Center of Gravity Construct

[Van]

Mao gave up his sanctuary with the long March, yet succeeded. Actually, many rebellions have no safe heavens / sanctuaries at the beginning. Remember Castro in 1959 - he was hunted around for weeks or months, always on the move. Algerian insurgents around 1960 lost most sanctuaries they had due to aggresive paratrooper tactics - but they won because the enemy lost the will to continue (due to the immorality of his own tactics).

Mao relocated his sanctuary with the Long March, and never lost his sanctuary in the Soviet Union, a source of support through out the revolution. Castro launched from Mexico and preserved his sanctuaries in the hills of Cuba. Yes, the Algerians lost most, but not all sancuaries, and preserved the ones outside the borders of Algier. Sanctuaries can be dynamic and can be numerous, and this is the greatest single issue of the GWOT.

I would accept the argument that disruption of a guerrilla sanctuary starts a countdown for the movement, but that countdown can be reset with the establishment of a new sanctuary. More important than the sanctuaries within the area of operations are the ones the established government can't reach (like Cambodia and China in Vietnam, like Iran in Iraq today, like the USSR for so many small movements through the Cold War).

And thank you Jimbo, for your support.

Islamofascism -This is a propagada term, made to mark enemies as especially bad people beyond rational reasoning. It's a PR trick to do things like this - who can name a phenomenon can influence how others sense it. It's better not to use such a term. In fact, there's little resemblance to fascism.

PR term, yes, but we're in an IO war, and Al Qaeda and affiliates certainly won't reason or negotiate with the West in good faith. If you posit that the Taliban in Afghanistan was the Islamofacsist vision for the world (and a good Salifi will confirm this), it was a totalitarian government with constant threats of punishment (fascism-from the Latin fasces, a symbol of government authority to punish) based on Sharia law, Islamic law.

Nope, I'm not buying your argument, this shoe fits, and it supports efforts directed against one of these guerrillas' CoG.