A History of Effects-Based Air Operations

Effects-Based Operations focus on results achieved from using military operations-the output. Too often, military commanders and their staffs concentrate on the means-the inputs-sterile metrics like body counts, bomb tonnage, or the number of sorties flown. U.S. airmen have always recognized the inherent logic and desirability of concentrating on effects, and their doctrine going into World War II emphasized this focus. Unfortunately, the intelligence apparatus necessary to analyze a complex enemy economic system did not then exist. Since then, new technologies and new analytical tools-which came into their own during the Persian Gulf War of 1991-have made this decades-old concept a reality.