Marc, you're begining to soften my position on academia. You have made several observations that are value added, and ones that I'll think about at length on my next short TDY. I find COGs of limited value at the military level, and as some claim if they are constantly moving then they are of zero value. However, using Clausewitz's original definition of a COG (and he admits they don't always exist), then they could be a useful construct at the interagency level, which is what EBO is attempting integrate. Then on the other hand, as mentioned earlier by one of the council members, it is a fanasty to believe that we actually have other government agencies beyond the military with any real capability to make things happen. State is severely underresourced, so they can stand up and say this is our job all they want, but they can't do it. Who exactly runs our national level IO? Seems to me that every agency plays in this game, but where is the over all coordinator?

RTK, I look forward to reading the paper you attached. In short though, it seems the essence of success is understanding your enemy and understanding yourself, which in some ways it seems that is what we're trying to do with the COG theory (although that use is apparently incorrect). Understanding vulnerabilities, capabilities, motivations, etc. and then taking the appropriate actions. If we understood this up front, e.g. understood our limitations and the enemy's we may have had different objectives in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It is a little bit late after the war starts to start thinking if we only had more civil affairs, better IO, more ground troops, etc. We could have (and did) accomplish much in both countries, the only reason it appears that we're struggling is our desire to emplace democracies there.