Effects-based Operations: Defined

On the morning of 21 December 1866, along the Wyoming Bozeman Trail, a mix of cavalry and infantry soldiers of the 2d Battalion, 18th Infantry, commanded by Captain William J. Fetterman, rode out from Fort Phil Kearny to rescue an ambushed logging party. A successful Civil War commander, Fetterman was a war hero in his own right. With 81 troopers, he led a charge with a strong conviction of numerical, tactical, and weapons superiority. Disregarding his commander’s specific orders not to cross Lodge Trail Ridge, Fetterman and his troops were not only fooled into an ambush by Sioux warriors more than ten times their strength, but were destroyed to the last man by Chief Red Cloud. Fetterman and his soldiers were scalped and their bodies desecrated and filled with arrows as a sign of disrespect toward their tactics, leadership, and presence in traditional Sioux lands. With one fell swoop, he not only lost 81 men and a number of horses, but set Fort Phil Kearny’s fighting force so far back that the stability of the fort, its families, and civilians were

Through the Mistakes of the Past a concern. The seeds for this destruction, however, were sown far before Fetterman put on his spurs that snowy winter morning. In what has come to be called the “Fetterman Massacre,” we begin an exceptional study for mounted warriors into effects-based operations. The Lead This article guides the reader through the concept of effects-based operations, examines the historic battle of the Fetterman Massacre, and recommends how this concept might have been used to better prosecute its mission; we conclude by drawing parallels to today’s battlefields. As the United States continues to conduct operations against terrorists, the services carry on in earnest to write new tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) for fighting asymmetrical battles and conducting stability and reconstruction operations (SRO) against an often ill-understood opponent. As some shelve our doctrine with the words “break glass in case of Soviet-style attack,” we begin to write the next page in our collective histories of employing “power, military and nonmilitary, focused on a desired effect on an enemy throughout the spectrum of conflict.”1 The history of EBO comes mostly from the effects created by direct or indirect fires on an enemy, commonly called, “effects on target.” As a natural progression, the artillery community has embraced and developed this concept as a ‘way ahead’ for their branch in a future requiring them to “move forward from fires coordinators to effects coordinators.”2 Often misunderstood, when artillerymen say they have achieved effects on target, they may have caused no casualties or measured material damage, but have instead created an unmeasured consequence on the enemy. This may be the enemy buttoning up, moving from hide positions, reorienting their fires, or the less tangible effect of being shocked, in a state of disarray or in panic. Consequences of these latter effects can be more devastating than simply maiming or killing a few adversaries, as it causes a “disruption of his decisionmaking process by direct influence and effect on the adversary’s ability to act.”3 With these effects, we are inside the enemy’s decisionmaking cycle and may enjoy the added benefit of causing him to make flawed tactical decisions or convincing him to capitulate. This is generally referred to as the first- and second-order effects. There is parity, however, between this older definition and the modern concept of EBO. The idea of EBO as it applies to the modern battlefield is best defined by U. S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM): “The physical, functional or psychological outcome, event, or consequence that results from specific military or nonmilitary actions.” It is “a process for obtaining a desired strategic outcome or effect on the enemy through synergistic, multiplicative, and cumulative application of the full range of military and nonmilitary capabilities at the tactical, operational and strategic levels.”4 Application of EBO: Targets and Objectives versus Effects Often compared to a mini-Marshall plan when literally applied, the desire of EBO is to achieve the commander’s intent in the form of an effect on the enemy instead of using combat targets or becoming objective oriented, as has been done previously. Far from a mere theory, it is now being applied by many units in Iraq and Afghanistan. It does not negate a focus on direct combat options. Instead, it challenges battlefield commanders at all levels to think of direct combat operations (first- and second-order effects) as part of a much larger product that, if used with efficiency and synchronicity, is capable of a much larger and more lasting effect (third- or fourth-order of effects). Ultimately, this leads to all levels of tactical-operational-strategic out-thinking and adapting more quickly than the enemy is capable. Certainly, it has been suggested that even the most junior soldier and Marine must be apart of this larger effect on the modern battlefield: flexible, agile, and aware of the consequences of his decisions in the larger context of the combat zone.5 Battle Description The Fetterman Massacre of 1866 had a number of key players. The U. S. soldiers were predominantly Civil War veterans. The Native Americans were from a more decentralized and fluid organization with leadership and loyalties shifting based on needs. To understand the battle, we should introduce the men who comprise both sides and highlight some interesting points about their combined histories: and sluggishly turn to fight this new opponent. This seemingly new-style adversary has the talent to remain largely unseen and defiant of our mechanized behemoth. They are an enemy who uses the advantages of urban terrain and the media to profound effect — one whose ability to seize the initiative daily with relatively old weapons and few resources, challenges our understanding of the modern battlefield. Rather than abandon our doctrine, we only need to know our own history to understand how to fight in a theater of war where our opponent’s greater flexibility enables him to change his tactics more quickly than we can change ours. We are all striving academics of our profession at arms, and as such, we can learn from those who make academia their business. A quote from Cicero, the great Roman orator, reads: “Ne-scire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum” [Who knows only his own generation, remains always a child], which is written above the University of Colorado Library as a warning to scholars and learned men alike to struggle always for higher wisdom. We have often been guilty of repeating the mantra that we are destined to fight the previous war, in military schools and during wargames or field exercises. The armor and cavalry communities are no exception to this dilemma. Yet the histories of our forefathers’ generations are rife with stories of attempts to fight what we now call a “three-block war.” A fight against an ideologically driven enemy who has little knowledge of the laws of land warfare and to whom the doctrines of a collapsed Soviet state are wholly and largely a phantom is to be ignored. As we journey again down the roads of mistakes, false starts, and defunct combat tactics, the worst mistake we can make as battle leaders is to reinvent our procedures while ignoring the hard-fought lessons of the past. Iraq is too recent, too emotional, and too complicated to be an effective topic of debate for a contemporary study concerning effects-based operations. However, if we examine an older battle through the lens of our new tactics, there is much we can learn from allegory. Properly applied, this new technique is emerging as an answer to the asymmetrical battlefield, and as with all our tactics, it will evolve with our doctrine and not invalidate it. Defining Effects-Based Operations Effects-based operations (EBO) have been variously defined by all services. Broadly, it is a concept that embraces all means Effects-Based Objectives-Based (Strategies-to-Task) Target-Based Target-Based

• ID enemy entities, destroy them

• Focus: physical effects at target level

• Looks at 1st and 2d order effects only

• No dynamic assessment

• No explicit timing considerations Objectives-Based (Strategies-to-Task)

• Strategies at one level become objectives for next

• Focus: objectives at every level

• Considers linkages between objectives and strategies to achieve those objectives

• No dynamic assessment

• No explicit timing considerations Effects-Based

• Encompass both target and objective-based methods

• Address causality between actions and effects

• Focus: desired effects (physical and behavioral)

• Defeat mechanism made explicit

• Models the enemy-as-a-system w/adversary reaction

• Timing explicitly considered Figure 1 28 — the Oregon, the Santa Fe, and the National. A lesser-known trail, called the Bozeman Trail, was named for its founder, a veteran mountain man who promised shorter routes with only one crossing of the Continental Divide. This trail, however, created a dangerous legacy through a land that was considered sacred by the Sioux and other tribes. For several previous generations, treaties had been negotiated with the Plains Indians in attempts to smooth passage through their lands to the gold fields. 1851 saw the formation of the Fort Laramie Treaty, and even the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, made a treaty with the Indians prior to the end of the Civil War. All were broken in one form or another, some were downright criminal. In the summer of 1865, for example, General Patrick Connor led an expedition into Sioux territory along the Powder River with strict orders: “You will not receive overtures of peace or submission from Indians, but will attack and kill every male Indian over twelve years of age.”8 In the fall of 1866, soldiers from an Army still big from war were ordered to occupy forts and provide security to settlers and miners moving through the Wyoming Territories and other states. The Department of the Platte established a command called the Mountain District along the Powder River, Wyoming. Colonel H. B. Carrington of the 18th Infantry Regiment was ordered to “move immediately” and occupy Fort Reno and two other forts along the Bozeman Trail. At the same time, the prominent Sioux leaders, Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, had concluded that the white mans’ treaties were worthless, that he was making treaties on the one hand and sending warriors on the other, and to preserve their way of life, this was the time to stand and fight.9 The Massacre Colonel Carrington had the 2d and 3d Battalion at his command. These consisted of 700 men in total. About half were Civil War veterans, the rest were new recruits. Included were combat trains with civilian logging parties and scouts, twelve officers’ wives, eleven children, and a regimental band. The band, interestingly, came outfitted with the troops’ only repeating Spencer rifles.10 The group’s journey began from Fort Kearny, Nebraska, westward. In mid June of 1866, the group moved by horse, carriage, and foot to Fort Laramie. It was here where they received the first ominous portent of the events to come. A commission from Washington D. C. was to sign an agreement to open the Bozeman Trail. Chiefs of many tribes attended, including the Brule, Sioux, and Crow. The delegation requested that apiece of land only wide Colonel Henry Beebe Carrington, commander of the 18th Infantry Regiment. A lawyer by trade, Carrington was certainly methodical and led mostly through the written order. Though a participant in the Civil War, he spent the majority of the war recruiting soldiers for his regiment while other men commanded it to great success. After the final battles of the Civil War, he finally joined his command, an issue never forgotten by his subordinate commanders. An astute politician, his absence from the battlefield gave him time to make many political friends in Ohio and was probably the reason for his subsequent assignment to the 18th after the war in an otherwise top-heavy Army. Captain William J. Fet terman. His Civil War achievements were brilliant and perhaps prideful. Cited for gallantry on a number of occasions, his battle honors included Stones River (Tennessee) and General Sherman’s Georgia campaign, which is indicative of the patterns of his later tactics. He commanded Company A, 2d Battalion, and dispatches of his actions include “displayed great gallantry and spirit,” and that “Captain Fetterman threw up a salient and maintained his positions against repeated attempts to dislodge him by the enemy.”6 He was promoted to brevet lieutenant colonel then downgraded to captain in the post-war period. Chief Red Cloud. Not the sole commander of the Indian Wars, but credited for being the inspiration for the daring siege on Fort Phil Kearny, which lasted through the winter of 1866. Chief Red Cloud was an imposing figure and leader of the Sioux in the Powder River region. His ominous warnings to the Army garrison at Fort Laramie went unheeded.7 Crazy Horse. Leader of the Oglala fighters present at the massacre. Committed to his tribe, he was fiercely loyal to traditional ways. Crazy Horse was most famous for using his lessons learned from the Fetterman Massacre against General George A. Custer some ten years later. He also invented and championed an ambush technique, which brought about Fetterman’s demise. The Road to War The year 1865 heralded the end of the Civil War, and a nation eagerly attempted to bind its wounds and begin an uncertain future as a country reunited. One issue that was not uncertain, however, was the continued expansion westward. Even as the echoes of battle subsided in the east, gold was discovered in the west, and the expansion seemed a likely progression for a nation in need of huge supplies of natural resources to reconstruct. Montana, the Wyoming Territory, and other western states offered three trails west: Colonel Henry B. Carrington enough to fit the wagon’s wheels be authorized. The commissioners of the agreement overlooked the simple fact that the Indian signers were from peaceable tribes, many of whom had no right to the land they ceded or had little interest to fight the United States.11 Colonel Carrington and his officers were present for the ceremonies. Chief Red Cloud and his band of Sioux warriors also attended and listened closely, but refused to sign the treaty. They were already suspicious of the delegation, and as negotiations concluded, Red Cloud stood and pointed to Carrington and said, “The Great White Father sends us presents and wants us to sell him the Trail, but you come with soldiers to steal it before we say yes or no. We have many warriors.” He continued, “I will talk with you no more. I will go now and I will fight you.”12 The Sioux leader stormed from the fort with his party. Through a gross misinterpretation of the events, however, the government negotiators returned to Washington and declared the Bozeman Trail open and safe for travelers. This misunderstanding would lead to false expectations of safety for gold seekers moving west, and ultimately, to media sympathy for the Indians. The group proceeded 60 miles up the Bozeman Trail, and on 13 July, they began building Fort Phil Kearny (named for Major General Philip Kearny and not to be confused with Fort Kearny, Nebraska). They selected ground in open terrain bordered by the Big Piney River. Problems should have been immediately apparent; the fort was in relative low ground, and activities within could be seen clearly from the surrounding hills. The fort’s construction also called for a considerable amount of lumber, which required a seven-mile journey, including five slow miles with wagons laden by the livestock’s hay. On 16 July, a party of Cheyenne, including Chief Black Horse, visited to warn Colonel Carrington that Chief Red Cloud was insisting they join him to drive out the white man. Black Horse instead offered 100 warriors to help the fort fight the Sioux, Colonel Carrington declined.13 The Chief also made it “dramatically clear to Carrington that every move he had made since leaving Fort Reno had been observed and reported to Indian encampments throughout the area.”14 He continued that Red Cloud intended to cut off the trails leading back to Fort Reno. On 17 July, the first two men died from a brutal Sioux raid. The casualties were two night lookouts guarding livestock, caught unaware at their posts while they played cards. One of Red Cloud’s braves, named Brave Eagle, had observed that the livestock followed the wagon master’s bell horse around the fields. In a daring raid, the braves killed the few guards; then, using the wagon master’s horse, stampeded the livestock, stealing 175 animals. A poor first exchange. A fortress mentality began; the Indians owned the night and the cover and concealment of the woods, which forced the cavalry and dismounts to guard any and all movement outside the gates. Patterns began to emerge in Carrington’s plans; the Indians watched and learned. For communication, Carrington used a modified Civil War tactic of lookout flags and a steam whistle, allowing him to disseminate signals of command to outlying convoys. It was slow and did not allow for decentralized decisions on the part of the individual guard or reactionary forces. Crazy Horse studied this behavior and began to attack the convoys to judge their reactions and signals, once even successfully attacking three convoys simultaneously. He realized that upon attacking a logging party, the braves could set ambushes for reactionary forces coming to the logging party’s rescue to the effect of greater casualties. The needed reinforcements, Carrington was informed by mail, would not arrive until November. In September, two major raids caused great losses. The Sioux shrewdly led a heard of buffalo near the fort’s grazing cattle, then sprang up from among them and drove both the cattle and buffalo away from the camp. Simultaneously, a hay-cutting party was driven away from their costly cutting equipment, which was burned along with the much needed hay. Ominously, three soldiers and a civilian went missing. Private Gilchrist’s bloody clothes were found days after his disappearance; Private Johnson was separated and ridden down by Sioux, never to be found. Mr. Ridgeway Glover, a reporter for an eastern newspaper disappeared while taking photographs. Glover’s naked body was later discovered scalped, with a tomahawk in his back, a mere two miles from the fort. The officers and civilians of the fort began to voice their opinions about Carrington’slack of leadership in the events. At the end of September and early in October, the fort ran dangerously low on ammunition. Snow began to drift across the Piney River area. A mail wagon arrived at the fort with the scalped dead body of the mail carrier. The mail was, remarkably, intact and contained a letter admonishing Carrington for not protecting women and children along the trail, as had been reported in newspapers in the Platte region. Carrington was puzzled by this inference, and fired back a message that the claim was without merit. A message from the famed scout and mountain man, Jim Bridger, also informed the fort there were 500 lodges of Sioux — all hostile — encamped along the Tongue River. In October and November, stores finally arrived, but the contractors bringing them had stolen a quantity of the supply. Lack of discipline and internal problems now abounded in the fort. After performing a belated commander’s inspection, Carrington discovered that the Springfield rifled-muskets, used mainly by the infantry, were in disrepair. In Company C alone, 20 out of 37 rifles were found to be unserviceable.15 The band, however, had been issued the fort’s best weapons, Spencer repeating carbines, which were reported in good condition. The fort needed reinforcements, and in November, Captain Fetterman arrived leading the two companies of replacement cavalry. No more an opposite figure to Carrington’s judiciousness could have been invented than the intrepid Captain William J. Fetterman. On his second day reporting to the command, he came to the Colonel with a plan to trick the Indians into an ambush. He boasted that “With eighty men I could ride through the whole Sioux nation.”16 Fetterman’s bold talk and the respect for his Civil War experience, served to further the schism between Carrington and his officers. Fetterman’s ambush attempts failed and he returned to cautions by Carrington that his experiences fight ing Confederates did not apply in the west. Infighting and disdain began in earnest among the officers. Many of the officers now began to openly side with Fetterman. December brought bad weather and the worst losses. It also Spencer Carbine 30 — began with a written rebuke from Carrington’s superior, General Philip St. George Cooke (a cavalry officer), to act more boldly in fighting the Indians. On 6 December, Carrington personally rode out from the fort to support an ambushed logging party. The overeagerness of his officers split his command, however, and as he tried to sound recall, he was attacked by Indians with war clubs and lances. Lieutenant Bingham, in charge of a company of cavalry, charged headlong into an Indian trap. He was killed gruesomely and Captain Grummond, also caught in the ambush, abandoned his spurs and desperately stuck his sword into his horse to accelerate the animal and escape the braves. The fort was now in a practically inhuman frenzy of anger for retribution. After the fight, Fetterman drilled his soldiers using his Civil War experiences. The old scout, Jim Bridger, said to Carrington, “Your men who fought down south are crazy. They don’t know anything about fighting Indians.” The lesson of the day was not lost on the Indians though. Red Cloud and his braves, including Yellow Eagle, who led much of the action, discussed the battle. They had seen how brash and ill disciplined the soldiers were becoming from the continued harassment. It was decided that on the next full moon, they would lure the soldiers into an ambush using their decoy trick then wait for the reactionary forces and attack and kill as many as possible. Maybe with amass of casualties, the soldiers would reconsider their occupation of Sioux lands. A mere four days before the fort would celebrate its first Christmas, a logging party set out on its usual five-mile trudge through the snow-caked landscape. Red Cloud struck; using his favorite diversionary tactic, he ambushed the loggers, fixing the soldiers in a shallow depression. The fighters signaled an ambush as Red Cloud had predicted. Back at the fort, Fetterman demanded an opportunity to engage in decisive battle. Permission was granted and he chose Captain Grummond, 77 men from various companies, and two civilians — a total of 81. Roughly, half were mounted. Remarkably, this was the number of men he had earlier boasted with which he could ride through the Sioux nation. Carrington, having now dealt with Fetterman’s brashness on many occasions, issued the order (three times) not to pursue the enemy across the Lodge Trail Ridge. Whether Fetterman intended to bluntly disobey his commander or simply skirt the edge of his order will never be known. Tricked by the Indian’s use of de coys led by Crazy Horse, Fetterman attacked. The decoys ran zigzagging in front of the soldiers, shouting taunts and coming within rifle range. With every advance, the braves would fall back further until the soldiers were finally drawn over a cresting rise of the Bozeman Trail beyond the Lodge Trail Ridge. The soldiers entered the kill zone, and with a signal, the braves sprang from hiding in the grasses surrounding the trail. Bows and arrows were often used as indirect fire weapons, and were devastating at medium range. It is estimated that as many as 40,000 arrows were fired in the 40-minute attack. As the troop’s ammunition dwindled, the braves closed in. From all sides, the Sioux fought intensely with war clubs, knives, and lances. Captain Grummond was probably killed in a rear guard action at the location where his horse was found. Fetterman and Brown fought with the infantry on a rocky outcropping. They saved their last bullets and shot each other simultaneously in the head. The cavalry were the last to survive. In an attempt to climb over the ridge and make a last dash for the fort, they were cut down by a final charge from the Indians. Only one soldier was not dismembered and filled with arrows as Carrington’s closed report would later reveal — a bugler named Adolph Metzger who fought off the attackers with everything, including his bugle. His abandoned body, left un-desecrated and as a sign of respect from the Indian warriors, was covered with a buffalo robe. The aftermath of the massacre was worse than the fight. The women and children were rounded up and sent to the magazine with procedures put in place to blow themselves up inside should the fort be compromised. The colonel put everybody on alert and armed all the civilians. Routine orders for Carrington’s turnover of command were received amid the chaos. The damage was done, and scenes of the battle were drawn by newspapermen in the east who had not even been present. The newspapers included erroneous word of Carrington being relieved of command for the massacre. For a country that had no official word of Indian hostilities along the Bozeman Trail from the government, the press fabricated where truth failed. Stories were printed of a colonel irresponsibly antagonizing the peaceful people and a Civil War hero senselessly slaughtered by friendly Indians.17 Carrington was investigated, exonerated, but treated with suspicion for the rest of his shortened career. He retired to spend the rest of his life trying to clear his name. The Bozeman Trail and the three forts constructed along its length were given up. Red Cloud burned the forts to the ground and planned his next action. History would be repeated 10 years later; Colonel George

A. Custer made exactly the same errors. The Fetterman Massacre: An EBO Analysis Things may have been different if Carrington had the benefit of effects-based operations. Integrating EBO into the intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB) and the military decisionmaking process (MDMP) has become a natural progression in our methodology on the modern battlefield. The EBO cycle (see Figure 2 above) begins with receipt of mission and is used as apart of determining “the focus for future operations by analyzing past and current operations and the information environment.”18 It should then become “a vital and ongoing part of the decide, detect, deliver, assess (D3A)” aspect of our “way ahead,” including fragmentary orders (FRAGOs) issued to adjust our effects as we gain momentum, especially in the realm of information superiority.19 — 31 Figure 2 Develop comprehensive insight into adversary, environment and self Plan for effects, emphasizing strategy-to-task linkage Adjust course of action Assess impact of effects Execute plan, considering full range of capabilities EBO Cycle Knowledge Effects Adaptation Assessment Application

The Fetterman Massacre analysis focuses on grasping a basic understanding of the applied framework of EBO in a battle far removed from current operations in Iraq. Our steps include organizing troops and resources using mission, enemy, troops, terrain, time, and civilians (METT-TC), including a focus on effects beyond the first order, then applying the EBO cycle. Mission: The original higher headquarters mission statement read: “18th Infantry establishes the Mountain District of the Platte command. Move immediately to occupy Fort Reno and open two new forts along the Bozeman Trail.” The mission statement could have been adapted to EBO (method-task-purpose): “On 280600 MAR 1866, 18th Infantry secures the Bozeman Trail in order to (IOT) allow unimpeded transit of civilian and military forces.

• Be prepared to conduct convoy operations along the trail.

• On order (O/O) conduct support and stability operations in conjunction with local inhabitants.

• O/O degrade belligerent Indian influence on Mountain District (information operations).

• O/O task organize forces and resources available to protect the Bozeman Trail.” Enemy: A modified observation, indirect fire, direct fire, obstacles, chemical, air, reserve, and electronic (OIDOCARE) warfare model works well for analyzing the Indian pattern of attack: Observation afforded to the braves was terrific. A network of scouts and the advantage of years of experience in the wilderness made him a master at scouting. Indirect fire and direct fire we see some effects beyond the first order. The first order: the direct effect of fires was a perception of weapons superiority by the soldiers and an underestimation of the Native American weaponry. The soldiers had, after all, just fought and won the Civil War, they had more technologically advanced weapons and the Indians had inferior weapons, or were they? Effects beyond the first order: the Indians had many weapons that worked better in close quarters than Carrington’s, but had the additional shock effect, more so than a penetrating bullet.

• The war club and hatchet were gruesome weapons. More impressive was the Indian’s willingness to use them in close quarters with violent zeal, causing shock and demoralizing the soldiers who viewed the gore. The soldiers had few equivalent weapons, as only the officers carried sabers and pistols.

• The bow and arrow was another weapon with advantages; it could be used as an indirect weapon as opposed to Carrington’s direct firing rifles and pis- 32 — tols. This allowed the Indians to hide below a crest and fire volleys without being exposed. It had a fast rate-of-fire and was relatively accurate at close and medium range.

• The soldier’s weapons had great stand-off range, but a slow rate-of-fire meant the Indians could close distances during reloading and fight on their terms. The Spencer carbines dominated the battlespace with a fast rate-of-fire and good accuracy while mounted, but were used only by the regimental band that rarely left the fort.

• The strengths of the enemy’s weapons needed to be acknowledged and methods set to defeat their point-blank ambush style and minimize their shock-effect tactics. The soldiers’ weapons needed to be better task organized. Obstacles. The fort served as a manmade buffer for the soldiers. Yet by having a great command of the woods, the Indians had the marked advantage to maneuver through the natural terrain; this was ambush country. The first order: effect of ambushes caused a loss of troops and materiel for the fort. Effects beyond the first order: a huge loss of morale and a loss in confidence in Carrington’s leadership. It also gave an increase in confidence to the Native Americans, which may have been prevented by:

• Establishing a more appropriate plan for dealing with hostile ambushes. Battle drills and frontier fighting skills were needed. Jim Bridger and the native Cheyenne were only too eager to assist and instruct the soldiers with frontier fighting styles.

• Placing the fort closer to natural resources to speed reaction times and limit soft targets exposure to the enemy. Chemical issues do not apply; however, continually interrupting grazing livestock and burning valuable feed-hay, the Native Americans had greatly sickened and shortened the food stocks and health of the soldiers’ mounts. Air. Does not apply. Reserve. The Indians had the advantage of more than 4,000 braves camped on the Tongue River. The soldiers had a two-month wait for reinforcements and even then, they only received two under-strength cavalry companies. Electronic warfare. EW was nonexistent; however, we can analyze the information operations (IO). First order: The IO campaign was scarcely engaged by Carrington. He performed little analysis of the preeminent chiefs in his area or their methods of communication. His lack of cultural information actually had the effect of antagonizing the Indians in effects beyond the first order. Effects beyond the first order: Due to the initial misunderstanding at Fort Laramie, the Sioux made substantial gains in IO by leaving the impression with the Washington D. C. commissioners they were not at war, which had the following effects:

• It limited the need for reinforcements and supplies in the minds of Carrington’s superiors and downplayed his predicament. Carrington was forced to answer claims about a lack of safety on the trail as General Cooke received more information, albeit false, from the press and not directly from Carrington. Later, he was put on trial mostly because the media propagated the idea that the Indians were peaceable but reported little of Carrington’s predicament. Keeping his superiors regularly updated with facts, safeguarding his imbedded media sources (Ridgeway Glover), and making selected reports to the media would have helped him greatly, even if disaster had not struck.

• The chiefs in the local area held sway over their areas of operation. Knowledge of the customs and tribal loyalties in the area and the chief’s spheres of influence were never analyzed. Many of Carrington’s tactics, including the later hiring of the hated enemy of the Sioux, the Winnebago tribe, as scouts, served only to antagonize the Sioux.

• The Native Americans watched closely and learned Carrington’s signal plan, the colonel failed to analyze the Indians’ use of signal mirrors, and his intelligence on the enemy was severely lacking. Terrain and Weather:

• Observation and fields of fire. Includes mostly the fort’s location. The fort was open and in low terrain, which allowed the Indians, on many occasions, to observe the soldiers’ actions and gain forewarning of their future actions.

• Avenues of approach. A modified combined obstacle overlay (MCOO) of the area would show the weaknesses of placing the fort in broad, open terrain, with multiple avenues of approach, since the Indians were guilty of the same on the Tongue River.

• Key terrain. The Sullivant Hills were located in a position of marked advantage, used predominantly by the Native Americans to observe the fort.

• Obstacles and cover and concealment. The terrain was undulating and had much micro terrain that was used to the Indian’s advantage for observation and cover during ambushes. It was through the use of this type of terrain the Indians would launch their most successful ambush on Captain Fetterman.

• Weather. With the theft of livestock and interruption of supplies, the Army was ill-equipped to winter in the fort. Troops and Support: Carrington had his valuable Spencer carbines task organized with his regimental band. This asset clearly would have been better used by his cavalry. The weapons system could have been arranged around a quick reaction force, capable of a shock attack or quick reinforcement. Training his soldiers in this new task organization and establishing immediate action drills and standard operating procedures was desperately required. The fort did none of this until the attack on 6 December, which cost them the life of Lieutenant Bingham. The colonel’s signal plan and strict adherence to personally directing action caused a lack of decentralized command. His fighting forces were not structured to allow subordinate commanders to make quick, independent battlefield decisions. Time: If we had the forethought of the pending attack on Captain Fetterman’s company, we would have from 13 July to 21 December 1866. Calculating this, we have 161 days (5 months and 8 days), which was more than enough time to have a profound impact on the surroundings and conduct a wide EBO campaign. Civilians: First order effect was an initial indifference and misunderstanding of Native American culture, which was steadily becoming more distrustful. The local Native Americans were initially thought to be a minor impediment to the pacification of the Mountain District. Likewise, the motivations and sphere of influence of Chief Red Cloud had been severely underestimated. Red Cloud and Crazy Horse turned out to be formidable foes. Effects beyond the first order: If Red Cloud had requested nothing from the United States, simply acknowledging and respecting his leadership during their first meeting in Fort Laramie would have improved future relations. For instance, Chief — 33

Black Horse offered 100 braves to assist the fort. Clearly, this was an opportunity to be acted on. Working with local, peaceful tribes, who were aware of the culture and understood customs and Indian tactics, could have had been a profound influence. The Indian fighters could have been integrated into the reactionary forces, conducted joint patrols, and acted as cultural liaisons to the commander, placing a Native American face on much of the mission the soldiers needed to accomplish. Also, the Native Americans valued their medicine men to a great extent. Could the fort’s doctors have been used to support the local cultures with medical and dental care? Possibly; the mysticism and respect attributed to medicine men could have been attributed, in part, to the fort sharing knowledge, which would have reflected well on Carrington, giving the fort much needed local respect. Applying the EBO Cycle/Adapt and Adjust At this point, we delve further into the EBO cycle. Looking at our previous analysis, what can we do to maximize the impact of the effects and adjust our future courses of action accordingly? There are many ways to apply EBO. For example, the first analysis is that we are fighting like-versus-dislike armies. Our weapons are as dissimilar as our tactics. The EBO cycle forces us to constantly examine our own actions, which leads to more questions, but we have to keep a kernel of adaptability at all times. Recognizing that, as a collective fighting force, Carrington and his men were still fighting the old doctrine of the Civil War with weapons ill adapted to the new frontier would be a large step toward applying the inner cycle. Even Jim Bridger was able to see that the tactics of the soldiers were not working. Examining our methods and admitting the need for change is a difficult thing to ask of any leader in the middle of combat, but it would be a defining step. What are we doing institutionally that may be wrong or, more simply, may not be applicable to this battlefield? Checking our analysis, we see one recurring theme — Carrington did not appreciate his foe. Understanding the tribes and influences of the various chiefs would be paramount to success. Failing to take cultural considerations into account is disastrous. Lack of knowledge of spheres of influence and cultural concerns were at the heart of Carrington’s failure. Properly applied, Carrington could have completed a large part of his new mission statement by degrading the Sioux influence, mostly through a better understanding of the enemies’ culture. Most importantly, Carrington needed to share the information of success and failure with superiors and adjacent commanders. Failing to share lessons learned from this conflict and the Army’s quick attempt to assess blame, created the boundaries for Colonel Custer’s demise some 10 years later. Chief Crazy Horse, however, applied his lessons from the fight with Carrington and massacred Custer just as soundly as he had Captain Fetterman. Can we apply the lessons of EBO to our own modern battlefields? EBO: The Intelligent Approach The Fetterman Massacre has remarkable similarities to today’s battlefields and the current operations in Iraq. We are fighting a less-equipped, lesser trained enemy, often on his home territory. As with Colonel Carrington, our enemy stood up to us with an early warning of his Jihad. Our battlefields are asymmetrical, contradictory to many previous global conflicts, and our enemy’s fighting style is unlike what we are taught in our manuals and doctrine. The enemy ambushes our convoys with less technologically advanced weapons, he chooses the terrain on which to fight, he uses low-tech shock weapons (improvised explosive devices and rocket-propelled grenades) and chips away at our morale by ensuring the media is present to record our failure (IO dominance). He is better adapted and better acclimated to the terrain and weather and observes and adapts to our fort-style defenses. The enemy blends with the civilian population. He knows the customs and culture and works them to his advantage. We have, on the other hand, had difficulty with the media and are slow to coordinate with adjacent commanders, other services, and allies. These lessons we are being forced to learn now are the same lessons learned in the distant past. We must prevent the enemy’s domination of the battlespace. We must be better students of our own history to understand how to fight future battles. We must understand what is important to our enemy — customs, religion, culture, and tribal loyalties — and use that knowledge to our advantage. Knowledge and information are power. We must be adaptable and wisely use the means at our disposal to accomplish our objectives, but also to create an effect on our enemy that reaches beyond the boundaries of the next objective or target-based mission. We must create a permissive environment for our own troops while simultaneously creating anon-permissive environment for our enemy. Effects-based operations are an adaptable, open-ended concept that provide the simple framework for us as combatants to examine our given mission and succeed using a more intelligent approach. Notes 1Major Leonard D. Rickerman, Class Thesis, “Effects-Based Operations: A New Way of Thinking and Fighting,” U. S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 2002-03 school year. 2Colonel James L. Creighton, Lieutenant Colonel Raphael Torres, Major Robert B. Herndon, Major Louis J. Bello, and Chief Warrant Officer John A. Robinson, “Effects-Based Operations in Afghanistan,” Field Artillery, January-February 2004. 3Brigadier General David A. Deptula, Effects-Based Operations: Change in the Nature of Warfare, Aerospace Education Foundation, Arlington, VA, 2001, p. 25. 4U. S. Joint Forces Command Glossary, online at www.jfcom.mil/about/glossary.htm#E. 5General C. C. Krulak, “The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War,” Marines, 1999. 6Dee Brown, The Fetterman Massacre, Putnam Publishers, New York, NY, 1962, pp. 146-147. 7Paul Goble, Brave Eagles Account of the Fetterman Fight, Bison Books, Hong Kong, 1972, p. 22. 8Brown, p. 14. 9Ibid., p. 18. 10Ibid., p. 20. 11Ibid., pp. 38 and 39. 12Goble, p. 25. 13Brown, p. 76. 14Ibid., p. 74. 15Ibid., p. 141. 16Ibid., p. 150. 17Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 01/19/1867, No. 590, vol. XXIII, pp. 280-281. 18Center for Army Lessons Learned, Effects-Based Operation Handbook, Combined Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, July 2004, p. 24. 19Ibid., p. 24. Captain H. Ripley Rawlings IV is currently serving as commander, D Company “Dragoons,” 3d Light Armored Reconnaissance (LAR) Battalion, 29 Palms, CA. He received a B. A from Hobart and William Smith College. He has served in various command and staff positions, to include platoon commander, 7th Platoon, 1st Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team, Marine Corps Security Force Battalion, Norfolk, VA; military advisor, Office of the Program Manager-Saudi Arabian National Guard, Saudi Arabia; XO, D Company, 1st LAR Battalion, 29 Palms; and platoon commander, A Company, 1st LAR Battalion, 29 Palms. 34 —