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Operationalizing The Jones Model through COG
“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” Sun Tzu
Is much of our current engagement merely the noise before defeat?
With so many talented providers swarming into places like Afghanistan, and with so much funding currently available to resource such engagement one would expect that if "effectiveness" (security, development, government) is indeed the road to victory, that victory will soon be ours.
But what if "effectiveness" is far more the output of a stable, insurgency-free state, rather than being the input that will ultimately produce such a state??
In other words, is the conventional wisdom attempting to back its way into stability by importing the products of good governance rather than going in the front door by targeting the perceptions of good governance among the disaffected populace?
I have produced COG-based engagement tools in the past, and shared them with the SWJ community on other threads. My recent work the Jones Insurgency Model caused me to go back and readdress that work. In the past I came to the position that there are two COGs; "The Populace" for COIN; and "The Network" for CT. Once I completed my work on my Insurgency Model I realized that I needed to reassesses my COG for COIN. Many had challenged the rather broad category of "The Populace" previously, but I had nothing better to offer to describe what I was getting at, and frankly, neither did any of these challengers. I wasn't fully satisfied, but I couldn't "get no satisfaction" either.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/201...urgency-model/
So this morning I dusted off my old COG targeting model and reframed it in the context of the Jones Insurgency Model. I offer that product here for your collective consideration and comment. In the example below let us assume that a variety of HN, interagency, military, and NGO teams are all working independently to conduct COIN in a specific community. For currency sake, let us say that community is the Arghandab valley on the northern outskirts of Kandahar City. Each of the teams has its own mission, chain of command, authorities, funding, priorities, etc. In other words, they are systemically prevented from being able to agree on virtually anything. In this (hypothetical) case, they all have read about the Jones Insurgency Model, and decide to conduct an assessment of the perceptions of Poor Governance among the populace of the Arghandab. Upon completion of that assessment they determine that the number one concern of the populace that was also a causal factor of insurgency under the Jones Model was the lack of Justice. (Thus elevating "Justice" from being a CR to also being a CV in this community). Continuing to drill down on this CV they derive a series of HVTs and HVIs and a scheme to work within their respective lanes to mutually produce this critical line of operation aimed directly at the heart of the center of gravity, and to make it each of their number one priority project.
Armed with this new focus each is able to tailor their overall schemes of engagement by minimizing or cancelling ineffective engagement that they had been working on (with the greatest of intentions) previously; and also many discovered that they had more in common with each other than they had thought prior to this new effort.
Equally important, the shared assessment and collective plan for achieving it was sitting the desk's of all of their respective bosses, creating enhanced synergy at the highest levels, as well as down at the operator level.
(Note, I do not employ the COG process as described in the Joint Pub, as I find it illogical and as likely to produce arguments and confusion on a staff as it is to produce focus and synergy. CvC didn't prescribe any particular rules, so I feel free to think about this concept in a manner that makes sense to me.)
Ahh, but Carl wrote of war, I write of Insurgency
Quote:
Originally Posted by
William F. Owen
Sorry but CvC is the only valid provider of what a COG is.
He is quite clear. The/A COG is that from which the enemy draws his "strength and cohesion", - and which can be harmed (against which the blow should be focussed)! If a COG is "destroyed", then the enemy cannot exist or even re-generate as an effective force.
We can make up new words and new definitions to alter the fact and truths to fit the opinion, but as concerns the only precise meaning of "COG" in military thought, that is it!
In war each opponent has a COG; he must defend his own and seek to destroy the other's.
In COIN the COG is shared. Both insurgent and Counterinsurgent compete for the support of the populace, both compete to be perceived as the provider of Good Governance. A COG is something to be earned, not protected or destroyed.
Carl is the master of warfare, and his theories can be applied to Insurgency, but they must be adapted in full recognition that Warfare and Insurgency are two different things.
Those who believe COIN to be extremely difficult and likely to be a long drawnout affair believe so because they fight it like a war; or because they think they can develop their way out of it. One can fight a long war and ultimately suppress the symptoms of insurgency; one can perhaps give a populace so much "stuff" that they stop resisting your poor governance. Or, one can produce Good Governance and make the insurgency go away. I'd love to have this conversation with CvC. While most of his deciples will fight me to the mat, like Peter slicing the Roman soldiers ear from his head with his sword to protect his master; I think CvC would immediatlely grasp the nuance I put before him.
Meanwhile, as Fuchs and Wilf exchange CvC volleys at 10 paces...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
William F. Owen
Am I missing something?
In a word? Yes.
First, COG as applied to warfare: While I largely consider the Wilf vs. Fuchs debate in the category of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin," it really does not apply to the positions I am forwarding here. In warfare though, I would suggest that accurately understanding the enemy's COG is critical in knowing what must be defeated; but is probably not something that one wants to attack. Best to pit one's strength against their opponents weakness; thus why it is a very helpful construct to understand what are the requriements that are critical to the functioning of the COG; and then of those, which are also vulnerable to defeat. Attack the CVs; not the COG.
But for Insurgency all of that is rather moot. I do not want to defeat the COG, I want to outcompete the insurgent in the race to be perceived by the populace as the producer of the COG. He who provides Good Governance wins.
Now, if I am simply focused on counter insurgent operations, to go out and counter violence with violence and to wage a physical dual with the insurgent, using the warfare approach to COG could be helpful in winning that battle. Problem is that I have probably made the conditions of insurgency worse in the process.
But I don't write any of this to convince Wilf to change his "war is war" approach, nor to disabuse Fuchs of his notions that only Germans can understand CvC; I just want to toss out an alternative position for the SWJ community to consider as they wrestle with how to best deal insurgency.
I'll be a little more charitable
Quote:
Originally Posted by
William F. Owen
....a form of insurgency that does not use violence to redistribute political power?
Only if you are stupid, unskilled and not practised in warfare.
Point one: Not all violence to redistribue political power is warfare. If a bunch of thugs in 1870s NYC prevents certain segments of the popualce from voting through intimidation and violence it is not warfare, though it meets your definition.
Similarly when a segment of a populace within a state employs intimidation and violence to shape politics I do not believe it is helpful to resolving the problem to classify that as warfare either.
Again, not to change your mind, only to be clear that my point is valid. Though I suspect that the Colin Powell leadership principle of "Never get so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego falls with it." is applicable here. :)
Point two is that most counterinsurgencies have unfolded this way. I don't believe those officers were stupid for thinking of insurgency as warfare, that is what they were trained to think and do. I just don't think it was the fast track to success, and most COIN "victories" won in such fashion of re-emerged over and over and over and over.. as the underlying causation was never addressed.