Writing Assignment

Operational Art is the application of creative imagination together with knowledge,
experience, and skill by military commanders and/or their staff in the design of strategies,
major operations and campaigns and deployment of military forces with the goal of achieving
a given set of objectives (Munsch, 2020). It plays a key role in linking tactical actions of an
army with its overall strategic objectives. Operational art is closely linked with operational
design which is a process of understanding and framing of a given problem that supports both
commanders and military staff in their application of operational art with methodologies and
tools that help them to come up with effective approaches to campaigns and operations.
Operational design has four key elements. They are overarching, forces, space, and
time (Munsch. 2020). Overarching elements are the elements that drive the operation and
include objectives of the operations, effects, and center of gravity (COG). Space includes the
physical characteristics and the conditions of the environment in which the operations take
place. The third element, time, is the period between the time the decision to commit forces is
made to the time of execution. It includes time needed for planning and mobilization. Lastly,
force deals with all the aspects related to science of warfare. It includes knowledge of the
capabilities and limitations of the military’s weapon systems and tactics as well as limitations
and capabilities of weapon systems and tactics of the enemy. It also includes intangible
aspects of the operations, such as morale and leadership during the planning stage of
operations (Munsch, 2020).
Apart from operational design process, commanders also make decisions based on the
advice that they receive from sergeant majors. Sergeant majors inform commanders and their
staff about all aspects of the enlisted personnel, including their level of training and morale.

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Such information helps commanders and their staff to make decisions on a wide range of
military-related issues.
Advice from sergeant major and operational design are often complemented by the
joint planning process. Joint planning process (JPP) is an analytical and orderly set of logical
steps that are used in framing of a problem to be solved, analyzing a mission, developing and
analyzing a set of alternative courses of actions (COA), selecting the best or the most suitable
course of action, and making a plan or order to implement the selected course of action. JPP
provides commanders, their staff as well as their subordinates with a tested process that they
can use to address a given problem or set of problems. This paper seeks to show that
operational design, advice of sergeant major, and the joint planning process complement
each other in determining the ends, means, and ways of military activities.

The ends of a military objective are a set of required military-related conditions that
defines the achievement or lack of achievement of military objectives (Munsch, 2020). An
operation or campaign is said to have achieved success if the required military-related
conditions have been met. Once the conditions have been met, the president no longer needs
to use military power to achieve the remaining set of national objectives.

The military end state is usually determined through dialogue between military and
civilian leaders. The sergeant major can advise the commander about realistic objectives that
can be met military based on the level of training, morale, and discipline of military
personnel. The commander will then use this information to inform the civilian leadership
about what the military can and cannot achieve and in doing so determine the military end
state.

The ends can also be identified through the JPP process. With regards to ends, the
most important process is mission analysis. Here is where tasks to be accomplished and

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reasons for accomplishing them are provided. Such an analysis allows the commander to
determine whether the mission’s objectives are in line with the overall military state ends.
Once the ends or objectives have been defined, the next step is to determine the means or
capabilities required to achieve the objectives.

Ways are actions that lead to the achievement of military end state (Munsch, 2020).
The sequence of actions is provided in the JPP process. In particular COA development,
COA analysis, and COA comparison are key steps that ensure that the actions that the
commander settles on are likely to lead to the achievement of the military end state. In
addition to formal use of JPP process, the commander can also rely on the advice of sergeant
major to determine the most viable ways of achieving the military end state. Sergeant major
can help the commander and their staff determine the most appropriate ways of achieving the
desired state through analysis of the skills possessed by enlisted personnel. The proposed
means should be ones that can be effectively supported by the knowledge, skills, and
experience of the enlisted personnel. As noted earlier, the use of JPP process especially COA
development, COA analysis, and COA comparison is also an effective means of determining
ways to use in order to achieve military end state. Having identified the ways of achieving the
military end state, it is important to examine the means or the resources and requirements
needed to support the selected ways.

Means are the resources and capabilities that are needed to achieve set military
objectives (Munsch, 2020). They include weapons systems, level of training of soldiers, their
numbers as well as intangible elements, such as leadership quality and morale. Through close
monitoring of the training of military personnel, the sergeant major can determine their level
of preparedness as well as morale. Since one of the key functions of sergeant majors is to
inform the commander and their staff about the level of training or preparedness of enlisted

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personnel, they can then take this information to the commander. Based on this information,
the commander can determine the means to employ in order to achieve the military end state.
For instance, if ground forces are inadequate, lack motivation, or unprepared, the sergeant
major may report this information to the commander who may then decide to concentrate on
the use of aerial bombardments to achieve the military end state instead of ground troops.

In identifying the means to achieve a given military end state, commanders and their
staff do not wholly rely on advice from the sergeant major. They can also use the JPP
process. Through mission analysis, they can determine the tasks that need to be accomplished
and the resources and capabilities needed to successfully execute the tasks. In this way, they
are able to develop the means of achieving the military end state. Means as well as ends and
ways that have been discussed are all key components of planning that are underpinned by
operational design.

Operational design is a process of problem framing that helps commanders and their
staff to formulate viable campaigns and approaches to solve given problem or problems
(Munsch, 2020). It has four steps. The first step is understanding strategic guidance. In this
step, commanders and their staff seek to understand the objectives and strategic end state.
This understanding provides a starting point to formulating a vision of what the desired
environment should look like. In general, this is the step where the commanders and their
staff understand the overall strategic objectives for the nation and the specific military
objectives that help in the attainment of the overall strategic objectives.

The second step is understanding the operational environment. In this step,
commanders and their staff formulate a picture of the desired environment and then compare
it with the current environment through a study of the current environment’s conditions,
actors, and various relationship functions with the goal of establishing operational context

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(Munsch, 2020). The step is important in helping the commanders and their staff to
understand the problem, anticipate various outcomes of the campaigns and operations, and
understand the impact of adversarial, friendly, and neutral actions on the overall military end
state objectives.

The third step is defining the problem. This step involves examination of the
conditions or situations that make the current environment different from the desired
environment (Munsch, 2020). The conditions or obstacles constitute a problem and they need
to be acted upon in order to reconcile the current and desired environments. Understanding
the problem helps in the understanding of the enemy system which in turn helps in the
understanding of the enemy system’s center of gravity (COG).

The fourth step is development of operational approach. It provides details of how to
solve the identified problem (Munsch, 2020). It outlines, among others, the objectives,
mission, actions, tasks, and the desired conditions that solve the identified problem. In
general, operational approach includes all of the answers to the first three steps.

As the discussion has shown, operational design, joint planning process, and advice of
sergeant major. Using all of these planning tools helps commanders and their staff in
planning and answering questions related to ends, means, and ways. In doing so, they greatly
increase the likelihood of the military operation or campaign achieving its objectives.

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References

Munsch S. (2020, December 1). Joint Publication 5-0: Joint Planning.