Introduction
The current military decision making process (MDMP) is a rigid way of problem solving which calls for top-down instructions. Not only is this time consuming but it also means that the decision makers are not the people with field experience but people more influenced by D.C. politics. For the last 20 years there has been an increasingly heated discussion in the military and, between the military and policy makers as to the approach military operations planning should use to gain desired goals. The argument started 50 years ago when behavior science started being replaced by cognitive science in universities as a more reasonable approach to understanding humans and their problem solving capacity. This essay reviews the cause and effect or (EBO) method and compares it with two methods grounded in rational theory.
Discussion
Description of theories In the military the MDMP is facing a two way split in opinion of how normative behavior is interpreted with respect to setting goals and the behavior used to reach those goals. One is the traditional injunctive norm which has been perceived as “the way things are done” as reason enough for the use of the military to reach political goals. This view is based on the behavioral science theory of cause and effect in other words, a goal can be reached by causing a certain behavior to gain a certain effect (Da Roche, 2005). He suggests that effects based operations (EBO) or effects based approach to operations (EBAO) coupled with pragmatical analysis can deliver successful operational goals.
An alternative for problem solving to reach military goals is systematic operational design (SOD). SOD uses reasoned, educated deliberation for decision making. Instead of making a prediction and trying to manipulate reality to make the prediction come true; SOD uses knowledge and the facts at hand to problem solve (Challans, 2009.) The theory of reflection-in-action is also a rational process that allows the people in the situation at hand to use logic to make decisions by using fact based reasoning (Williams, 2010). Like SOD, the theory of reflection-in-action is the opposite of the classical elite theory of decision making which EBO/EBAO and pragmatical analysis rely upon.
Challans, (2009) and Williams, (2010) argue that because goals are diverse, the solutions need to vary depending on experiential knowledge and facts. This type of decision making is commonly referred to now as knowledge-based problem solving.
Comparison Challans (2009) is especially outspoken in his urging to get rid of the EBO/EBAO strategy. He describes that type of strategy as based on teleology but with a twist from Aristotlean definition of operative “final causes” to “efficient causes.” Challans (2009) view is that there is “no room for the dinosaurs on the ark” which are conceived by “starting with the desired effect and moving through a backward-planning process”
On the other hand Da Rocha (2005) argues that using his pragmatical analysis with EBO/EBAO planning can gain the effects desired. Da Rocha’s approach is definitely an old model and not one that has shown reliable successes. That is the main problem with EBO/EBAO – as the outcome of a strategy changes the goal changes.
In behavioral terms the SOD approach is a type of pluralism which is used by a small number of people (as opposed to diffusion which affects large numbers of people) who act in a way particular to each situation to reach an appropriate goal. The EBO spread, like many ideas and innovations do during diffusion, across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. NATO uses the EBAO approach.
Da Rocha (2005) gives as a successful example the US government’s 1989 EBO strategy towards General Noreiga arguing that by treating Panama’s leader as a common criminal, a drug trafficker, that the US government was using diplomatic and economic policies. The purposive action (based on expectations of behavior) was to have General Noriega recognized only as an individual, a private person, not the leader of a country. The goal was to try him in an American court of law using national drug trafficking laws; plus ideally that the action of the US would motivate an insurgency to overthrow Noreiga. Da Rocha (2005) views the operation as militarily “partly successful.” Although the primary goal of overthrowing a foreign government without military invention hadn’t worked; the US did succeed in reaching its goal of unseating Gen. Noreiga. Yet it can only be considered a success because the original goal was changed to meet the outcome. In other words the planners start with a goal in mind, then events are manipulated with the assumption that events and people will behave predictably; an outcome is reached and the original goal is adjusted to match the outcome.
Gonzales (2001) reported on the trauma of the 1989 U.S. invasion into Panama that still affects the survivors. Challans (2009) points out that EBO/EBAO advocates are illogical and when they “shrug their shoulders at collateral damage . . . the unintended harm to non-combatants” explaining it away as part of the price of reaching the goal; clearly they have not reasoned out that the deaths of innocent people is the goal of terrorism. He disagrees with the EBO/EBAO on both logical and ethical grounds. (Challans, 2009)
Challans (2009) offers systematic operational design (SOD) as an alternative. His reasoning is “Its (SOD) roots grow from modern science and philosophy while EBO/EBAO remains pseudo-scientific and pseudo-philosophical.” EBO/EBAO begins with assumptions and SOD begins with questions, thereby revealing their relative differences with respect to knowledge. Even though SOD is philosophically interpretive - not pretending to be scientific - it remains consistent with modem scientific practice and understanding because it refuses to proceed without accounting for evidence. It also accommodates a moral posture. (Challans, 2009)
Major Blair Williams (2010) examines the value of intuitive decision making, reflection-in-action, when immediate decision making is required. He also teaches how to use this strategy appropriately under stress by using observable knowledge. He argues that the military decision making process (MDMP) is slow, ponderous and not always useful and not always practical. He agrees that the method he recommends is not pure science but it does have the advantage of ‘not making decisions based on wished for endings’ but on the practical application of experiential knowledge and common sense. (Williams, 2010)
Challans’ (2009) deepest foundational argument against EBO/EBAO is that it is based in teleological philosophical theory. Challens is angry that it is used because it is not a strategy that takes a logical approach. We live in a world which has formed through evolution. Clearly evolution has no rigid laws of cause and effect. .Here is one of his most interesting arguments against effect based operations. He is making the point that the world view that produces EBO theory is far removed from the reality of our world.
“. . . biological evolution depends upon great stability and comparatively miniscule variations over huge periods of time that defy the imagination. Chance is the wrong concept with which to understand evolution. The important concept is that of contingency. Contingency is the opposite (the logical complement) of necessity. Causation entails necessity; evolution entails contingency” (Challans, 2009).
Challans (2009) suggests that even action theory is better for explaining human activity then is causation (cause and effect) because causation is borrowed from the physical science and applied inappropriately in the social sciences. He argues that there is no way to have the knowledge necessary to be able to predict “this chain of causes and effects.” He notes that when at its most popular EBO was presented as an empirical science (based on observation and knowledge) which it obviously is not. (Challans, 2009)
Conclusion
EBO/EBAO is not supported by those that have observed that an entity cannot manipulate another entity, citizenry or government into behaving predictably; too many undesired negative effects overwhelm any positive gains. The main argument for EBO/EBAO has been most recently justified by neoliberals as “the end result justifies the means.”
Over and over again EBO has shown that the only successes in using the strategy are for the ruling elite (classical elitism). The goals are shifted to match every outcome so anything that happens is considered to have been a success to some measure.
Marine Corps General James N. Mattis, commander of US Joint Forces Command called for the immediate end to all effects based operations (EBO) planning on August 14, 2008 (Challans, 2009). But the use of EBO is well entrenched in the US military’s way of thinking. The change in decision making strategy may be slow.
References
Challans, T. 2009. Tipping Sacred cows: Moral potential through operational art.
Military Review. militaryreview.www/mil. 89: 5. p. 19+.
Da Rocha, A. S. 2005. Effects-based operations: A military application of pragmatical analysis. Air & Space Power Journal. 19: 3. p. 29+. Retrieved 14 Nov. 2011 from http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5037583748.
Gonzales, D. (2001). 12 years later, scars of the U.S. invasion remain. New York Times.
www.nytimes.com. Retrieved18 Nov. 2011 from
<http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/03/international/americas/03PANA.html>.
Williams, B. S. (2010) Heuristics and biases in military decision making. Military Review. militaryreview.www/mil Sept.-Oct. 2010. [Major Blair S. Williams, U.S. Army is a joint planner at U.S. Military Academy.].
