This article provides background on an effects-based approach and explains the key elements, highlights their application in current joint operations, and discusses their incorporation in joint doctrine, training, and education. In the interest of providing the "bottom line up front," an effects-based approach adds value to traditional joint processes in four areas: (1) improved unified action among military, interagency, multinational, and nongovernmental organizations; (2) an expanded understanding of the operational environment beyond the traditional military battlespace focus; (3) an improved joint planning process that uses effects to clarify the desired endstate conditions in terms of the operational environment; and (4) an enhanced joint assessment process that measures effects attainment rather than just task accomplishment.

As the lead agent for the Secretary of Defense for transformation of joint forces to meet these challenges, U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) supports the joint community by pursuing a number of transformation-related objectives. One objective being discussed by the Secretary of Defense and other senior leaders in the Department of Defense (DOD) is creating capabilities within an overall framework of shared, knowledge empowered, effects-based operations (EBO). Since 2001, the command has focused on testing and refining the concept while seeking the best ways to implement it. This evolution has included Service participation in joint experimentation, discussions with faculty at mid- and senior-level Service and joint schools, observation of effects-related constructs in action at deployed operational headquarters, and engagement with interagency and multinational partners. This article provides background on an effects-based approach and explains the key elements, highlights their application in current joint operations, and discusses their incorporation in joint doctrine, training, and education. In the interest of providing the bottom line up front, an effects-based approach adds value to traditional joint processes in four areas: 1) improved unified action among military, interagency, multinational, and nongovernmental organizations, 2) an expanded understanding of the operational environment beyond the traditional military battlespace focus, 3) an improved joint planning process that uses effects to clarify the desired endstate conditions in terms of the operational environment, and 4) an enhanced joint assessment process that measures effects attainment rather than just task accomplishment.

The inherent difficulty in developing and executing military courses of action to achieve the desired end-state comes from the complexities of the operational environment. Each environment contains within it different initial conditions that affect the nature of military operations with relationships that are as complex as they are numerous. This means that a similar course of action executed in a similar manner in one environment may not produce similar effects in another. This occurs due to the nature of those initial conditions, and how they alter the effects produced within that operational environment. The Effects-Based Board (EBB) seeks to provide clarity to an otherwise convoluted system of relationships by supporting the Combatant Command, and their joint staff, with a board of professional military and civilian personnel whose collective knowledge can help shape course of action development. Subject matter experts and liaisons from the Department of Defense, Department of State, national intelligence agencies, intergovernmental/non-governmental organizations, and foreign nations make up the membership of the board, and through their guidance can shape the development and execution of deliberate and crisis action plans. Identifying the initial conditions, determining the effects of their linkages, and creating courses of action that target those links in order to shape them can, in due course, shape the operational environment towards the desired end-state.

Recent joint force thinking has espoused effects-based operations (EBO) as an evolutionary, some say revolutionary, approach to warfare. The 2003 Joint Operations Concepts document states, "The Joint Force uses an effects-based approach." With this in mind the primary question is, Can an effects-based approach to the conduct of joint close air support (CAS) improve achievement of the supported ground commander's intent? EBO history and theory are explored as well as the current state of joint CAS doctrine, demonstrating that EBO is conceptually well documented but effects-based ideas are just recently beginning to appear in joint publications. Current CAS doctrine presents the objective-based approach to warfare prevalent in most joint and service publications. Due to the lack of historical examples of effects-based CAS operations, the thesis uses a qualitative comparison of objective- and effects-based CAS to analyze the primary question. The analysis reveals an effects-based approach can improve achievement of the supported ground commander's intent to some degree over the current approach and suggests that EBO is an evolutionary development of objective-based operations that should be formally incorporated into the conduct of joint CAS.

This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to post-Cold War military theory for students of strategic studies. This second edition has been fully revised and updated, including a new chapter on peacekeeping, and examines contemporary strategic thought on the conduct of war in the sea, land, air, nuclear, space and cyber domains, as well as irregular warfare. Each chapter identifies contemporary strategic thinkers in a particular area, examines strategic thought through the lens of identifiable themes, and discusses the ideas of classical strategists to provide historical context. Examples of the link between the use of military force and the pursuit of political objectives are presented, such as airpower against ISIS and in Libya, counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq, counter-piracy operations off the coast of Africa, and the Stuxnet virus in Iran. The chapters identify trends, statements and principles that indicate how military power can best be employed to effect political ends, while the conclusion paints an overall picture of the relationship between classic and contemporary strategic thinking within each warfare domain. This book will be essential reading for students of strategic studies, war studies and military history, and is highly recommended for students of security studies and international relations in general.