Global Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Systematic Concepts and Plan of Implementation in Military

Samson Jacob^* Department of Sociology, State University of New York, Avenue Compound, New York, USA
^*Correspondence: Samson Jacob, Department of Sociology, State University of New York, Avenue Compound, New York, USA, Email:

Received: 03-Jan-2022, Manuscript No. GJISS-22-10; Editor assigned: 05-Jan-2022, Pre QC No. GJISS-22-10; Reviewed: 19-Jan-2022, QC No. GJISS-22-10; Revised: 24-Jan-2022, Manuscript No. GJISS-22-10; Published: 31-Jan-2022, DOI: 10.35248/2319-8834/22.11.010

Description

The implementation of systems approaches to support the improvement of military capabilities is widely known and accepted. Hard systems methodologies, systems engineering and systems analysis have successfully been useful to procure and maintain military systems since the 1950s. In contrast, systems thinking and principles have explicitly been applied to the use of military capacity, operations concepts, only since the mid-1990s. The best known systems approaches to support the use of military forces are the U.S. effects based operations, effects based approach to operations, which nowadays is generally referred to as the comprehensive approach, and Israel country systemic operational design. The various systems approaches to military operations are in this paper here after referred to as systems based operation concepts for the sake of clarity, unless it is meaningful to distinguish a specific topic from the other stream concepts.

Systematic concepts have, however, faced strong reproval regarding their manageable for military operations since 2006. The observed failures of the systems concepts to convey the advertised profit in the real world have resulted in the military group had left two of the above mentioned concepts. The systematic based operations was to turn over as a military conviction after the second Lebanon war in 2006, and the U.S. efforts based operation was cancelled in 2008 as a result of being ‘fundamentally flawed’.

Therefore, this study attempts to expand the discussion about the challenges and failures of the systematic based operations concepts by viewing them primarily from the systems perspective. This is important for both theoretical and practical reasons. Theoretically, the failures of the systematic based operations concepts can be seen in general as failures of the systems approach to tackle complex problems effectively. Awareness of systems problems associated with the systematic based operations concepts could yield the systems community insights about the applicability of specific systems approaches to big problem situations. Such awareness could deepen understanding of the importance of enabling factors, such as training, to increase the likelihood that the systems approach will succeed. In practice, the effects based approach to operations concept is in force, and the latest developments suggest that its role will be grateful in the future.

Insights from a systems aspect could help experienced in effects based approach to operations avoid problems in implementing the topic in reality, problems which the U.S. and Israeli military forces considered too extensive to overcome.

Thus, the objectives of this paper are to present the key characteristics of contemporary systematic based operations concepts, review the critique of these concepts and discuss the critique from the systems perspective. The paper is an exploratory type of research which aims to provide fresh insights regarding the challenges and failings the systematic based operations concepts have faced.

The effects based approach to operations concept is introduced on general systems theory. Effects based approach to operations concepts view the world, including the battle space, as a set of systems composed of tangible elements, i.e. nodes, and their relationships to each other. The nodes represent discrete elements, such as people, material, facilities and information. The relationships, links, depict the physical, functional and behavioural relations that can exist between and among nodes and systems. The aim of the approach is to influence the behavior or capability of the opponent through multiple, integrated and simultaneous actions directed at key system nodes and links.

The efforts based operations approach is a step away from a destruction centric, attrition based linear approach to warfare. It pursues improving the ability to affect the opponent’s capabilities through the integrated application of select instruments of national power, including political, military, economic, social, infrastructure and information means. This approach also seeks to link a strategic political vision with the military operations to ensure that military strategy contributes to state political goals by focusing more on outputs than inputs.

Although the term efforts based operations originates from the first gulf war in 1991, the basic idea of the concept, the causal relationships in conflict, has been known for centuries. While efforts based operations was already being talked about widely by the beginning of twenty first century, it gained increasing eminent in 2001 when the efforts based operations white paper was issued by the U.S. joint force command. The joint force command developed efforts based operations further by publishing a pre ideological handbook of the revised topic, called ‘effects based approach to joint operations’ in 2006. The use of effects and related efforts based operations concepts were finally incorporated in the U.S. joint ideology publication, joint operations in late 2006.