Terminology: Campaign Value

October 8, 2014

Campaign value is a term I frequently use to note that an asset’s budgetary ‘price tag’ or its tactical importance are not necessarily the same thing as its importance to a campaign or a war effort. As I described in the endnotes of my Maritime Deception and Concealment article:

The traditional term “high-value unit” is shorthand for tactically important or very expensive assets that a force must strive to protect: aircraft carriers, amphibious and maritime prepositioned matériel–carrying ships, replenishment ships, strategic aircraft, wide-area-surveillance aircraft, transport aircraft, and airborne-refueling aircraft. At the spectrum’s other end, “low-value unit” applies to relatively expendable small surface combatants and tactical aircraft. This terminology is imprecise, however, in that it incorrectly implies that an asset’s tactical value always carries over into campaign-level value. Although “high-value units” generally have high campaign value, the relationship is not automatic. For example, while an aircraft carrier’s tactical value is difficult to dispute, in a given campaign a combatant capable of ballistic-missile defense or a submarine carrying conventional land-attack missiles—either of which might otherwise be considered medium-value units—may be of greater importance and correspondingly require the support of the rest of the force. The key to interpreting a specific asset’s campaign value is to judge how a campaign would be impacted by its temporary incapacitation or outright loss. Campaign value is thus a more nuanced framework for doctrinal development and operational planning. (Pg. 109)

I failed to note above that “high value unit” can also be used to indicate an asset is of great operational-level importance. It is probably also more accurate to characterize them as being ‘very capital intensive’ to field vice merely being “very expensive.” Nevertheless, as most campaigns are comprised of multiple discrete operations, I believe that understanding an asset’s campaign value is a prerequisite to planning those operations.

I must reemphasize that the types of assets we normally think of when we use the term “high value unit” will generally also have high campaign value. My point is that circumstances matter, and as such one should examine how a specific asset’s capabilities and limitations can affect the holistic flow of a particular campaign based upon the capabilities and limitations of every other asset within the friendly force. A particular asset’s campaign value could also conceivably change over the course of a conflict; it is not necessarily static. Gauging an asset’s campaign value in ‘most likely’ as well as ‘most dangerous’ conflict scenarios not only can help inform when and how that asset should be used, but also inform force structure planners as to roughly how many of that asset should be procured or preserved.