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What constitutes a target! Is it a motorized rifle company repositioning as part of a combined arms reserve, whose potential effect on the battlefield places it squarely on the brigade combat team (BCT) commander's high-payoff target list? Could it be a dug-in infantry strongpoint, positioned in such a way that it can delay a muchlarger unit's movement indefinitely along an axis of advance? Perhaps it is an improvised explosive device production cell operating among an otherwise passive local populace with a notable insurgent leader at its head, coordinating an effective, widespread campaign bent on fostering unrest and instability. Is it a single 60-mm mortar, mounted in the trunk of a sedan, occasionally firing a couple of rounds into an adjacent forward operating base and then quickly melting back into an indigenous population?
If you answer yes to all of the above, you almost certainly have an appreciation for the diverse set of targets at all levels of warfare that have probably presented themselves to a targeting officer during the last few years. It is important to keep in mind that the examples listed above, in all likelihood, call for the use of lethal targeting to address them, and that there is also an equally diverse array of scenarios which lend themselves to nonlethal targeting.
In Joint Publication (JP) 1-02 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms , a target is defined as a geographical area, complex or installation planned for capture or destruction by military forces. Targets also include the wide array of mobile and stationary forces, equipment, capabilities and functions that an enemy commander can use to conduct operations. In JP 3-0 Joint Operations, the term "targeting" is defined as the process of selecting and prioritizing targets and matching the appropriate response to them, considering operational requirements and capabilities. While joint doctrine is not fundamentally wrong in its approach on defining targeting, it does leave the end user, the Soldier in today's operational environment (OE), lacking a really descriptive, useful doctrinal solution.
Field Manual (FM) 3-60 The Targeting Process. The current Army and Fires Center of Excellence (CoE), Fort Sill, Oklahoma, effort to clarify this perceived targeting doctrine shortfall isFM3-60 The Targeting Process (InitialDraft). FM 3-60 states that "successful targeting enables...