SOF's Guide to Targeted Strategic Application in Competition
and Conflict Preparation
STRATEGY CENTRAL
For And By Practitioners
By Maurice "Duc" Duclos - March 7, 2025
"What gets measured gets managed."
— Peter Drucker
"A bad system will beat a good person every time."
— W. Edwards Deming
"Eliminate waste, that is the first and most important step to improvement."
— Taiichi Ohno
Introduction
Today's great power dynamics resist simple categorization. While U.S. joint doctrine describes a Competition Continuum from cooperation through competition to conflict, the reality is more complex, with relationships existing simultaneously at different points along this spectrum depending on the domain and context. For instance, the United States and China maintain economic cooperation in certain sectors while engaging in intense rivalry over territorial claims in the South China Sea. They may compete for influence in Southeast Asian nations while approaching rivalry in cyber operations. Similarly, U.S.-Russia relations show this multi-layered complexity, with limited cooperation in space operations coexisting alongside sharp rivalry over Ukraine.
This multi-domain nature of modern interstate relations creates unique challenges for measuring success. Different domains require different metrics and approaches—what constitutes success in economic competition may differ substantially from measures of effectiveness in influence operations or cyber rivalry. Therefore, the principle of cost imposition must be understood and applied within specific contextual and domain frameworks.
As Thomas Schelling observed in Arms and Influence, military power's greatest utility often lies not in destruction but in its ability to alter adversaries' strategic calculations. This principle takes on heightened importance in an era when relationships span the spectrum from cooperation to rivalry across multiple domains.
The challenges of measuring success manifest clearly in Southeast Asia. Since the end of World War II, Thailand has been one of America's strongest allies in the region. After the Office of Strategic Services was disbanded following World War II, William "Wild Bill" Donovan became U.S. Ambassador to Thailand, cementing a relationship that would serve as a crucial platform for irregular warfare in Laos and later Vietnam. U.S. Special Operations Forces have conducted more engagements in Thailand than any other country in the region, yet China's influence has grown virtually unchecked.
This paradox reveals fundamental challenges in competition. How do we know if we're winning? When does "partner of choice" or "preferred partner" translate into measurable competitive advantage? Most critically, how do we measure success in competition below the threshold of armed conflict? These questions extend beyond Thailand—across the Indo-Pacific and globally, military leaders and policymakers grapple with measuring success in competition.
Building partner capacity and strengthening relationships sound appealing, but these abstract goals provide little guidance for operators in the field. This disconnect between strategic guidance and tactical implementation manifests in three critical ways:
1. Practitioners struggle to distinguish between preparation for future contingencies and competition in the present
2. Measurement focuses on U.S. activities rather than effects on competitor behavior
3. Targeting methodology remains rooted in traditional conflict paradigms rather than competition dynamics
These gaps require a framework that bridges abstract strategic concepts with measurable tactical effects.
This challenge becomes particularly acute in the context of integrated deterrence, which requires the coordinated use of military, diplomatic, informational, and economic tools to prevent conflict. While integrated deterrence emphasizes whole-of-government approaches and international partnership, it faces the same fundamental challenge: how to measure effects and distinguish between activities that genuinely impose costs on competitors and those that merely demonstrate presence or capability.
The challenge of measuring competitive success extends beyond academic interest to operational necessity. Without clear metrics, military planners risk investing time and resources in activities that, while seemingly valuable, fail to affect the competitive environment. Just as businesses measure market share and revenue growth rather than abstract customer sentiment, military operations need empirical indicators of competitive advantage.
Measuring success in competition requires concrete, observable dimensions: time (measurable delays in adversary activities), space (quantifiable constraints on adversary freedom of action), and material (documented costs imposed on competitor operations). While implementing such measurement systems demands careful consideration, these dimensions offer a foundation for transforming abstract competition concepts into quantifiable outcomes.
The Quest For Measurable Effects: Understanding EBO's Rise and Fall
The military's pursuit of measurable effects predates modern competition. Since the emergence of airpower, strategists have sought frameworks to connect tactical actions with strategic outcomes. Early theorists like Giulio Douhet contended that precisely targeted bombing could achieve strategic effects by undermining the enemy's will to fight. During World War II, this thinking evolved through strategic bombing campaigns that aimed to create cascading effects across enemy systems.
Effects-Based Operations (EBO) emerged in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War as technological advances in precision warfare seemed to validate these theories. Heavily drawing from airpower theories such as John Warden's "Five Rings" model, EBO promised a revolutionary approach to military planning. Instead of focusing solely on attrition or the destruction of enemy forces, EBO aimed to orchestrate actions that would create specific, predictable effects on adversary capabilities and will.
Desert Storm's initial success offered a compelling case study. Precision strikes against key infrastructure and command nodes validated the idea that carefully targeted actions could produce cascading operational or even strategic effects. Military planners, equipped with increasingly sophisticated technology and modeling tools, believed they could map complex relationships between tactical actions and strategic outcomes. EBO offered an intellectually appealing framework aligned with America's growing technological advantage and desire for efficient, decisive operations.
However, EBO's theoretical elegance failed to translate into practical effectiveness. Operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo revealed fundamental flaws in the framework. Planners frequently conflated tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war, assuming direct causal relationships that didn't exist. For instance, targeting individual insurgent leaders (tactical) was expected to collapse insurgent networks (operational) and end popular support for resistance (strategic). These simplistic assumptions ignored the complex, adaptive nature of human systems.
While the air campaign in Kosovo achieved some success, it fell short of its broader strategic goals, demonstrating the framework's overreliance on airpower to compel political change. More fundamentally, EBO struggled with measurement itself. While physical effects like destroyed targets could be quantified, the framework increasingly emphasized abstract goals like "influence," "deterrence," or "hearts and minds." These intangible effects proved impossible to measure reliably, leading to confusion about progress and effectiveness.
The 2003 Iraq War operations further highlighted the challenges of predicting effects in complex environments. While initial strikes achieved their intended tactical effects, post-war decisions like the Coalition Provisional Authority's Order Number 2, which dissolved Iraq's military and security institutions, created cascading second and third-order effects that fundamentally altered the operational environment. The failure to anticipate and account for these effects illustrated the difficulty of predicting outcomes in complex human systems. By 2008, the U.S. Joint Forces Command officially abandoned EBO, citing its overreliance on predictive models and inability to bridge the gap between tactical actions and strategic effects.
Yet EBO's central challenge—linking military actions to desired strategic outcomes—remains critical today. As competition below the threshold of armed conflict becomes the primary arena of great power rivalry, the fundamental questions EBO tried to answer demand new solutions:
1. How can tactical activities support strategic goals?
2. What effects truly matter in competition?
3. How can success be measured in complex operating environments?
4. How do we transition from a reporting structure that prioritizes measures of tactical success (doing things well) to a framework that prioritizes strategic effectiveness (doing the right things)?
The failure of EBO offers crucial lessons for modern competition. Any effective framework must emphasize strategic effects while avoiding complex predictive models and abstract measures. Most importantly, it must provide practitioners with clear, observable metrics that bridge the gap between tactical actions and strategic outcomes.
The Problem of Measuring Competition
Analysis of post-Cold War U.S. military engagement reveals two predominant operational tracks: preparing for future conflict and building American influence. This pattern emerges clearly in operational activities across theaters. Preparation manifests in large-scale exercises like RIMPAC in the Pacific and Defender Europe, designed to maintain readiness for potential future conflicts. Meanwhile, influence-building appears in persistent engagement activities such as the State Partnership Program, security cooperation events, and military education exchanges. Both approaches, while important, demonstrate a critical gap—they rarely address competitors' current activities or impose immediate costs on their operations and strategic goals. For example, while Pacific Partnership missions build valuable relationships through humanitarian assistance, they don't directly counter China's ongoing maritime militia operations or artificial island construction. Similarly, while exercises demonstrate combat capabilities, they don't necessarily alter the immediate strategic calculations of competitors actively pursuing their objectives.
Joint doctrine recognizes this complexity through the Competition Continuum framework (JDN 1-19), which describes a world of ongoing competition that includes cooperation, competition below armed conflict, and armed conflict. While this framework helps conceptualize the range of military activities, it doesn't address the fundamental challenge of measuring effects and distinguishing between preparation and active competition.
Building on Schelling's insights about military power shaping behavior through costs, a critical distinction emerges between preparation and competition. Military planners often label preparation activities as "competition" simply because they occur during competitive periods. Training exercises, relationship building, and capability development are valuable investments in future readiness, but unless conflict manifests or events demonstrably influence competitor behavior, these remain unrealized gains.
In competition, strategy ultimately reduces to two fundamental options: grow your line or cut your opponent's. This elegant simplification, highlighted in Joe Hyams' Zen in the Martial Arts, provides a crucial starting point for understanding how to achieve dominance in competition. Whether in martial arts, business, or military operations, success comes from improving your position, degrading your opponent's, or a combination of both. The framework's simplicity belies its profound implications for modern military strategy.
This focus on preparation extends to how SOF has traditionally developed partner forces. Current approaches often attempt to create mirror images of U.S. SOF capabilities (growing the U.S. line) rather than developing partners' unique abilities to impose costs on competitors or resist foreign influence in their operating environment (cutting adversaries' lines). This tendency to replicate U.S. force structure and capabilities reflects a broader failure to distinguish between preparing for future conflicts and competing in current environments.
Similarly, efforts to grow American influence through sustained engagement, training exercises, and relationship building represent only half of Hyams' competitive strategy. U.S. military activities overwhelmingly focus on growing the line—becoming the "preferred partner," building partner capacity, and strengthening relationships—while rarely acting to cut competitors' lines of advance. This mirrors Schelling's distinction between deterrence and compellence—while focusing on deterring future aggression through capability building, military operations rarely compel changes in current competitor behavior through imposed costs.
This singular focus on growth and preparation explains why competitors continue to make strategic gains despite U.S. engagement efforts. In the South China Sea, extensive U.S. naval exercises and freedom of navigation operations haven't prevented the militarization of artificial islands. However successful, preparation for future contingencies and efforts to grow influence hasn't imposed meaningful costs on competitors or hindered their current operations. Drawing from Schelling's framework of coercion and deterrence in Arms and Influence, the mere threat of future costs proves insufficient without demonstrated willingness and capability to impose actual costs in the present.
Success in competition requires a clear distinction between preparation and active competition, coupled with frameworks that enable measurement of the actual costs imposed on competitor behavior. Such frameworks must provide clear metrics for success while helping planners identify and eliminate activities that don't contribute to competitive advantage. Most critically, they must bridge the gap between abstract strategic concepts and tactical implementation without succumbing to the complexity that defeated previous attempts at effects-based approaches.
Measuring Success in Competition
The challenge of measuring competitive advantage extends beyond military operations. Successful businesses measure their competitive position through empirical metrics like market share and revenue growth. Professional sports teams employ sophisticated measurement systems: football coaches track not just wins and losses (lag measures) but possession time and field position (lead measures), while baseball managers employ sophisticated statistical analysis. These domains reveal how measuring outcomes at different time intervals enables an understanding of progress and competitive position.
Some competitive domains have developed particularly sophisticated approaches to measurement that offer insights for military competition. Chess provides perhaps the most relevant model. Consider a chess match midway through the game, with both players away from the board. Could an observer determine who holds the advantage? For experienced players, the answer is demonstrably yes—chess masters evaluate positions through clear, observable indicators that transcend individual moves or strategies.
Soviet Grandmaster Alexander Kotov, in Think Like a Grandmaster, established that position evaluation must rely on standard, measurable criteria rather than intuition or hope. Chess masters assess temporal advantage through piece development and initiative—having forces positioned to act while the opponent must react. They evaluate spatial advantage through the control of key squares and mobility options. Material advantage manifests in both raw piece count and relative value. Together, these three measurements—time, space, and material—create an observable foundation for analyzing competitive advantage.
The chess master's systematic approach to measurement finds a powerful complement in Toyota's Production System (TPS) focus on operational efficiency. Toyota revolutionized manufacturing by eliminating waste at every step. Using Value Stream Mapping, Toyota's engineers trace each process from raw material to finished product, identifying and eliminating activities that don't add customer value. This ruthless focus on efficiency through measurement provides a vital complement to positional evaluation.
The power of combining positional measurement with process efficiency appears clearly in military history. During World War II, Special Operations Executive (SOE) missions demonstrated measurable effects across all dimensions. As General Eisenhower noted, "Sabotage caused effects beyond the capacity of the Allied air effort, delaying all German divisions moving from the Mediterranean to Normandy, and forcing extensive enemy detours, with the consequence that they arrived, if at all, too late and not in fighting condition, or in a state of extreme disorganization and exhaustion." These operations created clear and measurable temporal costs through delays, spatial effects by denying key transportation routes, and material costs through destroyed equipment and resources spent on alternate routing.
These examples raise critical questions for military operations in competition. What activities constitute waste? How many operations and exercises measurably contribute to competitive advantage? Just as Toyota maps processes backward from customer value to eliminate unnecessary steps, military planners need frameworks to distinguish between activities that impose costs on competitors and those that merely consume resources. The synthesis of positional measurement from chess with process efficiency from manufacturing points toward a comprehensive approach for achieving and measuring competitive advantage in modern military operations.
The TSM Framework
The synthesis of chess position evaluation and industrial process mapping provides both measurement criteria and process clarity for competitive operations. Chess masters assess advantage through discrete indicators, establishing clear metrics for evaluating competitive positions. Through process mapping, Toyota's engineers distinguish between activities that create value and those that merely consume resources. Together, these approaches form the foundation of a systematic framework for measuring and achieving competitive advantage.
The Time, Space, and Material (TSM) Framework addresses the operational planning gap through a systematic formula: for every measurable effect in time, space, or material, there must be a specific target (X) and a primary action (Y) that affects that target. Primary actions create direct effects while supporting (or secondary) actions develop the conditions and capabilities necessary for primary action success.
Unlike EBO's complex predictive models, the TSM framework focuses on observable, measurable effects. The model serves as what Toyota's Production System (TPS) terms kanban—a visual management tool that shows workflow and process status. It demonstrates the progression from requirements through actions to measurable effects.
The TSM framework's foundation starts with proper target selection and understanding. Unlike traditional military targeting that focuses on physical infrastructure and military assets, targets in competition require a fundamentally different approach.
Understanding Targets in Competition
While strategic planning often focuses on broader objectives, this framework deliberately uses the term "targets" to emphasize specific nodes, activities, or relationships where measurable costs can be imposed. Targets represent the concrete points where strategic objectives intersect with tactical opportunities for cost imposition. Unlike strategic objectives which may remain abstract, targets in this framework must be specific enough to enable measurement of effects in time, space, and material.
Targets in the TSM framework differ fundamentally from traditional military targeting. While conflict targets typically reside within adversary territory, competition targets exist primarily in neutral third nations where competitors vie for influence, resources, and access. These targets are rarely physical entities suitable for lethal strikes. Instead, they represent activities, relationships, or nodes within an adversary's steady-state strategy.
Understanding competitors' steady-state strategies is crucial for targeting. As Steven Hiatt demonstrates in A Game as Old as Empire, nations expand influence through systematic economic manipulation, infrastructure development, and the creation of strategic dependencies. China's "Port-Park-City" model exemplifies this approach—under the guise of economic development, these projects establish dual-use facilities that serve both civilian and military purposes while creating strategic dependencies and access venues in host nations.
Traditional military operations use the Joint Integrated Prioritized Target List (JIPTL), which focuses on lethal effects. Competition, however, requires a Consolidated Competition Target List (CCTL), which identifies key nodes and activities where costs can be imposed on competitor operations. The CCTL functions like what Toyota's Production System calls the gemba—the real place where value is created or lost. This targeting approach allows planners to identify specific points where measurable effects can be achieved without escalating to armed conflict.
Primary Actions and TSM Effects
Primary actions impose direct, measurable costs on targets. These costs manifest in three categories derived from chess position evaluation: time, space, and material. Each category provides distinct, observable indicators of competitive advantage.
Time effects appear as delays in competitor activities, extended project timelines, or increased planning requirements. When local opposition delays an infrastructure project or diplomatic pressure forces operational timeline changes, these represent measurable temporal costs. Just as chess masters evaluate temporal advantage through piece development and initiative, military planners can assess competitive advantage through measured delays in competitor operations.
Space effects manifest in denied access to key areas, restricted movement options, or limited influence in target regions. Whether through physical denial of territory or political constraints on competitor activities, spatial effects limit adversary freedom of action. Just as chess masters evaluate control of key squares and mobility options, military practitioners can measure spatial advantage through competitor access limitations and maneuver constraints.
Material effects manifest in resource expenditures, whether financial, diplomatic, or military. Beyond direct financial costs, material effects include equipment losses, personnel requirements, and resource expenditures on alternative approaches. Like evaluating piece count and relative value in chess, material costs in competition can be measured through quantifiable resource expenditures. However, material effects must be evaluated through return on investment analysis—comparing costs imposed on competitors against resources expended. For instance, using expensive interceptor missiles against low-cost drones may impose greater costs on the defender than the aggressor. Effective material cost imposition requires identifying opportunities where relatively low-cost actions can force competitors to expend disproportionate resources.
Measuring and Attributing Effects
Quantifying effects in competition requires a rigorous methodology to establish both measurement and attribution. For temporal effects, measurement begins with documented baseline timelines from competitor planning documents, public statements, or historical patterns of similar activities. Delays are then calculated against these baselines, with attribution strengthened through multiple indicators such as competitor statements, observed changes in resource allocation, or adaptation of operational patterns.
Spatial effects can be quantified through a percentage of denied access (geographic coverage), frequency of successful competitor activities in contested areas, or documented routing changes. When competitors are forced to use alternate supply routes, measurement combines geographic analysis (percentage of preferred routes denied) with operational impact (increased distance, reduced frequency of access).
Material costs are perhaps the most directly quantifiable, encompassing documented financial expenditures, resource allocation changes, and opportunity costs. These can be measured through competitor budget documents, observable resource shifts, or calculated costs of alternative approaches. The key is establishing pre-intervention baselines and documenting specific changes tied to cost-imposing activities.
Attribution requires correlating multiple indicators to establish causation:
Temporal correlation between action and effect
Multiple independent indicators of impact
Documented competitor responses or adaptations
Absence of other major causal factors
Pattern analysis across similar cases
These measurable effects contribute to credible deterrence by demonstrating both capability and willingness to impose costs. As Schelling emphasizes, influence stems not just from potential future costs but from demonstrated ability to affect competitor calculations in the present. By establishing clear measurement criteria and attribution methodology, these effects move beyond abstract influence to create documented competitive advantage.
The TSM framework can be expressed as a process model, where primary actions against specific targets produce measurable effects in time, space, and material. Figure 2 illustrates this relationship.
The Four Requirements
Every primary action demands four essential elements to enable execution. These requirements must be developed systematically to ensure successful implementation of cost-imposing activities:
Intelligence about the target extends beyond physical characteristics to include understanding vulnerabilities and dependencies. In competition, intelligence requirements often focus on economic, political, and social factors rather than traditional military considerations.
Capability to execute the action encompasses both direct means and partner forces. This requires careful assessment of available capabilities against specific action requirements, including evaluation of both U.S. and partner force capacities.
Placement and Access refers to the physical, virtual, or political positioning necessary to affect the target. In competition, this frequently involves developing relationships and influence networks rather than physical presence.
Authorities, permissions, and funding, primarily an internal requirement, typically comes last after the other three requirements are at least partially fulfilled. While essential, this requirement often depends on demonstrating progress in the other three areas before approval.
The relationship between these requirements and the principal or primary action is depicted in Figure 3.
Secondary Actions and Their Development
Primary actions impose measurable costs on competitors, but rarely are all requirements for successful operations present when planners develop a strategy, campaign, or line of operation. Secondary (or supporting) actions form the essential infrastructure enabling these targeted interventions. These activities, fundamentally different from primary actions, create necessary conditions for executing primary actions rather than directly imposing costs. Like Toyota's Production System (TPS) concept of muda—Japanese for "waste"—activities that don't contribute to eventual effects must be identified and eliminated.
In optimal scenarios, a single secondary action can simultaneously meet multiple requirements. For example, an in-country engagement with a partner SOF force might:
Develop the partner force's capability
Establish access and placement for future operations
Generate intelligence about potential targets
As illustrated in Figure 4, each secondary action has its own requirements regarding intelligence, capability, access and placement, authorities, funding, and permission.
Some requirements may require numerous secondary actions to complete. For example, building a complete intelligence picture might require multiple collection activities, relationship development efforts, and analytical products. The key is understanding how each secondary action contributes to requirement development.
This diagram shows:
How secondary actions answer requirements based on current conditions
How results of secondary actions fulfill requirements for primary actions
How primary actions against targets achieve measurable effects in time, space, and material
Planners may develop as many secondary actions as necessary, with requirements potentially being answered during Preparation of the Environment (PE) or through PE activities executed specifically to support future primary actions.
The process model depicted in Figure 5 illustrates the sequential and concurrent nature of developing competitive advantage.
Upstream Targeting and Strategic Advantage
A unique advantage of the TSM framework lies in its ability to facilitate upstream targeting of competitor requirements. Because many competition activities occur in third nations, competitors must fulfill their own four requirements to achieve their strategic and operational goals. Targeting their actions during the requirements development phase can impose costs before the adversary completes their primary actions.
This upstream targeting capability represents a significant departure from traditional targeting frameworks. Rather than waiting for adversary actions to be fully developed, planners can identify and engage vulnerabilities in their requirement development process through:
Disrupting intelligence collection
Denying access and placement
Degrading capabilities
Complicating their authorities and permissions landscape
This approach proves particularly valuable in competition, where early intervention often produces greater effects at lower costs than activities to counter fully developed adversary actions. By understanding and targeting competitor requirements early, military forces can impose costs more efficiently and effectively than waiting to counter completed operations.
Through systematic application of the TSM framework, SOF planners can transform abstract competition concepts into measurable effects. The process mapping approach helps practitioners:
Identify waste in operational activities
Focus resources on activities that produce measurable effects
Better understand how tactical actions contribute to strategic outcomes
Distinguish between true competition and mere preparation
Most importantly, the framework provides clarity about resource allocation and operational priorities. Activities that don't contribute to measurable effects on competitor behavior represent either waste or preparation for future contingencies. This distinction enables better decisions about where to invest limited resources for maximum competitive impact.
The TSM Framework In Action
Real-world examples demonstrate how imposed costs can be measured in terms of time, space, and material, even when such effects occur organically rather than through deliberate operations. These cases show how specific actions against concrete targets produce measurable effects that degrade competitor capabilities and complicate their operations.
Operation Allied Force, NATO's 1999 air campaign in Kosovo, demonstrated measurable effects through systematic targeting. Primary actions—air strikes against Serbian military infrastructure—produced specific costs:
Time: Serbian forces spent 6-8 hours daily relocating equipment instead of conducting operations Space: Strikes denied Serb forces access to over 50% of main supply routes Material: Serbia expended over $4 billion on air defense operations and dispersal of forces
More recent cases show how local resistance imposes similar measurable costs in competition. China's Myitsone Dam project in Myanmar, a $3.6 billion hydroelectric installation planned as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, faced sustained opposition from local communities concerned about environmental and social impacts. When the Myanmar government suspended the project in 2011, it created clear effects across all dimensions:
Time: Indefinite delay stretching over a decade Space: Myanmar's wariness of further Chinese investments limited China's regional access Material: Billions in sunk costs plus redirected resources
Russia's Shiyes landfill project provides another example of resistance imposing costs. Environmental activists and local residents established protest camps and pursued legal challenges, ultimately forcing the project's cancellation in 2020:
Time: Two years of sustained opposition and delays Space: Loss of access to a key waste management site Material: Millions wasted in preparatory investments and legal battles
As noted earlier, the 2023 disruption of Iranian weapons shipments to Syria demonstrates how deliberate action can achieve similar measurable effects through precision targeting of supply networks.
These examples reveal several critical insights:
Measurable effects can result from both deliberate military operations and organic resistance
Costs manifest across time, space, and material dimensions in predictable ways
Understanding these patterns allows practitioners to recognize and potentially amplify effects
Even in competition below armed conflict, adversary activities can face significant measurable costs
The effectiveness of these imposed costs points toward the framework's utility in modern competition. Whether through organized resistance, military action, or political opposition, properly targeted actions can produce concrete, measurable effects that degrade competitor capabilities without crossing the threshold of armed conflict.
Implications and Way Ahead
The TSM framework's combination of measurement criteria and process mapping suggests several critical implications for military operations in competition. Most immediately, Geographic Combatant Commands (GCCs) and Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOCs) need federated target lists for competition—lists coordinated and shared across agencies and commands that identify specific initiatives, relationships, and activities where imposing costs would affect competitor behavior. Unlike traditional targeting processes focused on physical infrastructure, competition target lists must identify nodes in competitor steady-state strategies where costs can be imposed through available means.
Currently, Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOCs) maintain distinct regional approaches to competition, often without clear mechanisms for sharing effective practices across theaters (yokoten in Toyota's Production System terms). This regional segregation creates challenges when competitor activities span multiple theater boundaries. Success against Russian influence operations in Eastern Europe might inform approaches to Chinese infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia. Similarly, effective resistance to Iranian proxy activities could suggest methods for imposing costs on competitors in other regions. A federated targeting approach enables both sharing of best practices and coordination against cross-theater competitor operations.
Just as Toyota's leaders practice genchi genbutsu (go and see), military leaders need a deeper understanding of competitive spaces rather than relying on superficial visits or abstract reports. This requires:
Sustained presence in competitive environments
Deep comprehension of local dynamics
Understanding how local irregular forces can impose measurable costs
Recognition of opportunities for Special Operations Forces to amplify effects through systematic support to resistance
The framework suggests new approaches to operational planning. Kaizen—Toyota's concept of continuous improvement through small, sustained actions—better describes competition than dramatic operations or strategic raids. Success comes through systematically identifying and engaging targets that degrade competitor capabilities over time. This requires integrating irregular warfare capabilities with broader competitive strategies. Activities intended to counter malign adversarial actions, such as the Chinese Communist Party's water cannon use against Philippine fishermen within the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Philippines or Russia's attacks upon Ukraine's civilians, are low-risk targets as these adversarial actions are counter to the rules-based international order.
Implementation requires several concrete steps across commands:
Development of theater-wide competition target lists
Mechanisms to measure and track imposed costs
Integration of targeting processes with partner capabilities
Robust information sharing across theaters
Training for planners and operators in framework application
Technology offers opportunities to enhance implementation. Just as Toyota uses jidoka—automation with a human touch—military planners could leverage artificial intelligence and data analytics to identify patterns in competitor behavior and opportunities for cost imposition. This human-centered approach to automation ensures that technology enhances rather than replaces human judgment in identifying and assessing competitive opportunities.
Success in modern competition requires the synthesis of these elements: systematic targeting, partner development, continuous assessment, and efficient resource allocation. The TSM framework provides a practical tool for achieving this synthesis while maintaining a focus on measurable effects rather than abstract concepts of influence or deterrence. Through rigorous application of these principles, military forces can move beyond engagement for engagement's sake to achieve meaningful competitive advantage.
Conclusion
As competition below armed conflict increasingly defines today’s great power rivalries, the capability to measure success clearly and practically has become essential. The Time, Space, and Material (TSM) Framework addresses this need by bridging strategic aspirations with measurable tactical and operational effects, resolving the critical gap exemplified by the Thailand paradox: decades of valuable but abstract engagement failed to impose meaningful costs on competitors due to a disconnect between tactical actions and measurable strategic outcomes.
Effects Based Operations faltered by overcomplicating relationships between tactical actions and strategic goals, relying excessively on abstract predictions and intangible metrics. In contrast, the TSM Framework simplifies strategic measurement through observable criteria—time delays, spatial restrictions, and material expenditures—transforming theoretical concepts into actionable tools. While its foundation draws inspiration from chess positional evaluation and Toyota’s Production System, these analogies serve as illustrative starting points rather than definitive models. Recognizing the limitations of such comparisons, the framework must evolve to account for the unpredictable human dynamics, cultural nuances, and political variables inherent in geopolitical competition, requiring ongoing adaptation informed by real-world feedback and diverse contexts.
The examples of Myanmar’s Myitsone Dam, NATO operations in Kosovo, and grassroots resistance movements highlight how effective measurement in competition can deliver tangible strategic impacts. Recognizing and amplifying these organic effects through carefully targeted interventions offers military planners clear guidance for resource allocation, operational prioritization, and partner capability development. However, this approach must be tempered by a robust consideration of ethical, legal, and political risks. Imposing costs in neutral third nations could destabilize host governments, violate international norms, or escalate tensions, necessitating a balanced strategy that integrates legal oversight, diplomatic coordination, and ethical guidelines to ensure alignment with democratic values and international law. Future iterations of the TSM Framework should incorporate mechanisms for assessing these risks, such as pre-action impact assessments and interagency collaboration to mitigate unintended consequences.
Moreover, the framework’s potential lies not only in military operations but also in integrating non-military instruments of power—diplomacy, economic leverage, and information campaigns—into a cohesive strategy. While Special Operations Forces (SOF) excel at upstream targeting and irregular warfare, the full realization of integrated deterrence requires synchronizing these efforts with economic sanctions, public diplomacy, and cyber operations to maximize cost imposition across domains. This multi-faceted approach demands a federated target list that includes non-military nodes, ensuring a whole-of-government effort that complements SOF’s tactical expertise with broader strategic effects.
Yet, the TSM Framework’s greatest challenge—and opportunity—lies in its implementation. Overcoming entrenched organizational barriers requires sustained leadership commitment, resource reallocation based on measurable effectiveness rather than activity volume, and comprehensive training in competitive dynamics. The understated difficulties of coordinating across Geographic Combatant Commands (GCCs) and Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOCs), securing authorities and funding for cost-imposing activities, and navigating bureaucratic resistance necessitate a phased rollout. This could include pilot programs to test the framework in specific theaters, iterative refinement based on lessons learned, and the establishment of a dedicated task force to streamline inter-theater information sharing and best practice dissemination (yokoten). Technology, such as artificial intelligence for pattern recognition and data analytics for targeting, can enhance efficiency, but its application must retain a human-centered approach (jidoka) to preserve judgment in complex environments.
Potential limitations also warrant attention. Competitors may adapt to cost-imposing strategies, reducing their effectiveness over time, or measurable effects in time, space, and material may not always yield strategic success if adversaries double down on their objectives. The framework must therefore include contingency planning and resilience-building measures, such as flexible target prioritization and the ability to pivot strategies based on competitor responses. By addressing these counterarguments, the TSM Framework can remain dynamic and resilient in the face of evolving threats.
By adopting and systematically applying the TSM Framework with these enhancements, planners can bridge the enduring gap between abstract strategic intent and tactical execution, aligning military and civilian activities decisively with competitive objectives. Real-world examples—from grassroots resistance to deliberate military interventions—confirm its efficacy, while a proactive approach to ethics, non-military integration, and implementation challenges ensures its sustainability. Ultimately, this refined framework empowers planners to impose real costs, shape competitor behaviors, and secure measurable competitive advantages, transforming strategic competition from a theoretical aspiration into an operational reality that is both effective and responsibly executed.
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Additional Credits
The author extends his deepest gratitude to the cadre of the 18F Special Forces Intelligence Officer Course at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School in Fort Bragg, NC. Interactions with both the students and the cadre during the presentation of the model have been instrumental in bridging conceptual frameworks with practical applications. Incorporating the TSM Framework into several exercises and projects has enriched the educational experience and validated its utility as a powerful tool for understanding and addressing the complexities of modern strategic competition. Their commitment to innovation in intelligence and targeting methodology reflects the highest standards of the Special Warfare Center’s mission.
Additional thanks to CW5(R) Chad Macheila and Mr. Christian Ramthun for their assistance and support in developing this framework. Chad Macheila was the first to adopt the framework operationally and has helped evolve its details and nuance over time. Chad developed the graphics used in this article to successfully present the framework to various organizations’ staff officers and commands. Christian Ramthun was the first to incorporate the framework in education at Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) and supported its addition to numerous classes over the last five years. Without Christian pushing for the model to be included in JSOU classes, it would have likely died as an obscure process model that was neither fully developed nor implemented in any significant way.
Finally, deep gratitude goes out to Mr. Doowan Lee, Chief Strategy Officer at EdgeTheory, and Mr. Serge French at U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) for their friendship, valuable feedback, and continued support over the years. This model was first sketched on a napkin at Doowan's home in San Francisco after a homemade Korean dinner, and he has been one of its staunchest advocates ever since.
About the Author
CW5 Maurice "Duc" DuClos currently serves as a Guest Lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California. His professional background includes various positions at the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) Joint Special Operations University (JSOU), the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (USAJFKSWCS), 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) and 2/75th Ranger Battalion.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Special Operations Command, Joint Special Operations University, or the Naval Postgraduate School.
An important contribution to the field of SOF literature. The authors analysis of how imposing costs can influence strategic competition and deterrence dynamics is an important topic today.
Thanks for all those who have provided feedback on the article. If anyone is interested, the link below is an older online lecture I gave a few years back on the same topic.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zex3s9Z1lcCZQQa6gOXxWgcUpIRUKbef/view?usp=sharing