how do you define a miliitary course of action?

by Mr. Lennie Bernier PhD 4 min read

course of action (US DoD Definition)
  1. Any sequence of activities that an individual or unit may follow.
  2. A possible plan open to an individual or commander that would accomplish, or is related to the accomplishment of the mission.
  3. The scheme adopted to accomplish a job or mission.
  4. A line of conduct in an engagement.

What is military course of action?

A COA is a plan describing the selected strategies and operational actions designed to accomplish the mission according to the commander's intent (NATO 2013: 4–66). Each COA that is developed must be significantly different from any other.Oct 11, 2019

How do you determine course of action?

Possible courses of action are typically developed using the following steps:
  1. Depict the scenario. Create a potential scenario based on the threats and hazards identified and prioritized in Step 2.
  2. Determine the amount of time available to respond. ...
  3. Identify decision points. ...
  4. Develop courses of action.

How do you write an Army course of action?

To develop a complete course of action, the staff must identify what, when, where, how, and why the unit will execute. A technique to quickly develop complete courses of action is for the XO to assemble the staff and follow the five-step method.

What are the COA criteria?

There are five fundamental issues that must be considered when developing COAs. A valid COA should be suitable, feasible, acceptable, distinguishable and complete [1]. A COA is suitable if it is in alignment with commander's intent and will accomplish the mission when carried out successfully.

What the meaning of course of action?

1. Any sequence of activities that an individual or unit may follow. 2. A possible plan open to an individual or commander that would accomplish, or is related to the accomplishment of the mission.

What is a course of action example?

Someone's course of action is what that person is going to do. For example, say you're listening to your friend's vacation plans. Your friend's course of action might be: Take a flight to Paris.Jan 12, 2022

What does COA mean in the military?

course of action
CoA – course of action.

How do you write a COA statement?

(b) A COA statement should contain the following:
  1. A statement by the commander expanding on his purpose in a way that ties it to the higher commander's purpose.
  2. A statement of the array of forces. ...
  3. A designation of the decisive point.
  4. If desired, a brief statement of the most critical of the significant factors.

How do you determine the enemy's most likely course of action?

The leader must determine the enemy's most likely action. This is accomplished by conducting an analysis of many factors, including Enemy Forces and Enemy Capabilities and Limitations. into three sections: Higher's Mission/Intent, Adjacent Units, and Supporting Units. Often, leaders refer to the acronym HAS.

What are the three methods for conducting course of action analysis?

Logic, reasoning, and visualization are the key cognitive skills that staffs require to conduct COA analysis. It is essential to visualize the fight in time and space. Generally, friendly and enemy forces have the same physical limitations.

What is an implied task?

Implied tasks are tasks the unit must perform to accomplish a specified task or the mission, but the higher headquarters' order does not state them. The staff derives implied tasks from a detailed analysis of the higher headquarters' order, the enemy situation, the terrain, and civil considerations.Mar 15, 2022

What is martial rule?

Martial rule exists when military authorities exercise varying degrees of control over civilians in territory where, due to war or public commotion, the civil government is not able to maintain order and enforce the law.

What are the laws of war?

For example, it is illegal to transmit money across enemy lines. In addition, a U.S. citizen cannot lawfully make a contract with a citizen of an enemy state while war exists, and any such contract is, therefore, void. The laws of war proscribe all trading with the enemy and all other commercial relations while a state of war exists.

What is the power of Congress to declare war?

War. Open and declared conflict between the armed forces of two or more states or nations. Article I , Section 8, Clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress alone the power to declare war. In addition, Congress is given sole authority by the Constitution "To raise and support armies" and "To provide for calling forth ...

Which article of the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war?

Open and declared conflict between the armed forces of two or more states or nations. Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress alone the power to declare war. In addition, Congress is given sole authority by the Constitution "To raise and support armies" and "To provide for calling forth the militia to execute ...

When did Bush declare war on Iraq?

Congress approved the authorization in 2002, and President Bush declared war on Iraq in March 2003.

Is a national war offensive or defensive?

National wars are said to be offensive or defensive. War is offensive on the part of that government which commits the first act of violence; it is defensive on the part of that government which receives such act; but it is very difficult to say what is the first act of violence.

What did Lincoln do in 1861?

In the ten weeks between the fall of Fort Sumter and the convening of Congress in July 1861, Lincoln made war preparations based on his authority as commander in chief. He initiated the drafting of men for military service, approved of a Southern naval blockade, and suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus.

What is the most valuable step within the course of action analysis?

DISCUSSION: Wargaming is the most valuable step within the course-of-action analysis. Observations from the CTCs indicate that few staffs understand how to war-game effectively, and that many staff officers are not involved in the procedure. By wargaming , the staff takes a course of action and begins to develop a detailed plan. Additionally, it can better synchronize the course of action when the entire staff is involved in wargaming . Information recorded during the warga me provides the information for the development of paragraph three (execution) of the operations order, the execution or synchronization matrices, and the decision support template. Because of the importance of its results, and the time it requires, more time is allocated than for any other step. Wargaming results in the identification of tasks, combat power requirements, critical events and priority efforts, task organization and command and support relationships, decision points and possible fratricide locations.

What is the purpose of the decision matrix?

THE DECISION MATRIX WILL HELP THE STAFF RECOMMEND .

What is the scheme of maneuver?

The scheme of maneuver is a narrative description of how the forces arrayed will accomplish the commander's intent. Ensure the scheme of maneuver addresses the elements of the battlefield framework (deep operations, covering force/security force, close operations, rear operations, and reserve).

What is attrition based scoring?

Attrition-based scoring represents one approach to answering the need to identify a common set of scoring metrics that allow disparate COAs to be directly compared. The attrition-based scoring approach attempts to consider the kinetic effects of missions, both positive and negative. In researching this approach, several templates were constructed to account for how the results of kinetic actions affected numerous facets of the battle space, including but not limited to, adversary forces; civilian populations; economics; and political, religious, and cultural infrastructures. What quickly became obvious was that each examined application of kinetic force had numerous exceptions. When the templates were combined and revised to attempt to account for all variations, they became very large and were generally sparsely populated and unwieldy. Their sparse nature forced abstraction to allow for direct comparison, with each abstraction specific to the COAs under examination. Additionally, attempting to allow for EBO considerations expanded both template size and complexity. Following numerous failed attempts to find a means to use this scoring approach, a more fundamentally abstract approach was researched.

What is influence in a simulation?

Influences are a separate scoring mechanism from the metrics used to capture score-on concepts and EBO effects that may not map directly to data from the simulation. They are used to bias the score either positively or negatively based on whether a set of conditions is met.

How does EBO affect COA?

The impacts of implementing effects-based operations (EBO) on course of action (COA) development and evaluation will be significant. Because EBO focuses on producing effects from military activities, as opposed to the direct result of attacking targets, there is an opportunity to develop a significantly higher number of COAs that achieve the desired effects. Consequently, EBO planning will significantly increase the number of evaluated COAs and the depth of evaluation. In order to evaluate these numerous COAs, which may achieve the same desired effects by substantially different methods, metrics must be found to adequately quantify their relative merits. Desired effects may be achieved though disparate COAs, such as propaganda campaigns versus major interdictions. The Course of Action Simulation Analysis (CASA) task was created to research metrics identification, data representation and scoring approaches. This paper introduces concepts behind CASA, chronicles task results to date, and finishes with a discussion of the scoring methodologies and capabilities developed during the CASA prototyping effort. Specific areas discussed include: mission-level simulations usage to examine multiple-hypothesis solutions; ontologies and extensible mark-up language (XML) metadata representations; COA metrics identification; development of tools for data reduction, comparison and visualization; and scoring approaches. Finally, lessons learned to date are discussed.

What is ontology in CASA?

In an effort to represent data beyond two dimensions, ontologies were evaluated. An ontology is a relational model of data. Instances are created and grouped into classes based on their attributes. Inheritance-based specification of these classes ensure uniformity and data independence in the constructs. These logical groupings of data into higher-level concepts provide a clear correlation of data into information.

What is the Year 3 prototype?

The development of the Year III prototype focused on development of an ontology for storing and viewing information, reading simulation files for data population, specification of scoring criteria and score automation. Each of these activities will now be described in more detail.

What is Bayesian network?

Mathematically, a Bayesian network (BN) is a probabilistic graphical model representing a set of variables with a joint probability distribution and defined dependence relations. In graphical terms, a BN is defined as a directed acyclic graph. Directed cycles are forbidden and nodes may represent any type of variable. Joint probability distributions are ones where the probability of one variable can directly affect the probability of another. A dependency relationship between the variables exists when this occurs. BN make use of conditional probability, where the probability of one event is conditional on the probability of a previous event or set of events. However, this is both a benefit and a limitation because all prior knowledge used must be applicable and trustworthy, or the “reasoning” results may be incorrect.

What is the military decision making process?

The military decisionmaking process (MDMP) is an iterative planning methodology to understand the situation and mission develop a course of action, and produce an operation plan or order (ADP 5-0). The MDMP facilitates collaborative planning.

What is MDMP in the military?

The MDMP facilitates collaborative planning. The higher headquarters solicits input and continuously shares information concerning future operations through planning meetings, warning orders, and other means. It shares information with subordinate and adjacent units, supporting and supported units, and other military and civilian partners.

How many steps are there in MDMP?

The MDMP consists of seven steps. Each step of the MDMP has various inputs, a method (step) to conduct, and outputs. The outputs lead to an increased understanding of the situation facilitating the next step of the MDMP.

What is smartbooks?

Recognized as a “whole of government” doctrinal reference standard by military, national security and government professionals around the world, SMARTbooks comprise a comprehensive professional library.

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