MDMP Paper

What is the worst thing that a force can do before going into battle? The worst thing that a force cannot do is have improper planning. In the article Anaconda- A Flawed Joint Planning there was some key steps that were missed in the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP). The article describes five errors that the unit could have avoided by using MDMP. However I am only going to discuss four out of the five errors and there are as follows: Poor Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield, Underestimating Airpower Deployment Time, Lack of Tactical Coordination for Close Air Support and the Lack of Operational- and Strategic-level Coordination. The first error that occurred was poor intelligence preparation of the battlefield. The Coalition Joint Task Force (CJTF) had really poor intelligence. The intelligence that the CJTF used was only from local Afghans. The CJTF should have Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) by using the ISR the coalition forces would have been able to have a more accurate account of enemy forces and positions. According to FM 5.0 the step that could have been used in the MDMP process to avoid this error is step 2. Under step 2 Mission Analysis the CJTF should have done the Initial Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield. Step 1 of the IPB is evaluate existing databases and Identify intelligence gaps. The intelligence gap that was missing was true data on the enemy numbers and positions. If the CJTF would have executed the IPB, especially step 1 they would had noticed the intelligence gap. Once the gap was notice they could have requested ISRs for true data on enemy numbers and positions. The result would have been a better coordinated attack. The second error that occurred was understanding airpower deployment time. The CJTF failed to integrate air planners in the planning and mission. Do to the fact that air planners were not involved key effects occurred during the battle. One was air tankers were being replaced during