Deptula, speaking at the Gulf War Air Campaign Tenth Anniversary Retrospective, on 17 January 2001 on One Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, defined the goal of EBO; "If we focus on effects, the end of strategy, rather than force-on-force the traditional means to achieve it militarily, that enables us to consider different and perhaps more effective ways to accomplish the same goal quicker than in the past, with fewer resources and most importantly with fewer casualties.
"[4] Others have postulated that EBO could be interpreted as an emerging understanding that attacking a second-order target may have first order consequences for a variety of objectives, wherein the Commander's intent can be satisfied with a minimum of collateral damage or risk to his own forces.
Accordingly, EBO concepts traditionally take a "systemic approach" to security challenges, evaluating the situation through the lens of strategic centers of gravity—leadership; key essentials; infrastructure; population; and military forces.
[7] As defined by the United States Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM), effects-based operations are "a process for obtaining a desired strategic outcome or effect on the enemy through the synergistic and cumulative application of the full range of military and nonmilitary capabilities at all levels of conflict".
For instance, psychological operations, electronic warfare, logistical disruptions and other non-lethal means can be used to achieve the demoralization or defeat of an enemy force while minimizing civilian casualties or avoiding the destruction of infrastructure.
According to Batschelet's paper, seven elements comprise and differentiate EBO:[9] The core of the doctrine, to support superior decision-making and to understand the enemy's systems, lies in determining and calculating the philosophical (not physical) center of gravity (COG) of the combatants.
[13][14] The January–February 2004 issue of Field Artillery magazine featured a report on the implementation of Effects-Based Operations in Afghanistan "to help shape an environment that enables the reconstruction of the country as a whole.
"[15] United States policy objectives are to create a "government of Afghanistan committed to and capable of preventing the re-emergence of terrorism on Afghan soil."
An FA lieutenant, as an "Effects Support Team" (EST) leader, must understand how to employ lethal and non-lethal assets to realize the maneuver company commander's vision of future operations.
[15]This requires a shift away from "hot steel" (artillery fire) as a solution to all problems, and a focus on integration of multiple dimensions and methods to achieve desired results.
[citation needed] A study in 2008 concluded that a contributing factor to the Israeli Defense Force's defeat in the Israeli-Hezbollah Conflict in the Summer of 2006 was due in large part to an over reliance on EBO concepts.
Thus, one risks cherry-picking the variable (in this case EBO) that actually played a subordinate role in the negative outcome for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during this conflict.
In these documents dated 14 August 2008 Mattis said, "Effective immediately, USJFCOM will no longer use, sponsor or export the terms and concepts related to EBO ... in our training, doctrine development and support of JPME (Joint Professional Military Education)."
Mattis went on to say, "... we must recognize that the term "effects-based" is fundamentally flawed, has far too many interpretations and is at odds with the very nature of war to the point it expands confusion and inflates a sense of predictability far beyond that which it can be expected to deliver.
[2] Dag Henriksen, PhD, Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy, observes regarding the Mattis action, "Debating EBO without acknowledging the more general challenges of strategic thinking in the wars portrayed by General Mattis and others as empirical evidence of the flaws of that concept is somewhat intellectually dishonest and analytically misguided.
Including the overarching issues of military strategy would prove beneficial to both the EBO debate and—more importantly—the more general discussion about the utility of force.
Resistance to this kind of approach may be warranted when individuals mischaracterize EBO as (1) requiring complete knowledge of an adversary's intentions, (2) discounting the enemy's human dimension, and (3) being overly dependent on centralization to succeed.