Following the recent revision of the MEDO conducted by the DEP of the Staff College, the CDEF thought it appropriate, among other minor corrections and additions, to rename the latter MEDOT, with a "T" for "tactical (1)". Although this amendment had the laudable aim of underlining the usefulness of this method in comparison with those coming from the upper echelons of the joint and allied forces (2), the author of these lines (3) would like to express his disagreement with this addition, which leads to the idea that the method would be adapted to one and only one level of operational command.

The question is whether it can and should be used only at a particular level of command and for a particular type of work, or whether, on the contrary, it can be used on a fairly wide scale with some adaptation. This question recurs in any discussion of the method, regardless of the competence and nationality of the auditors.For my part, I am certain that MEDO makes it possible to develop responses to any operational problem and that confining its use to a particular level or type of work is a rigid and harmful doctrinaire idea. First, even the highest level of command may have to quickly design and execute a simple manoeuvre. Second, because the method, by its very simplicity, is easily adaptable and within the grasp of any enlightened mind, whereas the methods currently in use for higher echelons and levels suffer intrinsically from their complexity and intellectualism.

In 2009, with the aim of having a single method covering the full spectrum of situations, levels of command, and decisions to be taken, conceptual tools from allied methods were introduced into MEDO.s strategic planning methods, centres of gravity, decisive points and lines of operation, without clearly integrating them into the major effect, an essential concept of the old tactical reasoning method. The resulting confusion led in 2013 to revise the method to purge it of these external inputs and bring it back to the logic of the tactical reasoning method, from which the MEDO differed only slightly. (4). A CEMA Decision (5)published at the same time, according to which the Comprehensive Operations Planning Directive (COPD) (6) would henceforth be the sole method used for planning in the French armed forces, legitimised the revision of MEDO, while relegating it to the short and medium-term work of the lower tactical echelons, the preparation of operation orders and coercive operations. The question then arose: since everyone agreed on the use of the method at the lower echelons of command up to and including the brigade, should its use by the higher echelons, division and above, be excluded?Or, to put it another way, can and should the higher echelons of command, including the joint, apply COPD to all their work?

Contemporary "planning" methods, inherited from the French methods of 1918 and the American methods of 1945, specially studied for the drafting of operational plans. combined to very large extents (of the Overlord type), recently interspersed with considerations of general policy or strategy (the Comprehensive Approach), are primarily intended to prepare for the drafting of multiple pieces of work largely dominated by technical considerations. This is always forgotten, but their purpose has never been to draft an initial order of operation. (7) but the famous "family of plans" organizing a campaign, that is to say a series of operations.The method is, by the very fact, adapted to the initial work of strategic or operational staffs, to the drafting of campaign plans, or even to the drafting of "combined" plans for a particular phase of the campaign. These methods are necessary, in view of the enormity of the force groupings involved in Alliance manoeuvres. (8)This is due to the vastness of the theatres, combined with the fact that operations last at least ten years and take into account the many non-military causes of the conflict.However, even Allied force commanders are sometimes obliged to give immediate orders in an emergency, and experiences such as those reiterated by KFOR (March 2004 then March 2008) as well as many expeditionsRiences at HQ IJC in Afghanistan, have clearly shown that GOPP or COPD were fundamentally unsuited to such a need and that the effectiveness of the staff then depended entirely on the mastery, by at least a few, of simple and rapid methods of reasoning. It can even be argued that the exclusive use of COPD-type methods was in 2009 one of the main causes of ISAF's inability to conduct the manoeuvre, an inability that was not the result of the ISAF's own inability to conduct the manoeuvre. which led to the creation of a subordinate command, the ISAF Joint Command, which proved to be as unfit to "lead" as its superior had been. MEDO can therefore be useful at any level of command, without exception.

The question is sometimes raised of the adaptation of MEDO to the problems of the comprehensive approach. This question is most often based on the observation that the method does not specifically provide for the study of this or that factor, which seems to be necessary for a global understanding of the problem and duly mentioned as such in the "planning" methods. However, it should go without saying that the method is not confined to the texts that describe it, and that every person dealing with staff has a duty to study a factor that is not formally foreseen but that he has identified as important in the operational problem being studied.However, the simplicity of the MEDO gives the staff members a great deal of freedom to study factors of all kinds, in return for an effort to correctly identify in which part of the analysis these factors will be studied. In the global approach, the staff must, in particular, try to distinguish between what is the study of the enemy (AGAINST WHAT?) and what is the 'human terrain' (WHERE?). For example, the relevance of ISAF and IJC's study of the corruption of Afghan elites as part of the study of the enemy can be questioned, leading to the study of the Afghan president himself, whom the force was mandated to support, as the "enemy"! It should have been understood that corruption was only one factor among others in the human terrain of the operation. To be simple, MEDO is therefore not simplistic and can perfectly well cover problems of great complexity.

One of its essential qualities, finally, remains its accessibility to an average mind. It has proved satisfactory both to junior NCOs (in its short version) and to the highest echelons of command in its more elaborate versions, without any profound change in the underlying logic (its "engine"). Consequently, it is the ideal collective method because a good method is above all a method that everyone understands. However, the reasoning methods dedicated to the higher echelons of command, DFO, GOPP, COPD, operational design and others all suffer from the capital sin of intellectualism. Often conceived in brilliant think tanks, incomprehensible to the common man, marked by the scientific conviction that anything that can be expressed in figures is really only practiced by intellectual elites, at the antipodes of the composition of even a high-level, albeit American, staff. Most of the time they are only used to make "plans" as huge as agreed upon, valid for all wars, and which the most brain-developed enemy will break through without difficulty. In fact, such plans are really for no other purpose than to be approved in detail by the governments of nations. Consequently, the simplicity of MEDO is better suited to employing the entire work force of a staff to produce concrete and truly useful work for operations.

In reality, such matters are dealt with directly by the individuals themselves, who adopt the method best suited to their needs at the time. For example, the J35 of an operational staff will implement MEDO or a comparable method at a particular time, while the J5 will conduct the COPD for the development of the overall plan. Forcibly confining MEDO to a particular level or 'level' of operations is therefore not only wrong but completely illusory.

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1 And not as "timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" as those who have letters may have believed.

2 Those who combine joints?

3 And of the final document itself in which he was honoured to be cited as "the author" even though he disputes many of its details.

4 The first version of the MEDO simply added to the MRT a meeting on the conclusions of the mission analysis, mimicking the reflection process described in the Bi-strategic commanders guideline for operational planning (bi-SC GOPP), an allied method then in use.

5 Note No. 012 DEF/CICDE/SEC-CENT/NP of 12 January 2013.

6 Reflection method replacing the Bi-SC GOPP.

7 Some older documents use the plural form of the word operation in "plan of operations" and the singular form in "order of operation", clearly indicating the difference in magnitude.

8 Whose scenarios are characterized by a zero probability of occurrence. In the CJTFX 2004 exercise of CJTF 950 (subordinate to SACLANT), amphibious TF alone launched more aircraft than it owned.The Alliance's current levels of ambition have not yet broken with this incantatory character.