The Current Targeting Process

Abstract

This chapter examines the current targeting process. It begins by defining targeting as the process of selecting and prioritizing targets and matching the appropriate response to them, considering operational requirements and capabilities. The essential elements of targeting are highlighted: a process orientation, awareness of one’s own capabilities, and, perhaps most significantly, a linkage to a specific requirement. It then defines what the targeting process is not: arbitrary, fixated on the impossible or random. Next, this chapter lays out the targeting process by examining the US and NATO deliberate processes, along with their identical F2T2EA (Find, Fix, Track, Target, Engage, Assess) dynamic process. The author describes a targeting process that encompasses four steps: (1) objectives and guidance; (2) planning; (3) execution; and (4) assessment. This chapter identifies six dynamics that inform and influence the current targeting process: (1) tension between the art and science of targeting; (2) equal demands to both speed up and slow down the targeting cycle; (3) high demand for precision; (4) avoidance or at least mitigation of collateral damage; (5) non-lethal capabilities, increasingly relevant in today’s targeting; and (6) cognitive approach as the bedrock targeting principle. The author concludes by examining the future of the targeting process through the lens of robotics. As Artificial Intelligence increases, precision becomes more exact, the need for human beings in the loop lessen and greater isolation occurs from actual combat on the ground. These are unnerving possibilities that could impact targeting dynamics. For now, targeting remains focused on influence and coercion, leading one to the inescapable conclusion that targeting is a human activity. And this human activity, undertaken by humans and focused on other humans, drives the current targeting process.