Next Section. Not complete by any stretch,
IV. Strategy
Initial Questions. The PCoG can assist in designing a strategy to achieve your political goals. To do this, a few preliminary factors must be identified.
1. What is the political end-state you are trying to achieve?
2. How far are you willing to go to achieve this end-state (offensive and defensive)?
3. What is the primary type of political entity you are engaged with?
4. What are the secondary elements that support your adversary?
5. Other than the adversary, what other entities (friend or foe) will be involved?
First, we must know the political end-state we are seeking to achieve. Without that clearly identified, everything that follows will be the noise before the defeat. Second, is this something you are willing to go to Kinetic War over or are you just considering Political Hostilities?
The first two are standard questions. Next comes the question of identifying your adversary’s PCoG. In certain cases, like ISIS or North Korea, the answer is simple; ISIS is ideological and North Korea is autocratic. In others, like Iran, the answer is more nuanced, being a combination of ideology and autocracy. Still, Iran is primarily an autocracy, even though it is built on an ideological base. Iran also demonstrates why secondary elements are important. There are at least three that either offer targets to attack or serve as obstacles that should be neutralized as best as possible. First, there is the military, and in particular, the Revolutionary Guard. Second, there is the economy, dominated by oil production. Third, there is the Religion, which is a strong uniting factor in the country.
The fifth question deals with others who must be taken into consideration. Looking at Iran again, foes that must be addressed are Russia, who provides military support as well as state supported terrorist groups. Friends would be Israel and Saudi Arabia, as well as other Sunni Arab countries.
Aligning Strategy with the PCoG. Every situation is unique. Therefore, there is no cookie cutter answer. However, there are some general principles that might prove helpful with at least identifying where one’s efforts might be the most productive.
In offensive operations, identify and exploit weaknesses in your adversary’s PCoG. In an Autocratic System, determine which is the weakest of the Vassals, the economy, or the military. A specific attack less than Kinetic War may be sanctions on the economy, as were used against Iran to get them to negotiate on nuclear weapons. In a Democratic System you want to directly influence the population, as in the al Qaeda terrorist bombings in Spain prior to their elections. In an Ideological System you could wear it down until it collapses from exhaustion and is discredited, as in the case of communism. In defensive operations, your adversary will seek to exploit your weaknesses, so you must prepare to defend against such actions.
Strategic Mismatch. Until now, most of this probably seems intuitive. This next part may sound like heresy. If you do not align your operations with the appropriate PCoG, you will either spend far more time than necessary to achieve your objectives, or you will fail. For example, in Iraq American Counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine stated that the people were the Center of Gravity. That would be true if Iraq was a Democratic System. It was not. We had toppled one large autocracy, which was eventually replaced with a multitude of smaller autocracies operated by local leaders. Intuitively, we realized this, and worked with Key Leaders to influence events. But our overall strategy of holding elections to legitimize a system that, in reality, was not the PCoG, was doomed to failure. We wasted a lot of time trying to influence the wrong PCoG, and left our mission unfulfilled.
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