to enemy;

• Effects-based operations employing full range of

national capabilities;

• Info superiority, dominant maneuver, and precision

engagement to apply synchronized precision effects to

generate overwhelming shock;

• Responsive C2 Systems and shortened response cycle;

• Relentlessness.

6

Indeed, one could well make the argument that such

capabilities would enable just about any operational

concept to work. It is, therefore, difficult to understand why

the United States should invest more defense dollars to

develop a concept—such as RDO—that applies only to a

limited portion of the spectrum of operations, namely,

“high-end, smaller-scale contingencies” such as Grenada,

Haiti, and Panama.

7

 Furthermore, RDO merely seeks to

perfect an approach to war in which the United States is

already superior. Instead, the U.S. military should invest

more resources in developing concepts for those scenarios

that occupy the middle to lower end of the spectrum. Most

projections of the future security environment assign a high

probability of occurrence to such operations for the next

10-15 years; and such scenarios have traditionally posed the

greatest challenges for U.S. forces.

8

5
Critical Assumptions.

While definitional contradictions and inconsistencies

can be easily corrected, the same is not true of critical

assumptions. Correcting faulty assumptions may require

reworking the fundamental concept entirely. RDO is based

on a number of faulty assumptions, but this monograph will

analyze only the most critical here.

The first and most egregious assumption that RDO

makes is that the National Command Authorities (NCA)

will understand the need for, or even desire, operations that

are rapid and decisive in all scenarios. The White Paper

continually stresses speed in the application of force.

However, the NCA may consider a graduated response more

appropriate for any number of reasons, such as the desire to

avoid escalation to nuclear weapons or to keep allies or

coalition partners in the fight. Thus, while RDO purports to

offer the NCA additional options, it actually diminishes

them, compelling decisionmakers to embark upon a major

commitment of forces even in a small-scale contingency.

This inflexible, one-sided approach to military strategy

plunged Western Europe into a devastating conflict in 1914

when all-or-nothing war plans deprived political leaders of

the flexibility of pursuing limited aims. Therefore, while

calling for an integrated application of all national

capabilities for the accomplishment of political objectives,

RDO actually treats military operations in a vacuum,

disassociating them from political aims.

The second faulty assumption in RDO relates to

knowledge (defined above). RDO asserts that U.S. forces

will possess perfect or near-perfect knowledge of the enemy

through an Operational Net Assessment (ONA)—defined as

a continuously updated, system-of-systems analysis of the

adversary’s total war-making capabilities matched against

likely courses of action.

9

 Yet, it is unclear how such

continuous ONA updates will occur rapidly (if at all)

6
without greater resources, such as larger staffs, at each

level of command. Artificial intelligence and similar

systems have so far not lived up to expectations in this

regard. Furthermore, while information systems have

shown themselves capable of amassing vast amounts of

data, data itself is not necessarily information and

information is not necessarily knowledge.

As a corollary, RDO assumes that such knowledge

enables the key links and nodes within an adversary’s

systems to be identified and attacked. RDO also presumes

that attacking those nodes will produce predictable first,

second, and even third-order effects that can collapse an

adversary’s will and/or destroy his capability to resist.

10The

White Paper defines such Effects-Based Operations 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

other national capabilities at the tactical, operational, and

strategic levels.” An effect is defined as the “physical,

functional, or psychological outcome, event, or consequence

that results from specific military and non-military

actions.”

11

Efforts to explore effects-based operations are, first of

all, to be applauded for moving away from the old

force-on-force Lanchester war-gaming models, which

reduced warfare to a simple calculus of attrition.

12

 This

approach also has the benefit, as retired Marine General

Anthony Zinni remarked, of forcing political and military

leaders to focus on the specific effects they want military

(and nonmilitary) action to achieve.

13

However, the White Paper treats the effects as ends in

themselves, rather than connecting them to political and

strategic objectives. Once again, this assumption

presupposes that an opponent is nothing more than a

mappable system. Worse still, this system is assumed to be

reactive rather than proactive, and static rather than

dynamic. When asked to describe effects-based operations,

7
for example, a senior official involved in the

experimentation process said that they amounted to an

approach that “dissolves the glue” that holds a table

together, rather than striking at its individual legs.

14

Unfortunately, this metaphor reflects a tendency to view

adversaries as inert objects—as tables—waiting to be hit,

rather than as thinking beings capable of acting first, or

indeed of preempting one’s attack. In other words, RDO

presupposes an enemy that does not attempt to anticipate

or preempt hostile actions or seek to change his

decisionmaking apparatus before we can map it.

The third flawed assumption underpinning RDO is that

an adversary is a system of systems. This phrase, which

derives from a combination of RMA-speak and language

concerning complex adaptive systems employed by

complexity theorists, is merely a trendy and ultimately

ineffective way to describe the total sum of an adversary’s

political, strategic, operational, and tactical

decisionmaking activities.

15

 The phrase first originated

among those RMA proponents who sought to tie

sensor-shooter-assessor linkages together into a single,

holistic, information-sharing system that could perform all

critical combat functions.

16

 While the term complex

adaptive system may well convey the sense that opponents

can adapt to their environment in complex (and successful)

ways, it does not impart sufficient proactive agency to them.

In other words, it assumes that they are primarily

reactive—innovating within the constraints of their

environment—rather than attempting to step beyond those

boundaries. Hence, the RDO White Paper’s use of the term

tends to limit the choices that an adversary might select.

Furthermore, the assumption presupposes that an

adversary can be paralyzed by a few well-placed strikes

against its critical nodes. Although a worthy goal, history

shows that such paralysis rarely occurs. Adversaries tend to

recover rather quickly from an initial shock. Often, the

severed pieces of an opponent’s armed forces tend to fight

on, carrying out the last orders they received (e.g., the Red

8
Army in 1941-42) or taking actions independent of orders

(e.g., the U.S. Army in the Battle of the Bulge, 1944). As

previously mentioned, in an age of proliferating CBRNE

weapons, the actions of such severed elements cannot be

considered irrelevant. An adversary’s military forces,

carrying out the last orders they received, can still launch

devastating CBRNE attacks—overtly and covertly—

against the United States, or one of its strategic partners.

Thus, the advantage of attacking the enemy’s coherence

may be lost. Moreover, while RDO will presumably continue

to evolve as a concept—reflecting the results of further

experimentation, exploration, and critical analysis—the

sterility of war-gaming environments will make it difficult,

if not impossible, to discover what factors, if any, would

actually lead to an opponent’s psychological collapse.

A fourth faulty assumption underpinning RDO is that

the United States or its coalition partners can identify,

attack, and destroy whatever an adversary values most, and

in so doing break his will to fight.

17

 This assumption

presupposes that U.S. adversaries would conform to the

same rational-actor model that characterizes its own

behavior. However, models that describe the behaviors of

ideologues can differ markedly from our own. For example,

during the missile crisis of 1962, Fidel Castro and Che

Guevara considered it perfectly reasonable to sacrifice Cuba

in a nuclear exchange with the United States in order to

further the cause of socialism. Fortunately, the Soviets did

not agree, believing that the United States would also

launch missiles at the USSR.

18

 Even in the simplest

scenarios—where what an adversary values most is power

rather than ideology—domestic or coalition concerns may

not permit the United States to employ the capabilities

necessary to get at the basic source of an opponent’s power,

whatever that may be. Thus, asserting that RDO will

deprive an enemy of what he values most is too facile a

solution for some situations and completely unrealistic for

others.

9
The fifth faulty assumption underlying RDO is that all

elements of national power can be brought together in a

single operation that is both rapid and decisive.

19

 Yet, the

paper includes no discussion of just how RDO—and military

power in general—would actually operate in combination

with the other elements of national power, aside from the

benefit the Joint Task Force commander would derive from

additional information (if indeed this is a benefit). For

example, some of the most potent tools of economic

power—blockades and sanctions—generally require a great

deal of time to work and often entail a significant amount of

collateral damage. It is not clear, therefore, that RDO and

economic sanctions—or other tools—could work together to

produce results that are both rapid and decisive, at least not

without substantial modification. Such integration, if

possible at all, could produce a powerful synergy. The White

Paper must, however, do more than assert that such

integration should occur: it must discuss how RDO

integrates each element of national power and the

advantages and disadvantages involved in doing so.

Identifying and Analyzing Assumptions.

With good reason, U.S. defense planners explicitly

identify assumptions made in the development of war plans.

While the process for explicitly identifying planning

assumptions is neither scientific nor foolproof, it is

extremely valuable because it makes war planners and

decisionmakers more cognizant of at least some of the plan’s

inherent risks. Such an awareness would also prove

tremendously valuable for concept developers who could

then address a concept’s inherent risks. However, to date,

no process for identifying and analyzing assumptions is

included in the development of operational concepts. The

numerous faulty assumptions underpinning RDO only

underscore the need for such a process.

One possible tool for examining assumptions is the

Assumption-Based Planning tool, an instrument for

10
long-range planning, developed by the RAND Corporation,

that has gained currency in recent years.

2 0

Assumption-Based Planning involves five steps: 1)

identifying the explicit and implicit assumptions expected

to remain true over a reasonable time horizon; 2) identifying

assumption vulnerabilities; 3) defining signposts that will

indicate when an assumption has become vulnerable; 4)

defining appropriate shaping actions that avoid assumption

vulnerabilities; and 5) defining hedging actions that

minimize the impact of an assumption failure. Although it

does not claim to be a panacea, Assumption-Based Planning

does offer a much improved alternative to trends-based

forms of planning which posit only a single (usually either

most likely or worst case) future.

21

 Most important,

Assumption-Based Planning helps expose organizational

assumptions that might prove invalid, and therefore

dangerous, to a long-range plan in a given period of time. Its

success depends on the ability of decisionmakers to link

their implicit and explicit assumptions to events in the

physical world. With some adjustment, the methodology

presented in Assumption-Based Planning could apply to the

crafting of vision documents as well as to the development of

future operational concepts. In other words, with little

adjustment, Assumption-Based Planning could become an

Assumption-Based Concept Development tool.

Assumption-Based Concept Development would thus

help identify the critical assumptions underpinning RDO.

For example, with regards to RDO’s first assumption—that

it is an appropriate, indeed necessary, response in any

situation involving a high-end, smaller scale

contingency—Assumption-Based Concept Development

would guide concept developers first to identify the

assumption’s vulnerabilities. An example of such a

vulnerability is that history shows that U.S. political

leaders have tended to hedge their bets in crises by opting

for a graduated response so as to avoid escalation or

over-commitment. Thus, RDO might have little appeal to

them. Second, Assumption-Based Concept Development

11
would guide concept developers to define signposts for

indicating just how vulnerable this assumption is, and

validate those vulnerabilities through rigorous war games.

Third, once assumption vulnerabilities are validated,

concept developers would then seek shaping adjustments to

the concept that might make RDO more flexible, and thus

more practicable and appealing to the political leadership.

Finally, Assumption-Based Concept Development would

guide concept developers to incorporate hedging

adjustments into the concept, admitting, for example, that

it has very limited applicability except at specific points

along the spectrum of operations.

However, using Assumption-Based Concept

Development would also require a basic understanding of

the tool’s limitations. The first of these involves the

sensitivity of human perceptions. Assumption-Based

Concept Development would require the identification of

genuine and unambiguous signposts.

22

 Yet, in fluid

environments, signposts are myriad, conflicting, and at

times almost invisible. For example, strategic bombing

theory was inspired by events during World War I, such as

the bombing of London by German zeppelins which caused a

temporary wave of panic among the British population. The

assumption derived from this and similar events was that

massive air bombardments could win wars by themselves.

However, as World War II showed, such bombardments

tended to strengthen rather than collapse an adversary’s

will to fight.

23

 In other words, no genuine and unambiguous

signpost appeared to indicate that the fundamental

assumption of strategic bombing theory was flawed.

In addition to the very real problem of signpost

detection, Assumption-Based Concept Development

implies that the identification of explicit and implicit

assumptions is easy. An organization’s ability to identify its

assumptions depends upon its willingness to perform

rigorous self-critical analyses. In other words, the

identification of explicit and implicit assumptions might not

proceed much beyond a superficial analysis.

12
Third, shaping and hedging actions will compete for

finite resources, possibly leading to a situation in which

preparing for one precludes achieving success in another.

For example, shaping actions in all armies at the turn of the

century propelled improvements in firepower technologies,

especially cannon, munitions, and powder, so that by 1914,

artillery had increased dramatically in number and calibre.

However, resources demanded by this and other shaping

actions far exceeded those invested in appropriate hedging

actions such as the development of armored fighting

vehicles. In a world of limited budgets, therefore, military

establishments must balance resources among shaping and

hedging actions, an activity that might complicate—if not

compromise—the development of operational concepts over

the long term. If the processes for achieving technological

integration are not flexible and responsive, therefore, the

accurate identification of signposts and assumptions might

not matter.

Fourth, in a dynamic global environment such as today’s

in which technological change could well occur within

institutional decision or adjustment cycles, hedging

actions—while appearing to remedy vulnerable

assumptions—might only further reduce the overall pace of

technological integration. Assumption-Based Concept

Development will not eliminate the risks that decision

makers face as they attempt to determine the right pace of

modernization for the U.S. military. Changing too quickly

could result in acquiring immature or inappropriate

capabilities or might even undermine the doctrinal

organization or cohesion essential to a military force.

Modernizing too slowly, on the other hand, runs the risk of

fielding a force with outclassed and, therefore, restricted

capabilities. 

The point of airing these concerns is to emphasize that

Assumption-Based Concept Development is merely a tool. It

is only one of many ways to examine the assumptions that

underpin operational concepts. Other weaknesses in the

process—especially in an environment in which change is

13
rapid, pervasive, and nonlinear—could well compromise

the overall effort. The value of a tool like Assumption-Based

Concept Development depends upon how well it

compensates for human limitations within a particular

environment. It certainly offers no silver bullets. In any

case, Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) would do well to

maintain a push-pull approach for incorporating

technological innovations into operational concepts.

Operational concepts drive technology toward desired

end-states, while technology offers new capabilities—actual

and potential—that might enlarge, cancel, or otherwise

alter operational concepts.

An Alternative Concept.

Concept developers should build enough elasticity into a

concept so that it can accommodate shaping and hedging

actions. As we have seen, as an operational concept, RDO is

too rigid and several of its critical assumptions are flawed.

Rather than revising RDO, concept developers might do

better to scrap it entirely in favor of a concept that focuses on

making movement and fire interdependent for the purpose

of accomplishing a broad range of political objectives, from

the political defeat of an adversary to the mere destruction

of his offensive capabilities. Whereas RDO focuses on

attacking an opponent’s center of gravity or threatening

“what he values most,” a concept that concentrates on

interdependence—call it interdependent maneuver or any

name that conveys mutual dependence—would permit

policymakers more flexibility in determining just what the

military instrument should accomplish in any particular

situation.

24

As we have seen, RDO tends to tie the hands of the NCA

by permitting only one kind of response to any number of

smaller scale contingencies. Enough historical data exists

to enable the Joint Staff’s experimenters to identify and

analyze the political objectives that U.S. military forces will

most likely have to accomplish over the next 15-20 years.

14
Our focus then, as military professionals, should be on

developing a force and attendant concepts to accomplish

those various objectives more effectively and efficiently. Too

often, however, military experimentation tends to focus on

defeating an opponent in a largely conventional scenario on

the assumption that it is the most difficult task and that, if it

can be accomplished, so too can most other tasks.

Simply put, interdependent maneuver would mean

applying the principles of fire and movement to the tactical,

operational, and strategic levels of war simultaneously. It

would amount to elevating a tactical concept to an

operational and strategic one. Yet, the advance, or expected

advance, of information, maneuver, and firepower

technologies over the next 15-20 years (the focus of JV 2020)

makes such an approach feasible. Interdependent

maneuver would also exploit the fact that the tactical,

operational, and strategic levels of war can be seen as a

single continuum of military activity.

25

The levels of war have actually never been more than

arbitrary categories used to help military planners assign

objectives, resources, and responsibilities to subordinate

commands in an attempt to manage conflict. In 21st century

warfare, therefore, it might prove more useful to see warfare

as an open (rather than closed) system of military

actions—whether hand-to-hand combat or strategic

bombing—linked together in time and space by a growing

variety of information systems. It might also prove useful to

see those actions as divided into two parts: a) fire—the

ability to inflict lethality, whether by the tip of a bayonet or

a computer virus; and b) movement—the physical

relocation necessary to deliver that lethality, whether by a

soldier crawling across the battlefield or pressing a

computer key.

Interdependent maneuver would thus bring the synergy

of fire and movement to what traditionally have been known

as the operational and strategic levels of war. For example,

once the decision is made to employ military force in

15
response to a crisis, interdependent maneuver means that

integrated ground, naval, and aerospace forces would begin

moving into the theater while at the same time laying down

suppressive fires throughout. Such fires would engage what

traditionally would have been considered the adversary’s

tactical forces, as well as his operational and strategic

reserves, and other critical strategic assets. The fires would

of course be a combination of aerospace, land, and naval

systems employing lethal as well as nonlethal weapons to

facilitate the insertion of ground units. These units would

initially consist primarily of special forces equipped with

reach-back support and nonline-of-sight fires. They would

deploy in and around key terrain to provide human

intelligence, report battle damage assessment, augment

other special operations forces already in theater, and

interdict enemy movements with reach-back fires.

The suppressive effects of fires executed throughout the

theater would in turn enable additional aerospace, naval,

and perhaps heavier ground forces to arrive in theater and,

situation permitting, deploy directly into combat. These

forces would exploit the known seams—either already in

existence or created by interdiction fires—in the enemy’s

defensive zones and maneuver to obtain a position of

advantage. In the meantime, suppressive fires would

continue throughout, developing the synergy that comes

from fire and movement. Interdependent maneuver thus

presents an adversary with a constant rain of destruction

throughout his entire defensive zone, as well as the threat of

inevitable capture or destruction by ground maneuver

forces via the close fight.

Interdependent maneuver has an added benefit in that

it applies just as well to scenarios that resemble people’s

wars more than they do traditional maneuver conflicts. If

such a war is in the first phase—building a political

base—interdependent maneuver would likely entail less

suppressive fires and a greater number of ground elements

so as to isolate enemy forces from the indigenous

population, destroy their supply caches, and interdict their

16
efforts to reestablish a logistics flow. If the people’s war is in

the second phase—expansion—interdependent maneuver

would be employed to preempt further expansion.

Suppressive fires and ground elements would operate in

tandem to reduce known enemy concentrations, effect

isolation, and erode indigenous support. The third phase of

a people’s war—full scale counter offensive—resembles a

conventional conflict and most likely would be dealt with as

discussed above.

Interdependent maneuver is much more than linking

ground maneuver with halt-phase doctrine, which claims

that air power alone can decisively defeat a large-scale

armored attack. First, interdependent maneuver calls for a

fully Joint approach from the outset, generating synergy

with the interaction between fire and movement, rather

than placing the burden of success on one dimension with

the others absent or only in supporting roles. Second,

halt-phase doctrine applies only to a very limited segment of

the threat spectrum; it cannot effectively address a people’s

war, for example. In fact, the type of conflict to which

halt-phase doctrine applies, namely, armored engagements

in relatively open terrain as in the Middle East or the

Korean peninsula, is becoming rarer.

26

 By contrast,

interdependence is based upon the principle of presenting

an adversary with a dual threat—destruction by fire or by

the close fight. As lethal and accurate as it is, aerospace

power alone is simply too easy to counter. American joint

forces need a truly integrative operational concept that

gives them every possible military advantage.

In conclusion, changes wrought by the transformation of

the U.S. military will not necessarily make warfare less

difficult. The means of warfare will continue to change—at

times very rapidly, but at other times much more slowly. To

keep proper pace with such changes, U.S. forces will need an

operational concept that is both integrative and

stimulative. Unfortunately, RDO fails in its integrative

function. It is an incoherent concept that rests on several

faulty assumptions. To prevent such concepts from creating

17
false expectations and leading to potentially disastrous

results, the U.S. military will need a process for identifying

and analyzing assumptions in concept development, as well

as a process for developing the necessary shaping and

hedging actions to address those assumptions. Such

processes might lead to a revolution in concept development

that JFCOM could lead. This revolution would advance the

view that warfare is an open rather than a closed system—a

phenomenon comprised of dynamic, interactive dimensions

that do not necessarily lend themselves to systems analysis.

A revolution in concept development would only

complement the Services’ current transformation efforts by

creating an adaptive intellectual framework that would

help exploit (or temper) dramatic advances in technology.

ENDNOTES

1. Rapid Decisive Operations (RDO) White Paper, United States

Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), J9 Joint Futures Lab, Coordinating

Draft (Version 2.0), dated August 9, 2001. RDO synthesizes a broad

range of ideas extracted from works by RAND, the Institute for Defense

Analyses, Defense Group, Inc., and others. It remains a work in progress

and will likely undergo further refinement in the near future, especially

in the course of U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM)

experimentation efforts Millennium Challenge 2002 and Olympic

Challenge 2004.

2. It builds upon the operational concepts outlined in JV2020: Full

Spectrum Dominance, Dominant Maneuver, Precision Engagement,

Focused Logistics, and Full-dimensional Protection.

3. RDO, p. ii. Emphasis added.

4. The White Paper (p. 9) attempts to ascribe “absolute” and

“relative” properties to speed, but as Einstein showed in his general

theory of relativity published in 1905, speed and time are always

relative.

5. RDO, p. 9.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid., p. i.

18
8. See Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue about the Future,

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/globaltrends2015.

9. RDO, pp. 16-17.

10. Lieutenant Colonel Timothy J. Sakulich, USAF, “Precision

Engagement at the Strategic Level of War: Guiding Promise or Wishful

Thinking?” Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University, April 2001, uses

complexity theory to refute the notion that precision engagement can

produce desired effects with any degree of certainty.

11. RDO, pp. 5, A-2.

12. C. J. Anker, Jr., and A. V. Gafarian, The Validity of Assumptions

Underlying Current Uses of Lanchester Attrition Rates, White Sands,

NM: TRADOC, 1988.

13. Christian Lowe, “In Exercise, U.S. Military Practices

Unconventional Warfare,” Defense Week, May 21, 2001, p. 2. The

exercise referred to is Unified Vision, conducted from May 3-24, 2001.

14. Lowe, “Unconventional Warfare,” p. 2.

15. This new paradigm assumes that continuous change and

dynamic interaction, rather than equilibrium, represent the universe’s

normal state. It employs an interdisciplinary rather than a segregated

approach to science, borrowing from disciplines as disparate as biology,

economics, physics, and chemistry to help explain the dynamic nature of

physical phenomena. The fundamental principles of this new paradigm

maintain that: 1) every component within a system, no matter how

small or seemingly insignificant, plays a part in final outcome

determination; therefore, we must treat systems holistically rather

than focusing only on key players; 2) predictable and nonpredictable

phenomena coexist and interact in the physical world producing

complex networks containing too many variables or relationships to

consistently calculate outcomes; 3) a small change in the input to a

system can result in disproportionate effects; 4) systems, whether

individuals, armies, or bureaucracies, tend to evolve toward greater

complexity; and 5) these complex adaptive systems (CAS)

“spontaneously reorganize” themselves when confronted with crises; in

these moments of challenge we generally find the system at its most

innovative and creative. The following are helpful for understanding the

basics of complexity theory: James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New

Science, New York: Viking, 1987; M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity: The

Emerging Science at the Edge of Chaos, New York: Simon and Schuster,

1992; John H. Holland, “Complex Adaptive Systems,” Daedalus, Vol.

19
CXXI, Winter 1992, pp. 17-30; Alan D. Beyerchen, “Clausewitz,

Nonlinearity, and the Unpredictability of War,” International Security,

Vol. XVII, Winter 1992-93, pp. 82-90; and Jack Snyder and Robert

Jervis, eds., Coping with Complexity in the International System,

Boulder: Westview Press, 1993.

16. For an example, see Admiral William A. Owens, “The Emerging

U.S. System of Systems,” in Dominant Battlespace Knowledge: The

Winning Edge, Martin Libicki and Stuart Johnson, eds., Washington,

DC: National Defense University, 1996, p. 3.

17. RDO, p. 9.

18. During the 1962 missile crisis, Guevara wrote of the need to

“walk by the path of liberation even when it may cost millions of atomic

victims.” Castro was less fanatical, but also refused to retreat from the

possibility of nuclear holocaust.

19. RDO, pp. 9-10, 14-20.

20. James Dewar, Carl Builder, William Hix, and Morlie Levin,

Assumption-Based Planning: A Planning Tool for Very Uncertain

Times, Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1993.

21. Appendix B of Assumption-Based Planning discusses the

differences between Assumption-Based Planning and other forms of

long-term planning.

22. Assumption-Based Planning, pp. 25-26.

23. Conrad C. Crane, Bombs, Cities and Civilians: Airpower

Strategy in World War II, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas,

1993; and Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won, New York: W. W. Norton,

1995, present conflicting views on the success of strategic bombing.

24. For a more detailed discussion of interdependent maneuver, see

Echevarria, “Interdependent Maneuver.”

25. On the idea of the merging levels of war, see Douglas A.

Macgregor, “Future Battle: The Merging Levels of War,” Parameters,

Vol. 22, No. 4, Winter 1992-93, pp. 33-47.

26. Halt-Phase advocates have made broad claims for the concept.

See Rebecca Grant, Airpower and the Total Force: The Gift of Time,

Arlington, VA: IRIS Independent Research, 1998. For an example of a

concept combining halt-phase and ground action in a support role, see

James Riggins and David E. Snodgrass, “Halt Phase Plus Strategic

20
Preclusion: Joint Solution for a Joint Problem,” Parameters, Vol. 29, No.

3, Autumn 1999, pp. 70-85. For critiques of halt-phase doctrine, see Earl

H. Tilford, Jr., Halt Phase Strategy: New Wine in Old Skins . . . with

Powerpoint, Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S.

Army War College, 1998; and Major General Robert H. Scales, Jr.,

“Clashes of Visions: Sizing and Shaping Our Forces in a Fiscally

Constrained Environment” in Future Warfare: An Anthology, Carlisle

Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College,

1999, pp. 81-94.

21
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General Robert R. Ivany

Commandant

*****

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

Director

Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.

Director of Research

Dr. Steven Metz

Author

Lieutenant Colonel Antulio J. Echevarria II

Director of Publications

Ms. Marianne P. Cowling

Publications Assistant

Ms. Rita A. Rummel

*****

Composition

Ms. Kimberly A. Rockwell