Center of gravity

THEORY
When I was posting the other day, I used the term center of gravity. the phrase then rattled around in my brain, in large part because it's one of those terms that people who have studied military affairs for a while use without thinking. It's a trickier concept than it looks, so I kicked myself for not having included it in the "hallowed principles of strategy" postings I've made for the last few months. Today, I'll correct that omission.

The center of gravity, as its name implies, is the defining characteristic of a conflict. At the risk of mixing metaphors, it's the proverbial lynchpin on which victory and defeat turn. Every war has its center of gravity, which (like war aims) may change over time.

In conventional wars, the center of gravity usually has been the two contending armies. In the ancient and medieval worlds, the opponents would maneuver until they joined battle. The result of that clash of arms was swift (no more than a single day) and decisive, since one side or the other usually lost the military strength to continue the fight. Each side's center of gravity was immediately visible, as a single army on the march across a contested landscape. Think of Edward III's march across northern France, ending in the battle of Crecy; Alexander's march across the Persian empire, ending in the battle of Gaugemala; or Caesar's cat-and-mouse maneuvering against Pompey, ending in the battle of Pharsalus. Even if the campaign ended in a siege, the basic course of combat was the same: maneuver, a direct clash between two armies in a limited geographic space (a field or a fortress), a moment of climax (the enemy retreats, the city walls are breached, a starved population decides it can't continue), and capitulation.

The center of gravity isn't always the enemy's armed forces, however. In "political" wars, the center of gravity can be the political will to continue paying the costs in blood and treasure of further combat. As the often-quoted Harry Summers observed about the Vietnam War, the United States won every battle, but it lost the war. The United States could have continued fighting the NVA and NLF indefinitely, but it chose not to. (Which, of course, led to decades of arguing over whether that decision was correct or not.) In Nicaragua, the core political base of the Somoza regime, the army and police forces, defected, paving the way for the later Sandinista victory.

The center of gravity in conventional wars also can vary somewhat. The ability to continue fighting may hinge on the strength of the army, navy, or air force, but what maintains strength? On the western front of WWI, generals on both sides focused on the number of relative number of troops killed each day. In the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the Soviets needed the physical space to continue retreating until they could mobilize sufficiently to counterattack. In the Union campaigns against the Confederacy in 1864 through 1865, the emphasis had switched somewhat from winning a decisive set-piece battle to destroying the Southern economy.

The center of gravity may not be the same for both sides. For example, in the Ten Years War phase of the Peloponnesian War, particularly in the first three years, the center of gravity for Athens was its treasury, which determined how many years it could sustain Pericles' defensive strategy. Sparta's center of gravity, on the other hand, was its alliances: how well they held together; how much the war effort satisfied alliance politics for the Peloponnesians.

If the center of gravity does lie in the political or psychological realm, it's definitely harder to calculate the enemy's strength, or judge what's needed to strike effectively at this center of gravity. Defying the conventions of Maoist strategy, Castro switched the first two phases of a guerrilla campaign: the actual armed struggle in Cuba began before his movement built a large political base. He obviously guessed right about what he needed to do, but it wasn't as definite a calculation as, say, planning Operation DESERT STORM. Certainly, many military leaders have guessed wrong about the enemy's political center of gravity. Hitler, believing in the "terror from the air" theories of pre-war analysts like Duohet, thought that bombing British cities would force a British surrender. The Blitz stiffended British resistance, however, exactly the opposite of what Hitler had expected.

What determines the center of gravity? The status of military methods and technology, the war aims or grand strategies of the combatants, deliberate theater and operational decisions, and fate all play their parts. In the Chinese Civil War, the Communists originally tried to fight a conventional war. They paid for this mistake, but also learned that they could shift the emphasis from the balance of force to the balance of control. Pointing their energies at a different center of gravity not only led to the CCP's victory, but also inspired generations of imitators in other guerrilla wars.

PRACTICE
When I write postings on this blog, I often bemoan the non-discussion of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the general US counterterrorism effort worldwide. Americans can't afford to be incurious about these conflicts. Nowhere is that statement more relevant than the question, What is the center of gravity in these wars?

To illustrate, answer the following question: To win the war in Iraq, the most important step is to...

1. Kill as many of the enemy as possible.


2. Secure areas that are home to people who might support or tolerate the enemy.


3. Carry out large public works projects designed to win support.


4. Remove a military presence that some group of people find offensive.

Don't worry, there's no 100% correct answer. Instead, the point of the exercise is to show the differences between how people might answer that question, and then this one: To win the global war against terrorist groups like al Qaeda, the most important step is to...

1. Kill as many of the enemy as possible.


2. Secure areas that are home to people who might support or tolerate the enemy.


3. Carry out large public works projects designed to win support.


4. Remove a military presence that some group of people find offensive.

I'm guessing that, whatever answer you picked the first time, you didn't pick the second. There's a strong case that the occupation itself in Iraq sustains the insurgency against the post-Baathist government, so a lot of you might have picked #4. However, the United States withdrew its forces from Saudi Arabia, but there are still many Islamists who want to kill Americans (including some Saudis). The United States might remove one terrorist talking point by withdrawing from Iraq, but that action, in and of itself, will have almost no direct effect on al Qaeda.

Obviously, the center of gravity is different in these two conflicts. But how often have you heard someone make that point? Or even present for discussion the four courses of action I just summarized?

Failing to ask these questions is worse than flying blind. It's tantamount to flying blind and without a destination.

Comments

[ellroon]

Good points and well said.
I believe the Neocons were stunned and frustrated at losing Bush I's second term and marinated in arrested development for eight years. They came in ready to pick back up with Iraq, ignoring all the frantic warnings about a new stateless terrorist: al Qaeda.
As to removing a military presence, it is too late for even that as a solution. We have not only knocked down the hive, we have smashed it and let loose hornets who will swarm the world looking for new places to live. We will not be able to contain the anger activated by this war.
Voting Bush out is a small first step to show the world that we are serious about correcting these terrible mistakes.
I doubt we will ever be able to return to what we had in world status before 2001. The hatred and distrust is too deep.

[GW]

EllRoon's post has now become obsolete, and eyt the original question still remains.

Sure, EllRoon is correct in the hornet's nest allegory, but I think the pieces are starting to come together. Who do we thank for that? Perhaps Al Sistani, to whom Tom Friedman gives a lot of credit. To the field commanders? Of course. Still from a planner's perspective what can we do on March 21, 2005 to move on from here?

First thing is to acknowledge that Iraq was not the center of gravity in GWOT. Never was to most planners. But it was a target of opportunity for Donald Rumsfield, Dick Cheney and W., who all realized that in creating Saddam, they had created a bit of a Frankenstein. Unfortunately, in eliminating the Frankenstein first, rather than eliminating Osama, America's military blew a lot of otherwise important oppoetunities: we blew it when it came to the international political dimensions of war; we blew it when it came to preventing Osama from escaping into Pakistan; we blew it when whe so desperately needed Pakistan's help, that they helped us less htan they would have; and we blew it when it came to maintaining the sympathy card after 911 that would have allowed a progressive fight against Al Qaida.

Ok, so we blew it. The Iraqi elections could help regain some of the lost goodwill, and thereby restore some of America's ground on the international dimension of war. The next objectives are: to consider are the dimension of victory, or to define what constitutes victory, and to identify the centers of gravity in GWOT.

Unfortunately, again, we have military policy being dictated by civilians with little understanding of the nature of military strategy and policy. In their minds, IT SEEMS, that perpetual war on terror suits their purposes. As long as the Treasury is capable of paying for their activities and priorities, then their political futures are secure, and the wealth of their friends is secure, too. A win-win for the administration and for many pro-administration business people. But I digress. Let's just suppose that the true center of gravity (COG) of the enemy in the War on Terrorism is rally identifiable. Who or what would it be?

I'm going to admit that we have tens of thousands of smart people trying to determine that right now. But as EllRoon so well pointed out, there is a diaspora of terrorists emerging from Afghanistan and Iraq. One of the bigger Iraqi COGs would be the top leadership of the Saddam-era Baathist Party. We are making progress eliminating a lot of that. We still have a ways to go – it will take great skill at building alliances in Iraq to improve our intel there, and to hunt down the missing members of the Baathist decision-making and asymmetric war-making authority. It will perhaps take diplomatic skills to extract those bad guys from places like Syria, Iran, or whatever other states in which they might have taken refuge. Still. The center of gravity is largely political in Iraq. If we can bolster public sentiment there to identify the Baathists as bad bad people and to discredit any and all nostalgia for the bad old days, we will have gone a long way toward getting the Iraqis to turn their own sights against the Baathists and to make a post-Saddam Iraq a miserable place for Baathist insurgents.

(So, I guess I’m saying that the COG for Iraq is the hearts and minds of the would be democrats and republicans who have a chance at winning over hearts and minds of average Iraqis against the Baathist and mujahadeen insurgents.)

In the war against Al Qaida, the COG remains all of Al Qaida and anything that makes Al Qaida a cause to be sympathized with. That includes the world’s most extreme Madrassahs, the leadership of the Egyptian Brotherhood, most virulent Al Qaida recruiters in the West, and all other, and the centers of theological and philosophical learning in that part of the world. Capturing and destroying Al Zawarhiri and Osama Bin Laden would lessen their pop-star status in much of the world (but their demise needs to be seen as ones to be reviled rather than admired). Let’s face it, these guys feel they are would be prophets. Until they are brought to held to account and punished for their atrocities, the mystique surrounding them remains.

So (imho) the COG in the war against Al Qaida is the support structure that allows Bin Laden and Zawarhiri to remain in hiding. Everything that gives those two support needs to be isolated.

[GW]

EllRoon's post has now become obsolete, and yet the original question still remains.

Sure, EllRoon is correct in the hornet's nest allegory, but I think the pieces are starting to come together. Who do we thank for that? Perhaps Al Sistani, to whom Tom Friedman gives a lot of credit. To the field commanders? Of course. Still from a planner's perspective what can we do on March 21, 2005 to move on from here?

First thing is to acknowledge that Iraq was not the center of gravity in GWOT. Never was to most planners. But it was a target of opportunity for Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and W., who all realized that in creating Saddam, they had created a bit of a Frankenstein. Unfortunately, in eliminating the Frankenstein first, rather than eliminating Osama, America's military blew a lot of otherwise important opportunities: we blew it when it came to the international political dimensions of war; we blew it when it came to preventing Osama from escaping into Pakistan; we blew it when we so desperately needed Pakistan's help, that they helped us less than they would have; and we blew it when it came to maintaining the sympathy card after 911 that would have allowed a progressive fight against Al Qaida.

Ok, so we blew it. The Iraqi elections could help regain some of the lost goodwill, and thereby restore some of America's ground on the international dimension of war. The next objectives are: to consider are the dimension of victory, or to define what constitutes victory, and to identify the centers of gravity in GWOT.

Unfortunately, again, we have military policy being dictated by civilians with little understanding of the nature of military strategy and policy. In their minds, IT SEEMS, that perpetual war on terror suits their purposes. As long as the Treasury is capable of paying for their activities and priorities, then their political futures are secure, and the wealth of their friends is secure, too. A win-win for the administration and for many pro-administration business people. But I digress. Let's just suppose that the true center of gravity (COG) of the enemy in the War on Terrorism is rally identifiable. Who or what would it be?

I'm going to admit that we have tens of thousands of smart people trying to determine that right now. But as EllRoon so well pointed out, there is a Diaspora of terrorists emerging from Afghanistan and Iraq. One of the bigger Iraqi COGs would be the top leadership of the Saddam-era Baathist Party. We are making progress eliminating a lot of that. We still have a ways to go – it will take great skill at building alliances in Iraq to improve our intel there, and to hunt down the missing members of the Baathist decision-making and asymmetric war-making authority. It will perhaps take diplomatic skills to extract those bad guys from places like Syria, Iran, or whatever other states in which they might have taken refuge. Still. The center of gravity is largely political in Iraq. If we can bolster public sentiment there to identify the Baathists as bad bad people and to discredit any and all nostalgia for the bad old days, we will have gone a long way toward getting the Iraqis to turn their own sights against the Baathists and to make a post-Saddam Iraq a miserable place for Baathist insurgents.

(So, I guess I’m saying that the COG for Iraq is the hearts and minds of the would be democrats and republicans who have a chance at winning over hearts and minds of average Iraqis against the Baathist and mujahadeen insurgents.)

In the war against Al Qaida, the COG remains all of Al Qaida and anything that makes Al Qaida a cause to be sympathized with. That includes the world’s most extreme Madrassahs, the leadership of the Egyptian Brotherhood, most virulent Al Qaida recruiters in the West, and all other, and the centers of theological and philosophical learning in that part of the world. Capturing and destroying Al Zawarhiri and Osama Bin Laden would lessen their pop-star status in much of the world (but their demise needs to be seen as ones to be reviled rather than admired). Let’s face it, these guys feel they are would be prophets. Until they are brought to held to account and punished for their atrocities, the mystique surrounding them remains.

So (imho) the COG in the war against Al Qaida is the support structure that allows Bin Laden and Zawarhiri to remain in hiding. Everything that gives those two support needs to be isolated.

[GW]

EllRoon's post has now become obsolete, and yet the original question still remains.

Sure, EllRoon is correct in the hornet's nest allegory, but I think the pieces are starting to come together. Who do we thank for that? Perhaps Al Sistani, to whom Tom Friedman gives a lot of credit. To the field commanders? Of course. Still from a planner's perspective what can we do on March 21, 2005 to move on from here?

First thing is to acknowledge that Iraq was not the center of gravity in GWOT. Never was to most planners. But it was a target of opportunity for Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and W., who all realized that in creating Saddam, they had created a bit of a Frankenstein. Unfortunately, in eliminating the Frankenstein first, rather than eliminating Osama, America's military blew a lot of otherwise important opportunities: we blew it when it came to the international political dimensions of war; we blew it when it came to preventing Osama from escaping into Pakistan; we blew it when we so desperately needed Pakistan's help, that they helped us less than they would have; and we blew it when it came to maintaining the sympathy card after 911 that would have allowed a progressive fight against Al Qaida.

Ok, so we blew it. The Iraqi elections could help regain some of the lost goodwill, and thereby restore some of America's ground on the international dimension of war. The next objectives are: to consider are the dimension of victory, or to define what constitutes victory, and to identify the centers of gravity in GWOT.

Unfortunately, again, we have military policy being dictated by civilians with little understanding of the nature of military strategy and policy. In their minds, IT SEEMS, that perpetual war on terror suits their purposes. As long as the Treasury is capable of paying for their activities and priorities, then their political futures are secure, and the wealth of their friends is secure, too. A win-win for the administration and for many pro-administration business people. But I digress. Let's just suppose that the true center of gravity (COG) of the enemy in the War on Terrorism is rally identifiable. Who or what would it be?

I'm going to admit that we have tens of thousands of smart people trying to determine that right now. But as EllRoon so well pointed out, there is a Diaspora of terrorists emerging from Afghanistan and Iraq. One of the bigger Iraqi COGs would be the top leadership of the Saddam-era Baathist Party. We are making progress eliminating a lot of that. We still have a ways to go – it will take great skill at building alliances in Iraq to improve our intel there, and to hunt down the missing members of the Baathist decision-making and asymmetric war-making authority. It will perhaps take diplomatic skills to extract those bad guys from places like Syria, Iran, or whatever other states in which they might have taken refuge. Still. The center of gravity is largely political in Iraq. If we can bolster public sentiment there to identify the Baathists as bad bad people and to discredit any and all nostalgia for the bad old days, we will have gone a long way toward getting the Iraqis to turn their own sights against the Baathists and to make a post-Saddam Iraq a miserable place for Baathist insurgents.

(So, I guess I’m saying that the COG for Iraq is the hearts and minds of the would be democrats and republicans who have a chance at winning over hearts and minds of average Iraqis against the Baathist and mujahadeen insurgents.)

In the war against Al Qaida, the COG remains all of Al Qaida and anything that makes Al Qaida a cause to be sympathized with. That includes the world’s most extreme Madrassahs, the leadership of the Egyptian Brotherhood, most virulent Al Qaida recruiters in the West, and all other, and the centers of theological and philosophical learning in that part of the world. Capturing and destroying Al Zawarhiri and Osama Bin Laden would lessen their pop-star status in much of the world (but their demise needs to be seen as ones to be reviled rather than admired). Let’s face it, these guys feel they are would be prophets. Until they are brought to held to account and punished for their atrocities, the mystique surrounding them remains.

So (imho) the COG in the war against Al Qaida is the support structure that allows Bin Laden and Zawarhiri to remain in hiding. Everything that gives those two support needs to be isolated.

[volatages921]

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