EBO Centers of Gravity Analysis

A core of EBO technology relating effects to mechanisms to actions exists in the AFRL Strategy Development Tools. ISX will extend that technological base to exploit COG information, at multiple levels of system abstraction using semantics withontology-based reasoning. We will design COG model of battle space that includes low fidelity abstract models and high-fidelity identification of key facts, relationships and battle space entities. With the technology solutions we envision, all commandersand their planning staff will have the tools to recognize and exploit strategic opportunities, and to do so in a repeatable fashion. This proposed effort is designed to support the commander with more complete knowledge of the battle space and elaborationsupporting: 1) Analysis of strategic intent of actions grounded by considerations of full set of options, direct and indirect effects, and, 2) realistic view of the battle space that includes templates of entities in the battle space and beliefs about theadversarial view of vulnerability of those entities. In Phase I, we will investigate the important research issues associated with design of technological approach. In Phase II, we will build prototype tools, extend ontologies, and experiment withknowledge discovery. EBO will apply force against the enemy to achieve the end-state effect with an effective use of assets and at a tempo necessary to influence the behavior and environment of today's adversaries. Good strategic planners have been andare continuing to use effect-based operations methods. But the planning process requires large number of staff hours, without opportunity to capture, reuse, and ensure the process. We envision those planners, from strategic to targeting, having a fullsuite of effects-based tools. Our approach exploits semantics in the same manner used by planners today in discovery of cross-COG entities and dependencies at multiple levels of abstraction. In the future, all planners will employ effects-based operations to plan how to impose force against enemy systems to achieve specific effects that contribute directly to the military and political objectives. Using EBO extended with COG analysis,commanders and planning staff will:o Understand strategic objectives and see opportunities in the battle space to achieve effectso Look at battle space and see opportune strategieso Consider new insights for Nth order effects, both positive and negative relationshipso Tools to compose and analyze alternative plans that can respond to adversarial changing behavior; capture of assumption and beliefs related to each of the plans