The concept I heard constantly was “effects-based operations.” In its original design, EBO was, and remains, a sound Air Force targeting concept. By employing a “system of systems” approach to attacking certain target sets and by forecasting the degradation in enemy capabilities, some air operations could be precisely calculated to work based on predicted effects. Effects-based targeting had worked well when targeting physically defined, closed systems such as power grids and road networks. For instance, by destroying certain railroad bridges, we could force the enemy to, predictably, move by
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