done in one easy step by rearranging the deck chairs.

Bob: thank you for bringing up the DoD (JCS) 7500 Campaign Plan; as well as your perception of what the term "indirect approach" means - presumably a view prevalent in your community. However, there is another way to look at "direct" and "indirect" approaches.

That way (see below) is not the grandiose, "indirect" approach set out in Robert Gates' Jan 2009 statement (quoted in the three balls graphic) and in the graphic itself:

Where possible, what the military calls kinetic operations should be subordinated to measures aimed at promoting better governance, economic programs that spur development, and efforts to address the grievances among the disacontented, from whom the terrorist recruits. It will take patient accumulations of quiet successes over a long time to discredit and defeat extremist movements and their ideologies.
The main thrust here is simply "nation (state) building". But, it gets "better" (or "worse").

Following the now primary green lines (just as in the investment commercial), we come to:

Global Environment
Shape
Inhospitable to Violent Extremism
Stabilize
It seems the DoD has reached a program of "world building" (Global Synchronization), which will then (following the big, big green line and arrowhead), isolate the threat - the ENEMY (confined to its red circle and presumably rendered powerless).

Now, turning to a much more modest view of "direct" and "indirect" approaches, generally defining them as follows:

Direct - a plan which adversely affects the enemy's capacity to conduct armed conflict.

Indirect - a plan which adversely affects the enemy's will to conduct armed conflict.

The plan may be offensive, defensive, offensive-defensive or defensive-offensive; and may be executed in a sequential or a cumulative manner. "Direct" and "tangible"; "indirect" and "abstract" seem synonyms to me. BTW: the question of "win, draw, lose" is also handled modestly - with admission that days of reckoning may be postponed.

Even this modest set of "definitions" leaves many questions open for discussion and improvement.

To be continued.

Regards

Mike