Designing A Commander ( Cocom ) Theater Campaign Plans

General Franks and joint planners identified various strengths in the Iraq pre-invasion planning efforts of the Joint Staff. For instance, throughout development of the Iraqi operational approach, planners recognized Saddam Hussain and the City of Bagdad as strategic Centers of Gravity (COG) as a major sources of Iraqi power and strength to the Hussain regime.5 (JP5-0, p. III-22) By comparison, Karl Von Clausewitz referred to the COG as the “the hub of all power and movement, which everything depends or the point at which all our energies should be directed.”6 (JP5-0, p. III-22) In addition, General Frank’s and planners’ operational approach acknowledged the Iraqi Army and the Republican Guard as key operational COGs targeted in pre-invasion

Joint operation planning begins when an appropriate authority recognizes potential for military capability to be employed in response to a potential or actual crisis. At the strategic level, that authority—the president, SecDef, or

The US Central Command’s planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) was not the all-inclusive plan that joint operations require. Joint operations are no longer limited to major combat operations, but encompass a wide range of actions. Planning for joint operations requires input from many sources to produce a successful campaign plan to meet the desired end state. Operational design provides a concept and a construction framework that underpins a campaign and its execution. (JP GL13). Evaluating the planning process by using the operational design identifies some of CENTCOM’s shortfalls. US military planners’ lack of understanding of the operational environment led to an inadequately defined problem that resulted in a faulty operational approach. CENTCOM’s approach did not have the right assessment to gauge the effectiveness of the plan such as alerting planners when and if the plan needed modification. Current joint planning policy incorporates several of CENTCOM’s shortfalls in an attempt to provide a better planning process for future joint operations.

I agree that the Joint Strategic Planning System (JSPS) needs improved to meet emerging needs of the Army. The JSPS is too rigid and requires unnecessary levels of approval resulting in delayed decisions. Geographic Combatant Commands are required to develop theater level campaign plans, and Functional Combatant Commands are required to develop global and functional campaign plans. (Sweeney, p. 8) Through the use of In-Progress Reviews (IPR), Combatant Commanders are able to discuss shortages or impacts to their plans directly with the Secretary of Defense. This provides immediate feedback and opportunity to address concerns without all the current approval processes. These IPRs also reduced the confusion created by multiple products and

In order to develop effective solutions for complex military problems, the Joint Community within the US Military adopted the methodology of Operational Design in Joint Doctrine. This methodology addresses the concept of complex, ill-structured or “wicked” problems. In fact, Lessons Learned as a result of operations conducted over the last 15 years played an instrumental role in the continued development of this doctrine. Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) illustrates a perfect case study for evaluation utilizing this methodology. Therefore, the intent of this paper is to evaluate US Military campaign planning for OIF by using operational design as the framework for this analysis. First, this paper looks at how planners and commanders interpreted pre-invasion civilian policy guidance, their understanding of the current operational environment, and how these commanders defined the problem. Next, it identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the initial approach. After discussing this initial approach, this paper examines how commanders assessed the campaign and refined the approach – to include how the reframing occurred. Lastly, it provides examples of how these lessons learned shaped current joint planning policy and doctrine.

In evaluating the campaign planning efforts for Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), using an operational design (OD) as a framework for the analysis, the overall strategic and operational planning process was deeply flawed and inadequate in addressing the complex security challenges posed by the Iraq situation. This essay will assess how well Commanders and planners understood the operational environment (OE) and refined their operational approach (OA) over time. In conjunction with articulating these assessments, it will also consider the process of reframing, as an important part of the OD methodology within the joint planning process, while comparing that to what strategically and operationally occurred in Iraq leading up to the “Surge” but particularly during 2006 - 2007.

JP 5-0 describes Operational Design as a three step process resulting in the development of an operational approach. (JP 5-0, III-7)The first step is to “understand the strategic direction.” This ensures the commander understands the strategic endstate. (Eikmeier, “Operational Design,” 109)The second step is “understand the operational environment.” This helps the commander identify the problem and how the action of the actors impacts potential outcomes or accomplishment of the

Operational art is the application of planners and commander’s skills, intuition, knowledge, judgment, and experience that link ends, ways, means and risk to achieve a desired end state. Whereas, operational design is an iterative process of understanding and problem framing that supports planners and commanders in their application of operational art to conceive and construct viable approaches to operations and campaigns. The result of operational design is the commander’s operational approach that generally describes the actions the joint force needs to accomplish its end state. With the overall intent of operational art and design providing a bridge between tactics and strategy, which links military operations to national interests.

Shortcomings identified during the OIF planning process led to the Adaptive Planning and Execution System (APEX) concept initiated by Secretary Rumsfeld. Although still under development, this process provides a continual dialogue between civilian strategic leaders, combatant commanders, and planners. APEX incorporates key fundamentals of mission command that were absent during OIF including responsive interaction across the entire strategic planning network. The current doctrine for joint operational planning, JP 5-0, also incorporates valuable lessons from the OIF initial planning and execution failures. The development of an operational approach equips planners with detailed commander’s guidance, leads to understanding of the operational environment, and defines the problem. This well-defined process yields an operational approach to achieve the end state. Many of these elements were absent or lacking during OIF. The operational design process provides an array of tools that aid planners in achieving an accurate perception of the operational environment, frame the problem, and determine an approach. These areas were particularly lacking during planning for Iraq. The final component of operational art is assessment and it offers a direct relationship to mistakes in the OIF initial planning and execution. This doctrinal assessment process leads

This step analyzes each of the COAs developed in the previous step. "The heart of COA analysis is the war-gaming process . . . ." (Artillerization, n.d., "Step 4: Course of Action Analysis" section, ¶ 1). During this step, staff members come up with possible scenarios that could take place during the execution of the mission. The author's contribution to the war-gaming was what would happen if a piece of C3 equipment or capability were rendered unusable due to either malfunction or enemy action.

The 'Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis (JCOA) case study is regarding the U.S-Philippines partnership in counter-terrorism (CT) operations that took place from 2002-2011. The CT operation was titled as 'Operation ENDURING FREEDOM-PHILIPPINES (OEF-P) and was conducted by the partnership of Philippine security forces and US Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P). The CT cooperation took place at three levels, tactical, operational, and strategic. The role of JSOTF was that of 'advise and assist' whereby ground operations were conducted by the Philippine forces. The US cooperation for CT in Philippines was guided by the Joint Publication (JP) 5-0, Joint Operation Planning, and a policy and action framework to act as a binding framework for conducting joint, interagency, and multinational CT operations using full range of military operational capacity. The OEF-P was also conducted by incorporating JP 5-0 principles and guidelines of engagement. The OEF-P took place in Southern Philippines. Following is an assessment how the US forces used termination, military end state, and objectives of operational design (Joint Pub 5-0, page III-18) to develop and refine their operational approach.

In the view of global security,(2011) The military decision making process abbreviated as MDMP is a planning model that establishes procedures for analyzing a mission, developing and comparing courses of action(COA) that are best suited to accomplish the higher commander’s intention and mission. The MDMP comprise of seven stages and each stage depends on the previous step to produce its own output. This means that a mistake in the early stage will affect all the other stages that follow. These steps include:

The events that were described in this case study sounds to me as if they started off with the planning model of Rational Planning. I say this due to the fact that all the right parties were alerted to what needed to be done with goals being said and set to be put into place for starters. This did help with the main concerns being priorities and kept to along with formations being followed with effective organized tactics. They were put into place after the goals were set and made. As I read this case study and from my understandings this war was being analyzed and evaluated by senior officers in Washington who all had different ways and structures they thought

As seen through today’s prism of operational art and design, the U.S. military’s campaign planning for Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF) was not successful. This failure resulted from flaws in the planning process itself, and the conclusions that flowed from that process. The lack of adequate advance planning for Phase IV stability or transition operations proved especially problematic. This contributed directly to rising levels of violence in Iraq, and indirectly to increased public scrutiny of the war at home. Throughout 2006, the U.S. public, pundits and military planners debated the way forward in Iraq. The plan that emerged from this period, known as the surge, successfully overcame the deficiencies in the initial planning and execution

As military members we are educated to think very linearly about strategy. For many years we have been trained to have a strategic thought process based on the use of a methodology that espouses three major steps: Ends (Objectives), Ways (Strategic Concepts), and Means (Resources). (Barber 1997)