Report of the 

Defense Science Board Task Force 

on

Discriminate Use of Force

July 2003 

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense 

For Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics 

Washington, D.C. 20301-3140
This report is a product of the Defense Science Board (DSB). The DSB is a Federal 

Advisory Committee established to provide independent advice to the Secretary of 

Defense. Statements, opinions, conclusions, and recommendations in this report do 

not necessarily represent the official position of the Department of Defense. 

This report is UNCLASSIFIED. 
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

DSB Transmittal Letter ............................................................................................i 

Chairmen’s Transmittal Letter ...............................................................................iii 

I. Introduction .................................................................................................... 1 

II. Criticisms of Discriminate Use of Force (DUF) and 

 Effects-Based Operations (EBO) ................................................................... 2 

III. Enablers.......................................................................................................... 3 

IV. Findings.......................................................................................................... 5 

V. Recommendations .......................................................................................... 6 

Appendices 

A. Terms of Reference ........................................................................................ 9 

B. Task Force Membership............................................................................... 11 

C. Briefings Received ....................................................................................... 13 

D. Effects-Based Operations: A Synopsis of Papers and Position.................... 17 

E. Acronyms ..................................................................................................... 27 
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I. INTRODUCTION 

In the terms of reference, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, 

Technology, and Logistics directed the task force “to conduct a comprehensive study 

of the ends and means of precision compellence, or the nuanced use of force, in 

concert with coalition partners, to achieve political, economic and moral change in 

countries affecting US interests.” Real-world events have since underscored the need 

for such a study; indeed, the U.S. military applied key elements of a measured, 

nuanced approach in both the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns. We are pleased to 

note this evolution in operations and a parallel evolution in the thinking of the 

combatant commands and Services. Because of this evolution, it is no longer as 

necessary as it once was to sell the fundamental objectives of what we term here the 

discriminate use of force (DUF).1

The notion of using military force in discriminate fashion goes back at least to 

the teachings of Sun Tzu. In the past, however, the military tools available to 

political and military leaders rarely supported such an approach. As recent events 

have shown, this situation is changing. New precision and “non-lethal” weapons and 

emerging capabilities such as information dominance now enable the discriminate 

use of force. 

These emerging capabilities exist within a political context that requires the use 

of discriminate force. Moreover, destructive power alone is not sufficient to reach 

many U.S. goals, and it must be properly applied. Efficiency is one motivation. More 

significant is the need for discriminate use, particularly when multiple strategic and 

operational objectives are in tension. This is clearly a challenge, one that—in the 

same campaign—may require U.S. forces to roll back an aggressor, effect a regime 

change, and destroy a terrorist organization while minimizing casualties (theirs and 

ours), preserving infrastructure, maintaining international coalitions, not waging war 

on a people or a religion, and even not waging war on much of the adversary’s 

military forces. 

DUF is about more than the limited use of force. When competing objectives 

exist, attacking the “wrong” target can wreak more damage to America’s interests 

than not attacking the right one. The intent is to apply force discriminately in order to 

achieve the desired and avoid the undesired. In fact, overwhelming force may be 

appropriate in some situations. Thus, DUF is largely about military effectiveness in 

the face of competing objectives and the inevitable frictions of war. In most cases the 

desired effect is a change in behavior. Physical effects (e.g., destruction of targets) 

can produce an automatic effect in reducing adversary capabilities, but more often 

are a means to the end of influencing behavior. 

 

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 Few civilized combatants in the modern era would associate themselves with the indiscriminate use 

of force. The antonym of discriminate is the inability to meet the complex strategic and political 

objectives of warfare, especially when the technical means exist for economy in force and the 

minimization of gratuitous collateral damage. 
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The task force’s concept of the discriminate use of force harmonizes with some 

contemporary thinking about effects-based operations (EBO). We say some, because 

there are a number of differing articulations of EBO. 

- Some emphasize efficiency—a way to avoid waste of munitions, sorties, 

and lives by attacking an adversary’s center of gravity. 

- Others emphasize comprehensiveness—a way to use all the elements of 

national power (diplomatic, informational, military, and economic—

DIME) together in concert against an adversary. 

- Still others emphasize speed—a way to impose the will of the United 

States on an adversary quickly, in order to halt aggression, stop the 

killing, or prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). 

The EBO construct we associate with most is the systematic and explicit 

attempt (in planning and executing a campaign with competing objectives) to assess 

for and adapt to the effects from kinetic and other actions. This includes military and 

non-military effects, desired and undesired effects, and expected and unanticipated 

effects. (See Appendix D for summaries of a number of papers that reflect the 

evolution in thinking about EBO over the past decade.) 

The task force’s recommendations focus on how the Department of Defense 

(DoD) can (1) implement DUF or EBO more consistently, and (2) achieve the 

needed institutional and organizational changes, particularly in career structures.

II. CRITICISMS OF DUF (AND EBO) 

The task force encountered several strongly held criticisms of DUF that challenged 

the study’s rationale. These include the following: 

- “DUF is not new—we are already doing this.” As this report shows, 

however, a number of factors prevent DoD from executing DUF to the 

extent possible and the degree necessary. 

- “We shouldn’t plan for or encourage DUF—restraint in the use of force 

will be seen as weakness.” To this we reply that DUF is not about 

restraint; it is about the clarity of objectives and attention to achieving 

multiple and often competing objectives. 

- “DUF is too difficult to actually use.” 

- Some point out that quick and bloodless campaigns are not possible. 

We agree, but we have no such expectations. DUF is not about 

assuming away friction and the fog of war. 

- Others point out that most sought-after effects reside only in the 

enemy’s mind and will never be fully known. We see this as a 

challenge worth pursuing. Our nation must improve its ability both to 

assess the enemy’s capabilities and intentions and to adapt to them. 

We cannot simply dub as important what’s most easily assessed. 
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- “DUF is too big for DoD—it does not own all the assets needed to 

conduct discriminate campaigns and other government agencies need to 

play important roles.” The ultimate solution may be to reengineer the 

nation’s national security processes, but in the meantime we offer some 

recommendations for how DoD can itself do better.

III. ENABLERS 

The capability for discriminate use of force does not flow automatically from the 

desire to do it. The task force identified five “enablers” that are critical to 

discriminate force use in a wide range of circumstances. 

1. Understanding the adversary as a complex adaptive system. The need here is not 

to rapidly develop the ability to predict an adversary’s actions and reactions during a 

contingency, as desirable as that would be. Rather, the real need is for a 

comprehensive, long-term, and coherent effort to understand adversaries in a 

systemic way, to enable the nation in a contingency to exploit decision superiority to 

pursue an effects-based campaign. This puts great demand on intelligence and the 

fusion of contradictory, fragmented, and dispersed information—in peacetime and in 

a contingency. 

Doing this requires creating models of the adversary that account for not only 

the physical dimensions (e.g., those associated with military forces and 

infrastructure) but the “softer” dimensions as well (e.g., those associated with human 

networks). Substantial capabilities and experience exist in synthesizing and using 

models of the physical dimensions (transportation, power, telecommunication, and 

so on). The Joint Warfare Analysis Center (JWAC), for example, is a leader in this 

area. However, capabilities and experience with the softer networks are much less 

mature and far more difficult. Both will need to be tied intimately to operational 

planning and execution 

2. Military capabilities conducive to DUF. While recognizing that all instruments of 

national power—DIME—should be used in a campaign, the task force focused on 

the military instruments that could contribute most to DUF. New military capabilities 

of particular interest—exploited extensively in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) 

and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF)—are precision standoff weapons and “nonlethal” weapons, coupled to delivery platforms able to penetrate defenses to weapon 

delivery ranges. 

A key enabler for these weapons is comprehensive and persistent intelligence, 

surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), to support 

− Targeting (in its broadest sense), and 

− Assessment of the actual effects, physical and other (military and 

political)—or battle damage assessment (BDA) writ large. 

Special forces are trained and increasingly used as both precision weapons and as 

ISR, in situations (e.g., urban areas) where remote weapons and traditional ISR are 
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less effective. Finally, offensive information operations (including psychological 

operations) offer the potential for providing desired effects with little or no physical 

damage. 

3. Robust collaboration in a contingency among key participants. Planning, 

executing, and assessing should involve the coordinated use of all elements of 

national power. As noted above, the United States does not have standing 

mechanisms for doing this. So for now the burden often falls on the joint force 

commander (JFC)—often the regional combatant commander—to bring it all 

together. 

The JFC’s collaboration should extend to the leaders of the key U.S. agencies 

(e.g., State, the Intelligence Community, the Department of Homeland Security 

(DHS), Commerce), coalition partners, military subordinates, and experts on the 

adversary as a complex adaptive system. The objective of these collaborations is to 

move beyond instantaneous sharing of information, through discourses to the higher 

cognitive level of shared understanding, and over time to a shared knowledge: 

- To develop and pursue an adaptive campaign against an adaptive 

adversary, given the needs of allies and the concerns of other key 

countries and international organizations (including non-governmental 

organizations, or NGOs). 

- To deal with the friction, uncertainties, and ambiguities inherent in any 

military campaign (recognizing that plans are less important than the 

process of planning). 

4. Peacetime preparation—intellectual and cultural—for the collaborative 

planning and execution of an adaptive campaign. Peacetime preparation is essential 

for wartime collaboration. Part of the preparation is organizational, some outside the 

control of DoD. But a larger part is creating a culture—within DoD and the 

interagency process of which DoD is a part—which values the following: 

- Achieving synchronization and unity of effort of all the elements of 

national power (DIME); 

- Considering the full range of possible effects (military and other, desired 

and other, expected and other, primary and other) from the use of national 

powers; and 

- Working together collaboratively, over time, to develop the basis for 

shared knowledge of the implications of these effects. 

Part of the preparation involves developing a greater capability to surge the 

peacetime 9-to-5 activity into a wartime 24/7 activity. 

5. Anticipatory instead of reactive strategic orientation to adversaries. The 

preparation of information and modeling for discriminate use of force has to begin 

long before the contingency begins. It is a difficult job to continuously collect and 

analyze information related to a wide range of potential adversaries. An anticipatory 

orientation also puts a burden on the potentially affected regional combatant 
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commanders to use the results of the intelligence community’s efforts (1) to plan the 

military campaign and (2) to actively involve the interagency in developing a 

synchronized DIME plan. 

IV. FINDINGS 

The good news is that across all five enablers there is either a substantial effort 

already underway (e.g., precision weapons, collaborative environments) or 

widespread agreement of the need to improve (e.g., to transform low-density, 

stovepiped ISR assets into a more pervasive integrated network of sensors). There 

are also outstanding relevant recommendations from other DSB task forces and study 

groups (e.g., recommendations regarding intelligence fusion, non-lethal effects, and 

understanding adversaries as complex adaptive systems). 

However, important issues have yet to get the attention they deserve. These 

include: 

- Observing, assessing, and adapting to actual effects. Adaptive 

planning fosters adaptation in execution. 

- Conducting “battle damage assessment” writ large. Assessing 

physical damage has been a long-standing problem. Assessing all 

effects—military, political economic, other—from the use of military 

force is harder. Assessing campaign-level effects from combinations of 

instruments of national power (again taking account of “all” effects) is 

harder yet. 

- Examining in peacetime a broader range of countries and 

contingencies to prepare for “surprises.” (A few hot issues tend to get 

almost all the attention). 

- Integrating “all” available information to provide a more robust 

foundation for planning and conducting effects-based campaigns. 

We offer two recommendations that would help address all these needs. 

The first is to create a capability to conduct campaign planning at the 

strategic/operational level that would approach the standards of detail, 

coherence, and comprehensiveness of current U.S. military operational/tacticallevel campaign planning. 

The second is to make a long-term commitment to develop military leaders for 

effects-based operations, a commitment that will require changes to DoD 

personnel practices and professional military education. The planning and 

conduct of effects-based campaigns place great demands on military commanders: to 

balance multiple and competing objectives, to invent effects that tie tactical actions 

to strategic objectives, and to develop metrics for assessing effects. 
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V. RECOMMENDATIONS 

1. Establish a Strategic Campaign Support Center. The United States needs a 

strategic focus on the broad array of potential threats, similar to the focus that led to 

success during the Cold War. The task force recommends establishing a Strategic 

Campaign Support Center. The center’s primary mission would be to develop 

“strategic campaign plans” for future contingencies. As part of its responsibilities, 

the Center would account for potential strategic and operational contexts (including 

U.S. objectives), invent concepts of operations involving all the instruments of U.S. 

power, and game alternative courses of action. The Center would focus beyond 

current hot spots—these are already getting the necessary attention; rather, it would 

direct its attention toward several dozen or so possible future threats, chosen on the 

basis of likelihood and consequence. 

The Center would attempt to do at the strategic level what joint force 

commanders and their staffs do at the operational level (and what their subordinates 

do at the tactical level). Its texture should be perceived as too diplomatic for DoD, 

too military for State, too oriented to open-source information for the intelligence 

community, and too transnational for anyone. The Center would work closely with 

the intelligence community and other sources of information and focus on JWAClike efforts that develop systemic “models” of possible adversaries. 

Products of the Center would be offered for consideration to the Deputies 

Group and other national leaders. In response to a potential crisis, the Deputies 

Group could quickly expand preferred options into a draft interagency tasking order 

coordinating all elements of national power. The appropriate combatant commander 

would use the tasking to develop military plans that support an integrated national 

response. Other agency heads would use the tasking order similarly to guide their 

efforts. 

The Center would complement, not replace, responsibilities and authorities of 

regional combatant commanders. It would be useful to combatant commanders in 

peacetime by providing a strategic campaign context for the command’s operational 

level plans. The Center’s scope would be broader than a combatant commander’s in 

that it would provide strategic planning options and formulations for the departments 

of State, Commerce, Treasury, Transportation, Homeland Security, and others. 

Consequently, the center’s products would help coordinate America’s diplomatic, 

informational, intelligence, and economic actions prior to the need for military force. 

Where should the Center be located, organizationally and geographically? We 

do not have a definitive answer—perhaps it should be part of a new Federally 

Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) in the Washington, DC, area. 

But we do suggest that in the first steps the focus be on working with the combatant 

commands that have new global responsibilities: Special Operations Command 

(SOCOM) and Strategic Command (STRATCOM). These commands need to 

prepare for operations in any part of the globe to integrate military operations within 

a broad strategic campaign plan. While full implementation could take years, we 
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believe that a center working with SOCOM and STRATCOM would have 

substantial early payoffs. 

2. Make a long-term commitment to develop leaders for the discriminate use of 

force and effects-based operations, and identify and implement the needed changes 

to DoD personnel practices and professional military education. The nature of 

DUF calls for military leaders who are able to plan and execute military operations 

within a larger strategic context. The task force concluded that it will be difficult for 

these concepts to be integrated into military practice unless changes are made in the 

education and preparation of military and civilian professionals. 

We appreciate that considerations of DUF are not the sole drivers of change to 

DoD personnel practices and thus need to be examined in a context broader than this 

study. We also are aware of ongoing activities aimed at effecting substantial change 

to personnel practices. We suggest that the needs of DUF should be major 

considerations in these activities. As a first step, we recommend mining the 

experiences and lessons of recent campaigns, particularly Operation Enduring 

Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, which provided real-world laboratories for 

DUF. 

During the Cold War the United States could deter its major adversary even 

though it could not defeat it. By contrast, the post-Cold War world has seen several 

cases in which the United States and its allies had both the ability and the willingness 

to defeat the other side, but were unable to successfully practice deterrence and 

compellence. Recent instances are the campaigns against the regimes in Serbia, 

Afghanistan, and Iraq. Given American capabilities and previous behavior, the 

adversary “should” have known that if it did not give in, the United States would 

successfully use force to gain its objectives. Why the adversary did not is open to 

conjecture. The crucial question is how the United States can extend deterrence and 

compellence further in future contingencies. It is likely that the answer lies with 

more knowledge, not more weapons. 

A study group should be established to examine the DUF experience and 

lessons from OEF and OIF—accomplishments, shortfalls, adaptation—in order to 

identify changes to DoD personnel practices (and other initiatives) that would make 

DUF a more powerful tool in future operations. Participants in these operations 

should have a strong presence on the study group. 

Changes to five areas of professional development may be needed to enhance 

substantially our ability to implement DUF: promotions, retirement, Foreign Area 

Officer programs, Foreign Officer Exchange programs, and professional education. 

(There may be other leverage areas as well that could be included in this study.) 

Service personnel systems are still unduly influenced by World War II-era 

mobilization assumptions and governed by legislation from the 1940s and 1950s. 

With the demands of “up or out” and the requirements of a military career, there is 

precious little time to provide the education that would lead to a more intellectually 

agile officer corps able to deal with the complexities of the emerging strategic 

environment. 
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This “up or out” process forces Service members to seek a relatively limited set 

of assignments to be competitive for promotion or resign themselves to an early exit 

from active military service. Consequently most officers “fill the squares” they 

perceive as competitive for promotion, while many talented people leave their 

Service prematurely, people who, for whatever reason, fail to “fill the squares” and 

hence see themselves as doomed to failure in the military. 

Many assignments that would prepare officers for DUF are not found on the 

“squares” deemed essential for advancement in today’s military. As the variety of 

challenges facing America’s military has grown, so has the need for people with 

expertise in foreign cultures, history, sociology, economics, psychology, and a broad 

range of other disciplines. Such expertise can be attained in several ways, e.g., by 

service as an instructor at one of the nation’s Service academies, in graduate 

education, by participation in one of the Services’ Foreign Area Officer programs, or 

in the Foreign Officer Exchange program. Unfortunately, these assignments are not 

valued by Service promotion boards, at least as compared to operational command or 

duty on a senior Service or joint staff. They simply do not “fill the square.” 

The practice of packing many “squares” into a relatively short career has 

adversely affected the career development process. Most noticeable is the 

compression of tour lengths to where it is common for mid-grade officers to serve in 

assignments for less than 2 years. At the other end of the spectrum, the lack of 

retirement vesting until 20 years of service undoubtedly encourages some to serve 

longer than either they or their Service would desire. Allowing longer careers and 

lengthened tours of duty in key assignments would promote stability of leadership as 

well as accountability for performance. 

A number of studies, ranging from the Hart-Rudman Commission to the 

National Defense Panel, have called for major changes in how the services develop 

the intellectual framework of their officers. Many officers hold advanced academic 

degrees, but few hold degrees that are relevant either to the duties they will assume 

or to the unique requirements of the military services and DUF. Professional military 

education (PME) is an important “square” for senior rank, but curricula reinforces 

existing Service or joint doctrines rather than promote a deep intellectual inquiry into 

the art and science of modern warfare. 

Understanding the implications of effects-based operations, a world of 

complex-adaptive systems, the increasing use of unconventional forms of force, and 

the tension of competing strategic objectives will demand a broader and more 

rigorous system of education. Caution must be exercised to avoid the temptation to 

centralize the PME institutions and thereby limit the breadth and diversity of 

approaches which can make them so valuable. 

The United States needs military and civilian professionals who understand the 

historic and strategic contexts of areas throughout the world, the cultures and 

religious influences that guide popular thinking, and the nature of human conflict, 

past and present. This will require more breadth and diversity than the current PME 

institutions provide: namely, graduate schools, language schools, and foreign 

military exchange programs at staff and war colleges. 
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A. TERMS OF REFERENCE 
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B. TASK FORCE MEMBERSHIP 

CHAIRS 

Dr. Theodore Gold Institute for Defense Analyses 

Dr. Joshua Lederberg Rockefeller University 

MEMBERS 

Dr. Ruth David ANSER, Inc.

Mr. Joe Eash Center for Technology and 

 National Security Policy

Dr. Richard Cooper Center for International Affairs

Dr. Craig Fields Corporate Director

Dr. John Foster, Jr. TRW 

Gen Richard Hawley, USAF (Ret) Independent consultant 

CAPT C.J. Heatley, USN (Ret) Institute for Physical Sciences, Inc. 

Dr. Robert Jervis Columbia University 

Mr. David Kay SAIC 

Dr. Jane Lute United Nations Foundation

Dr. John Steinbruner University of Maryland

LTG Richard Trefry Army Force Management School

Dr. George Whitesides Harvard University 

GOVERNMENT ADVISORS 

VADM Art Cebrowski, USN (Ret) Director of the Office of 

 Force Transformation

Mr. Daniel Franken USJFCOM 

Dr. Paul Kozemchak DARPA

EXECUTIVE SECRETARIES 

LtCol Mark Arbogast OUSD(AT&L)/S&TS/MW

CAPT Kathleen McGrath Joint Advanced Warfighting Program

CDR Michael Pease Joint Advanced Warfighting Program 
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DSB SECRETARIAT 

LtCol Roger Basl Defense Science Board 

SUPPORT 

Mr. Matthew Amitrano SAIC 

Mr. Jay Dutcher SAIC 
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C. BRIEFINGS RECEIVED 

Name and/or Organization Topic Date 

BG J. Scott Gration Information operations 

concepts 

Jun. 2001 

C.J. “Heater” Heatley Effects-based targeting, 

strategic influence, and 

using all instruments of 

national power to achieve 

U.S. political objectives 

Jun. 2001 

Dr. Wick Murray, IDA Learning from the past Jun. 2001 

Vince Vitto, Draper Labs Managed information 

dissemination 

Jun. 2001 

Maj. Gen. David A. Deptula, 

HQ/USAF 

EBO Jun. 2001 

Maj. Gen. David A. Deptula EBO Jan. 2002 

Robert Maggi, U.S. Dept. of State The State Department’s 

political and military 

perspective 

Jan. 2002 

Steve Hosmer, RAND Influencing foreign leaders 

and the effects of air 

operations 

Jan. 2002 

Rich Engel, CIA Character of future warfare 

and new technologies to 

leverage opponents 

Jan. 2002 

Edward Luttwak National strategy Jan. 2002 

Michael Dziubinski, JFCOM The theory of conflict and 

the need for balance 

between delivery and 

assessment 

Feb. 2002 

BG Wayne M. Hall, USA (Ret.) Knowledge action center Feb. 2002 

Gen. Larry Welch, USAF (Ret.), 

IDA 

Afghanistan, the latest case 

study in compellence 

Feb. 2002 
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Name and/or Organization Topic Date 

Dr. Thad Brown, Dr. Ronnie 

Mainieri, and Earl Rubright; the 

Institute for Physical Sciences 

Unfolding network 

dynamics 

Feb. 2002 

Chris Hunsaker and Marty 

Westphal, JWAC 

JWAC command overview 

and strategic assessment 

methodology (classified 

briefing) 

Feb. 2002 

Dr. Richard P. Wishner, DARPA IXO programs in precision 

strike 

Mar. 2002 

ADM John M. Poindexter, USN 

(Ret.), DARPA 

Aids to human reasoning Mar. 2002 

MGEN John R. Landry, National 

Officer for Conventional Military 

Issues 

Precision compellence: 

foreign views and 

intelligence implications 

Mar. 2002 

GEN Keith B. Alexander, 

Commanding General, U.S. Army 

Intelligence and Security 

Command 

INSCOM vision Mar. 2002 

Dr. Stephen M. Younger, DTRA Threat anticipation Mar. 2002 

Dr. John Hamre, CSIS Discussion May 2002 

Brian Shaw, Deputy National 

Intelligence Officer for Science 

and Technology 

DUF in cyberspace May 2002 

COL Mark Volk, Chief, Strategic 

Leadership Division and LTC 

Grady Reese, Chief, Personnel 

Command, FAO Branch 

Army Foreign Area 

Officer, PEP, strategy 

officer, and other programs

May 2002 

VADM Patricia Tracey, Director, 

Navy Staff 

Manpower and 

personnel—Service wide 

May 2002 

Dr. Wick Murray, IDA Professional military 

education and effectsbased operations 

May 2002 

LTC Antulio Echevarria, Principle 

Researcher, SSI 

A critique of effects-based 

operations 

May 2002 
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Name and/or Organization Topic Date 

COL Kevin Cunningham, Dean, 

U.S. Army War College 

U.S. Army War College 

curriculum overview 

May 2002 

Col. Anthony Aldwell, Chief, 

International Airmen Division and 

Lt. Col. Thomas Nolta, Chief, 

Foreign Area Officer Branch 

Air Force Foreign Area 

Officer, PEP, and other 

programs 

May 2002 

ADM Joseph Prueher, USN (Ret.) CINC perspective Jul. 2002 

ADM James Ellis, USN (Ret.) CINC perspective Jul. 2002 

INSCOM briefings Various Sep. 2002 
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D. EFFECTS-BASED OPERATIONS: 

A SYNOPSIS OF PAPERS AND POSITIONS 

As an explicit concept, effects-based operations (EBO) is relatively new. It has been 

promoted and argued about for more than a decade. But we now realize that there are 

a number of military campaigns that can be considered effects-based operations. 

Proponents of EBO understand this and have focused their efforts on making what 

has been historically rare and exceptional to being more prevalent, even routine in 

modern-day operations. 

Within the past few years, EBO appears to have evolved from an air powercentric notion to having much broader relevance to modern military operations. This 

appendix will review the viewpoints and themes of several of the papers that 

contributed to its evolution and relevance. We examine the following sources here: 

1. Gulf War Air Power Survey, Volume II: Operations and Effects and 

Effectiveness. Washington, DC, 1993. 

2. “Effects-Based Targeting: Another Empty Promise?” Maj. T. W. Beagle, School 

of Advanced Airpower Studies, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, 

Alabama, June 2000. 

3. “A Concept Framework for Joint Experimentation: Effects-Based Operations.” 

Version .5 (Draft) Joint Forces Command, J-9, 2001. 

4. Effects-Based Operations: A Grand Challenge for the Analytical Community. 

Paul K. Davis, RAND, 2001. 

5. “New Perspectives on Effects-Based Operations: Annotated Briefing.” Dennis 

Gleeson, Gwen Linde, Kathleen McGrath, Adrienne Murphy, Williamson 

Murray, Thomas O’Leary, and Joel B. Resnick. Joint Advanced Warfighting 

Program, Institute for Defense Analyses, June 2001. 

6. “An Historical Perspective on Effects-Based Operations.” Dr. Williamson 

Murray, Thomas O’Leary, Dennis Gleeson, and Col. Gwen Linde (USAF). Joint 

Advanced Warfighting Program, Institute for Defense Analyses, October 2001. 

7. “Effects-Based Operations: A New Operational Model?” Lt. Col. Allen W. 

Batschelet, USA, U. S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA, April 2002. 

8. “Effects-Based Operations: Theory, Application and the Role of Airpower.” Lt. 

Col. Brett T. Williams (USAF), U. S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA, 

April 2002. 

9. “ACC White Paper: Effects-Based Operations.” ACC/XP, Air Combat 

Command, Langley Air Force Base, May 2002. 

10. “Thinking Effects: Effects-Based Methodology for Joint Operations” Col. 

Edward C. Mann (USAF, Ret.), Lt. Col. Gary Endersby (USAF, Ret.), and 

Thomas R. Searle, College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education, Air 

University, Maxwell Air Force Base, October 2002. 
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11. “Effects-Based Operations: Building the Analytic Tools,” Defense Horizons, No. 

19, Center for Technology and National Security Policy, National Defense 

University, Desmond Saunders-Newton and Aaron B. Frank. October 2002. 

12. Effects-Based Operations: Applying Network Centric Warfare in Peace, Crisis, 

and War. Edward A. Smith, Command and Control Research Program, 

November 2002. 

13. “Effects-Based Operations (Draft) Joint Forces Command,” J-9, February 2003. 

1. Gulf War Air Power Survey: Volume II, Operations and Effects and 

Effectiveness (1993). This survey is one of the earliest contemporary works on EBO 

thinking. It focuses on “what Coalition air power accomplished at the operational 

level and above relative to the military and political objectives for which the war was 

waged (p. 1, Part II).” While the phrase “effects-based operations” had not yet been 

coined, the questions the survey asks also appear (in some form) in later writings on 

EBO. 

 “What were the effects of Coalition air power on the will and 

capability to fight of the Iraqi field army in the KTO [Kuwaiti 

Theater of Operations], as well as on other forces deployed there, 

prior to the beginning of the ground campaign on 24 February 

1991? How were these effects achieved, and how did they 

accumulate over time?” 

 “Does the combination of technological capabilities embodied in 

advanced strike platforms such as the F-117, together with the 

operational concepts used to structure the air campaign, reflect a 

revolutionary advance in warfare? In Desert Storm the ability to 

deliver ordnance with great precision at night from medium 

altitudes, combined with operational concepts such as great 

emphasis on targeting for functional effects rather than physical 

damage, produced remarkable results against entire target 

categories, often in very short periods of time. Should such 

success be attributed to the continuation of earlier trends and the 

unique circumstances of this particular war, or to fundamental 

changes in the nature or efficacy of air power?” 

 “What limits to strategic air attack with modern, survivable 

delivery systems, if any, are suggested by Desert Storm? Various 

forces and factors—among them, enemy reactions and 

countermeasures, foreign and domestic political constraints, and 

the recurring frictions of war—limited the effectiveness of 

Coalition air efforts in ways that suggest parallels to earlier 

strategic bombing campaigns, including the Anglo-American 

bomber offensive against Nazi Germany during World War II. To 

what extent did comparable problems recur in Desert Storm?” 
19 

 “Finally, what can be concluded about air power as a political 

instrument from the Gulf War? Desert Storm air commanders and 

planners hoped that air power might be able to force some 

fundamental change of the regime in Baghdad; they also hoped 

that air power might be able to achieve the political aim of forcing 

the Iraqis out of Kuwait without requiring a ground campaign. 

Were such goals feasible even in circumstances as unconstrained 

and conducive to the effective application of air power as existed 

in this particular conflict?” (GWAPS, p. 11-12, Part II) 

The Survey appears to be concerned with effects on enemy capability and 

decision-making, timing of effects, an adaptive enemy, and dimensions of the war 

broader than military objectives, and how those all related to the application of air 

power in that war. The articulation of these themes in the survey, along with works 

by Gen. David Deptula (USAF), is one reason that some in other services have 

labeled EBO as an “Air Force-centric” concept. This categorization has been used to 

dismiss the concept as simply a buzzword created by the Air Force to garner more 

budgetary dollars. But with continued evolution and refinement of EBO theory, that 

initial rejection seems to have faded away. 

2. “Effects-Based Targeting: Another Empty Promise?” (June 2000). Major T. 

W. Beagle of the School of Advanced Airpower Studies wrote a thesis on effectsbased targeting, following a path similar to that of the Gulf War Air Power Survey. 

His focus is on the relationship between effects-based targeting and air power, 

specifically, on the planning and assessment portions of effects-based operations. 

Beagle defines effects-based targeting as a means of directing “airpower 

against targets in ways that produce specific, predetermined, military and political 

effects” (p. vi), and as “identifying and engaging an adversary’s key capabilities in 

the most efficient manner to produce a specific effect consistent with the 

commander’s objectives” (p. 5). 

Beagle is most interested in examining “how effectively...the US Air Force 

[has] incorporated the concept of effects-based operations into its procedures for 

targeting and combat assessment” (p. vi). 

Beagle’s paper incorporates 

“...the historical development of effects-based targeting theory 

and then conducts a focused comparison of four major air 

operations—Pointblank, Linebacker II, Desert Storm and Allied 

Force—in order to survey US airpower’s actual combat 

experience with regard to effects-based operations. This study 

determines that senior decision makers have always been 

interested in creating specific effects rather than simply destroying 

targets; however, as a whole, the USAF has been inconsistent in 

employing effects-based operations across the spectrum of 

conflict. American airpower has accomplished its most significant 

improvements at the tactical level of war, but is less reliable in 
20 

creating operational and strategic effects. In a similar vein, 

airpower has become very effective at producing direct, physical 

effects, and it is becoming increasingly capable of creating certain 

widespread systemic effects” (Beagle, p. vi). 

In sum, Beagle argues for getting away from traditional destruction-based 

operations as the ultimate end and focusing on generating effects, rather than 

destruction, to achieve political, military, and strategic goals. 

3. “A Concept Framework for Joint Experimentation: Effects-Based 

Operations” (2001). This paper was designed to link rapid decisive operations 

(RDO) with EBO to illustrate their relationship, and to demonstrate that RDO is 

“predicated upon effects-based operations” (JFCOM 2001, p. E-ii). EBO is examined 

as a subset of another concept—RDO—and is also defined as a “basic cornerstone 

for concept experimentation” (JFCOM 2001, p. E-ii). 

Understanding the adversary is the major focus area for this paper. The means 

of understanding the adversary can be found through the following: 

1. U. S. interagency cooperation, as well as cooperation among other 

agencies; 

2. The ability to “predict” the intentions of the adversary; and 

3. The ability to shape the environment through political-military interface 

through internal U.S.-organization cooperation. 

The assessment portion of EBO is also given emphasis in this paper: 

“Effects-based operations demand an assessment process that can 

quickly take into account a comprehensive understanding of the 

adversary, the results of the collaborative planning process which 

established the current course of action, the tactical actions taken 

to date (both Blue and Red), and the effects which were created by 

these actions to measure the level of success achieved in order to 

facilitate decisions by commanders on whether or not to adjust the 

current course of action” (p. E-iii). 

Therefore, understanding the adversary is really the overarching concept that 

will drive the conduct and execution of effects-based operations.

4. Effects-Based Operations: A Grand Challenge for the Analytical Community

(2001). As the title makes clear, this book by Paul Davis on effects-based operations 

focuses on the challenge it poses to the analytical community. His work seeks out 

new methods of analysis and modeling to represent EBO. Davis’s motivation in 

producing his work appears to be “the belief that analysis methods need to be 

improved so that they can be useful in studies and operations undertaken from an 

effects-based perspective.” (Davis, p. xviii) 
21 

Davis defines EBO as “operations conceived and planned in a systems 

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” (Davis, p. 7). 

Davis discusses EBO in terms of the type of modeling requirements the 

concept will generate. 

“Because much of EBO is tied to affecting decisions and 

behaviors of people and organizations or the operation of complex 

systems and organizations, much of the related modeling should 

be organized around adaptive systems for command and control 

and other matters, rather than around the mass and physical 

characteristics of forces. This implies emphasis on the concepts 

and technology of agent-based modeling (albeit in many 

variations), as well as on system engineering” (Davis, p. 80).

5. “New Perspectives on Effects-Based Operations: Annotated Briefing” (June 

2001). The Joint Advanced Warfighting Program (JAWP) at the Institute for Defense 

Analyses in Alexandria, Virginia, studied EBO from the perspective of the future 

joint force commander. It examined historical examples, developed a description and 

definition of EBO, and explored the idea of discourses as essential to its execution. 

The annotated briefing focuses on 

“...effects-based operations and the military instrument of 

national power (in the form of a joint force). More than just 

linking planned actions to strategic outcomes, there must be an 

operational assessment and feedback mechanism. Adversaries 

must be viewed as complex, adaptive systems of systems in 

dimensions beyond just the physical. Staffs must provide their 

commanders with courses of action that are not only executable, 

but also where the intended effects are observable. The emerging 

notion of information superiority is powerful, but decision 

superiority is of crucial importance.” (abstract, JAWP internal 

website). 

This JAWP paper discusses the relationship of EBO to the emerging 

capabilities associated with DoD’s force transformation. 

“US forces will not gain the significant benefits of these new 

capabilities unless the precision of the systems are matched with 

precision of thinking: analyzing, planning, executing and 

assessing the effects of the systems. These new capabilities offer 

the opportunity to achieve an efficiency of effects that past 

commanders could never realize” (JAWP Annotated Briefing, p. 

5). 

6. “An Historical Perspective on Effects-Based Operations” (October 2001). 

This paper compares campaigns from the Civil War and World War II. The authors 
22 

argue that effects-based operations are not new and stress the adaptive nature of 

effects-based operations, to include adaptation of the adversary and ourselves. Here, 

effects-based operations are defined as “a systematic approach to the operational 

cycle of analysis, planning, execution and assessment that results in the focused 

application of military and other capabilities to realize specific, desired effects at all 

the levels of war and in the face of friction, ambiguity, uncertainty and adaptive 

adversaries” (abstract, JAWP internal website). The authors write: 

“Military leaders must understand the enemy well enough to gain 

real insights into his structure and processes, characterize what is 

important to him and why, and conduct operations in which they 

aim their actions at producing effects that will contribute to or 

realize outcomes. A successful commander is willing to alter his 

prewar preconceptions and assumptions when confronting tactical 

and operational realities. This is the essence of effects-based 

operations: assessing and adapting operations to suit actual 

conditions before those conditions dramatically change” (JAWP 

Historical Perspective, p. ES-1). 

Surprisingly enough, these historical examples also reveal the length and 

difficulty of the learning curve for adaptation. In both the Civil War and World War 

II examples, the learning took years, with a great cost in lives. Today military 

officers, analysts, and decision makers study and seek to gain real-time experience in 

effects-based operations in order to shorten the learning curve and adaptation process 

down to days or even hours. 

7. “Effects-Based Operations: A New Operational Model?” (April 2002). This 

paper draws heavily from the 2001 JFCOM White Paper on EBO. The language and 

focus are similar, but Batschelet seeks to define EBO while examining the utility of 

the concept for future operations. He takes a Service-specific approach, determining 

the implications for the U. S. Army should EBO be institutionalized. However, 

despite a Service-centric focus, Batschelet takes on the interesting question of 

whether EBO can serve as a common conceptual denominator for the U. S. forces. 

“Implementing effects-based operations in the Army should prove 

relatively easy. However, leading the transition to effects-based 

operations in the joint community is likely to be problematic and 

will require a culture change within all the services. Perhaps the 

most explicit challenge will be to overcome service parochialism 

and the rejection of the concept due to the ‘not invented here’ 

prejudice. Changing the culture will take many years as leaders 

and staffs become familiar with the concept and effects-based 

thinking becomes inculcated in service and joint educational 

programs and institutions” (Batschelet, p. 14). 

Batschelet discusses the necessity of change in education. His paper serves as a 

reminder that at some point, grappling with that issue must occur as the next part of 

the EBO evolutionary process. 
23 

8. “Effects-Based Operations: Theory, Application, and the Role of Airpower” 

(April 2002). This paper is a thesis from the U. S. Army War College, written by Lt. 

Col. Brett Williams (USAF). It seeks to dispel the idea that effects-based operations 

rely on the unattainable concept of “perfect information,” ignoring the fog and 

friction inherent in war, and thus are not useful. Specifically, Williams argues that 

“...effects-based operations does not depend on information 

dominance, high-end warfare, or even precision strike to make it 

useful and as a theory, it is applicable across the spectrum of 

conflict. The paper defines effects-based operations theory and 

explains how it helps develop and assess strategy within the 

constraints of information analysis and acceptable risk. It 

describes how to use effects-based operations at the operational 

level with emphasis on interagency coordination, effects-based 

mission planning, and continuous assessment. Finally, the paper 

addresses how the Air Force should use effects-based operations 

to define airpower’s role in joint warfighting, employ airpower in 

a gradual context, and develop better joint air operations plans” 

(Williams, p.iii). 

The role of airpower with respect to EBO appears to be a common theme, due 

in part to USAF Major General David Deptula, who has been prolific on the subject 

and on the larger concept of EBO. As EBO means so many different things to 

different people, it only makes sense to bound the research using a particular theme. 

However, there is still a need to answer broader questions. Airpower is not the only 

element that can benefit from using EBO. Those studies that look to improve joint 

operations of all sorts are necessary as well as the more narrowly focused papers. 

9. “ACC White Paper: Effects-Based Operations” (May 2002). The Air Combat 

Command (ACC) White Paper emphasizes an EBO methodology in order to plan, 

execute, and assess operations “designed to attain specific effects required to achieve 

desired national security outcomes...this methodology improves our ability to use all 

elements of national power to achieve national policy goals” (ACC White Paper, p. 

iii). A methodology is needed (1) to fight against inconsistency when effects-based 

thinking is applied to military operations, and (2) to legitimize EBO so EBO 

becomes accepted into joint and Service doctrine. This paper argues that failure to 

codify EBO in doctrine can explain why EBO has not been prevalent throughout the 

history of warfare. 

The paper discusses a proposed EBO methodology whose purpose is to 

examine causal linkages and, as a first step, to develop planning processes for EBO. 

“The EBO methodology takes the objectives-based process a step 

further, allowing planners and commanders to examine conditions 

and causal linkages through which actions lead to objectives...” 

“Causal linkages explain why planners think the proposed actions 

will create desired effects.” 
24 

“Not only does this type of analysis help to understand why a 

given action may work, it is also likely to reveal the fact that 

historically relevant actions may not work in a particular case. 

This is true, once again, because it is not the action itself that 

achieves the effect, but the relevance of the causal linkages 

activated by the action, in light of the current situation, that 

determines whether or not the effect is achieved” (ACC White 

Paper, p 5-6 and 8). 

10. “Thinking Effects: Effects-Based Methodology for Joint Operations” 

(October 2002). This paper discusses the effects of transformation and how 

transformation will affect how the military thinks and operates. Effects-based 

operations are the means by which this new thinking and operating will be 

conducted. 

This paper draws from the Air Combat Command White Paper of May 2002. 

Both papers state that “EBO is not focused on conquest or necessarily even warfare 

as traditionally defined” (Mann, Endersby, and Searle, p. 1). The authors create a 

methodology to address the concerns raised when creating effects and conditions, 

and to better assess the results of military actions. The main problem the authors 

identify is that of out-thinking and out-adapting competing organizations, and they 

believe that the EBO methodology is a means of solving it. They also seek to create a 

common language so that various, disparate concept thinkers can better understand 

EBO. 

The paper argues that the new security environment created by the end of the 

Cold War era is the impetus behind the development of this thinking on EBO. 

“Our nation’s armed forces need to move to a new paradigm; one 

based not on conquest, which is almost never the goal today, but 

on achieving success across the entire spectrum of engagement 

whether political, military, humanitarian or some combination 

thereof...This study proposed correctives to incorporate EBO in 

USAF and joint doctrine through an effects-based lexicon, theory 

and process” (Mann, Endersby, and Searle, p. 4-5). 

This paper has a strong Air Force focus. It discusses the steps the Air Force has 

taken to implement changes in education to facilitate a learning environment 

conducive to EBO. 

The strongest challenges to successful implementation of the EBO 

methodology are identified as anticipatory assessment (the ability to anticipate 

outcomes) and high-order analysis (rigorous and accurate analysis). 

11. “Effects-Based Operations: Building the Analytic Tools,” (October 2002). In 

this paper, Desmond Saunders-Newton and Aaron Frank argue for the development 

of new analytic tools to operationalize the EBO concept. They note, for example, 

that 
25 

“...the lynchpin of EBO ultimately will be the development of 

conceptual tools that link military operations with strategic 

effects. In the context of EBO, assessments require considering 

the second-, third-, fourth-, and nth-order effects of actions and 

how these effects may propagate through time.” 

According to Saunders-Newton and Frank, this requires a more complete 

understanding of “friendly and adversary systems,” which in turn requires the 

development of eight different information sets: technical, geographic, infrastructure, 

organizational, sociopolitical, psychological, context, and dynamics. Taken together, 

and embedded within a dynamic framework designed to model adversary behavior, 

these information sets will help analysts and decision makers better understand our 

nation’s adversaries as complex adaptive systems. 

They further note the importance of interagency cooperation and suggest the 

development of interagency analytic centers. These centers would tap into a set of 

“skills and organizational resources” broader than those possessed by DoD alone. 

This, they believe, will challenge the DoD and require it to reorganize in such a way 

that it becomes capable of “coordinating its operations with all relevant 

governmental agencies to ensure that military operations are synchronized with other 

forms of national power.” 

12. Effects-Based Operations: Applying Network Centric Warfare in Peace, Crisis, 

and War (November 2002). This book discusses EBO in the context of the networkcentric warfare (NCW) concept; within the larger context of the changed security 

environment after 11 September 2001; and with regard to technological revolutions 

in sensors, information technology, and weapons. 

“...effects-based operations are not new. Their roots can be traced 

back for centuries and are what good generals and statesmen have 

always attempted to do. When combined with network-centric 

thinking and technologies, however, such an operational approach 

offers a way of applying the power of the network to the human 

dimension of war and to military operations in peace and crisis, as 

well as combat. In essence, effects-based operations represent an 

opportunity to use networked forces to achieve non-linear impacts 

and to expand the scope of action across the entire spectrum of 

conflict” (Smith, p. xxiii). 

Smith takes a concept that has already been written about extensively 

(network-centric warfare), and uses it to illustrate the complementary nature of NCW 

in partnership with EBO. The changed security environment provides the impetus for 

his book. 
26 

13. “Joint Forces Command Paper: Effects-Based Operations” (February 

2003). JFCOM says that EBO 

“...brings decision superiority to the conduct of national security. 

This decision-making capacity spans the entire range of human 

activity from cooperation to conflict. However, conflict and its 

antecedents remain the principal concern of national leaders 

because their consequences normally yield clear winners and 

losers. Moreover, those who can outthink their competition are 

most likely to prevail. Yet, this capacity to triumph is not based 

solely on the wisdom of the contenders, but the ability to translate 

decisions into actions to achieve the desired effects: faster and 

better than an opponent. In short, the nation that is able to use its 

instruments of power in a deliberate, coherent, precise and timely 

manner will dictate the policy effects—whether managing 

cooperation or conflict” (JFCOM, p. 1-2). 

More than the other papers reviewed here, this paper emphasizes the need for 

interaction between all levels and elements of government. The DIME concept 

(diplomatic, informational, military, and economic) is a major point of discussion 

within the paper and illustrates the meaning behind the phrase “all elements of 

national power.” The political and military aspects are discussed in equal detail. The 

commander and his battlespace are given mention but not priority. 

JFCOM also makes an argument for preemption as an acceptable course of 

action. The paper argues that “improved thinking and new capabilities must be 

developed and instituted to ensure that the nation can take actions that will achieve 

explicit policy aims while mitigating unanticipated or unintended consequences” 

(JFCOM 2003, p. 1). 

 
27 

E. ACRONYMS 

ACC Air Combat Command 

BDA Battle damage assessment 

CSIS Center for Strategic and International Studies 

DIME Diplomatic, informational, military, and economic 

DHS Department of Homeland Security 

DoD Department of Defense 

DSB Defense Science Board 

DUF Discriminate use of force 

EBO Effects-based operations 

FAO Foreign Area Officer 

FFRDC Federally Funded Research and Development Center 

GWAPS Gulf War Air Power Survey 

IDA Institute for Defense Analyses 

INSCOM (U.S. Army) Intelligence and Security Command 

ISR Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance 

JAWP Joint Advanced Warfighting Program 

JFC Joint force commander 

JFCOM Joint Forces Command 

JWAC Joint Warfare Analysis Center 

KTO Kuwaiti Theater of Operations 

NCW Network-centric warfare 

NDP National Defense Panel 

NGO Non-governmental organization 

OEF Operation Enduring Freedom 
28 

OIF Operation Iraqi Freedom 

OSD Office of the Secretary of Defense 

PEP Personnel Exchange Program 

PME Professional military education 

RDO Rapid decisive operations 

ROE Rules of engagement 

SOCOM Special Operations Command 

STRATCOM Strategic Command 

WMD Weapons of mass destruction