Center of Gravity Construct

[wm]

[W]hat are the strength and weaknesses (forget the cg-cv vs schwerpunkt argument for now) of the insurgent, what allows him his freedom of action? Is it the complicity of the people or is it the power of an unassailable idea? I would venture (my opinion) that the people represent the medium in which the idea exists. (very maoist here). . . . The insugent is free to act so long as his ideaology remains intact. It apears that the islamic insurgent is freer to act becuase he is willing to give his life knowning that his ideaology will survive and he will be rewarded in heaven while his family is honored on earth for his sacrifice.

Perhaps it is not a question of the strengths/weaknesses of the insurgent. Perhaps it is, instead, the feelings of the indigenous population (the fish among whom the guerrillas swim). I suspect that the average folks would prefer jnust to be left alone. As long as the guerrillas do not disturb the locals' life style too much, they are alllowed to do pretty much as they see fit. Once they start to disrupt the locals' lives too much, then things start happening.

I doubt we are looking at local complicity with the insurgents. Rather, I think we are looking at local apathy, especially in cultural milieus marked by Inshallah and other fatalistic world views (such as those espoused by many east Asian religions). I would submit that we are dealing with inertia here--inertia of rest. Let the guerrillas or the COIN forces disturb that local inertia at their peril. Apathy would be replaced with antipathy. The Islamic insurgent in an Islamic country may be freer to act simply because he is less likely to disturb the cultural status quo (what I just described as inertia of rest).

To return to one of Troufion's original example, Lettow-Vorbeck was able to operate in East Africa simply because he was leading a group of locals who understood the culture of the area in which the operated. The British (with their West African carriers) and Belgian forces were complete outlanders, even more so when they brought in troops from their Indian and South African forces.

[Jimbo]

A guerilla's COG is his ability to legitimize himself/cause among the "fence sitters" of the population, while simultaneously delegitimizing the government.

His critcal vulnerabilities vary by phase. Throughout the phases of guerilla conflict his requirement for sanctuary remains pretty constant (I have had the opportunity to listen to many different former guerillas, and they all said without sanctuary you fail).

In the incipient phases, leadership is definately a critical vulnerability, but as the insurgency matures, leaders are more easily replaced, thus making leadership less of critical vulnerability.

His message is also a critical vulnerability. Most guerillas don't really explain the details of their message. They often promise some type of economic promise to the population that can be easily coopted by the government.

[Tacitus]

Gentlemen,

Jimbo sort of beat me to this, but here goes.

Isn't the guerilla's war primarily political in nature, with an aim to overthrow the government or change its policies? The ambushes and assassinations are just tools to that end. What allows him to survive and thrive is the political support (either actve, passive, or coerced) he enjoys among the population.

His strength? The legitimacy he receives due to representing the people he moves amongst. If the government was already following these policies, the guerilla movement would have no reason to exist.

You can try to hunt down and kill or capture the guerillas. You can even kick down some doors trying to catch him napping or intimidate the population into talking. I’ll leave it to you to judge how well that strategy has worked out in Iraq, and elsewhere.

If you come to the decision that you can’t defeat him militarily, it seems to me that you would seek to come to some sort of accommodation to the guerilla group. Address his grievances. It is noteworthy that some of the insurgencies we are seeing these days are not monolithic, like what emerged in China under Mao and Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh. The insurgents are sometimes a loose alliance of different groups. Meeting whatever economic, social, or cultural causes he advocates may splinter the movement and isolate those who are hellbent on seizing power, no matter what. The homegrown “regime changers” then may be possible to defeat, without their allies who had more limited grievances. Unwillingness to implement reforms invites revolution.

[goesh]

Control of the people, control of terrain.....what difference is there really in an expanse of jungle and steppe and woods and prairie V the congestion of say Sadr City or Cairo or Mexico City for that matter? Thousands of troops within a day's time of Sadr City exert no more control than did a cavarly regiment on the Indian frontier 200 miles from the enemy encampments. To argue comparisons and facts to the contrary is to ignore the fact that for 250+ years, the better minds of the time were working on the problem, just as for the past 50 years the better minds in Israel and admist the palestinians have been working on resolving that insurgency. There are elements in the dominant groups and the insurgent groups that simply want no part of the other, no compromise, no sharing of culture - the nuke 'em/behead 'em all club of conquest and domination. For some there is no war of ideas and ideology because there is only one right side that must prevail at all costs. The clash of cultures paradigm is perhaps more deeply entrenched than we care to admit. How does the military address this issue on the home front and connect it to the pacification of insurgents?

[TROUFION]

, it seems to me that you would seek to come to some sort of accommodation to the guerilla group. Address his grievances. It is noteworthy that some of the insurgencies we are seeing these days are not monolithic, like what emerged in China under Mao and Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh.

Distinction can be made between the trans-national AQ type insurgent-terrorist and the local insurgent.

Trans-national-The AQ type foriegn nationals with an ideological drive to create a large scale multi-state or possibly world wide regime change, ruthless and the greatest threat (as in most potentially damaging, active seekers of wmd etc). It is also technically the weaker of the two types. Weaker as its physical bases are harder to maintian, they are outsiders-foriegners dependent on indigenous support. It is also harder to address their 'grievances', nearly impossible infact probably pointless, to negotiate with them.

The local-homegrown insurgents, classic these guys can be influenced by the trans-nationals but they can also be negotiated with. Here you can address the local grievances to some extent. In a traditonal intra-state insurgency it is the insurgent vs the government and they odds of success are generally in the favor of the government. It has been shown in Malaya and it appears in Iraq that local insurgents can be influenced negatively by the excessive use of force by foriegn insurgents. This provides leverage for the gov't against them.

The mix- inter-state insurgents and foriegn governmental intervention into a intra-state conflict. Complex to say the least. The foriegn insurgent fights a different battle than the local, the foriegner is far more likely to utilize excessive force as he cares little for the local conditions, they are quite likely to utilize heavy coercive means to keep themselves protected. Of course similiar statements could be made for the foriegn governments intervention forces. In this their is a competition in state building- the local gov't vs the local insurgent leadership and the foriegners are competeing for influence over both.

[Steve Blair]

I think it's especially important to make some distinctions between classic insurgencies (the Mao/Castro/Ho Chi Minh variety), trans-national insurgencies (AQ, some of the environmental and anti-globalization groups), and the terrorist hangers-on.

Loss of a sanctuary can be very serious, but I think some people misunderstand what an in-country sanctuary actually is. For a classic insurgency, I think the sanctuary really comes down to contact with the local population. Most groups are small enough that they don't need a major supply dump or logistical tail, but they do need food, recruits, and information. If you can cut that off, you've eliminated their main sanctuary. Taking down base areas can disrupt activity, but it's not getting at the heart of the matter.

Most insurgencies, no matter the type, have an ideological basis. Be it rights for a certain group, land, or what have you, the ideological drive exists. If you can somehow target that, you've hit a main COG. As goesh pointed out, thought, this isn't easy. And it won't work with the terrorist elements within any insurgency (and over time they will develop).

[Tacitus]

Distinction can be made between the trans-national AQ type insurgent-terrorist and the local insurgent.

The local-homegrown insurgents, classic these guys can be influenced by the trans-nationals but they can also be negotiated with. Here you can address the local grievances to some extent.

The foriegn insurgent fights a different battle than the local, the foriegner is far more likely to utilize excessive force as he cares little for the local conditions, they are quite likely to utilize heavy coercive means to keep themselves protected.

I'll buy that distinction, TROUFION. Doesn't that call for a political strategy to draw a bright line in the minds of the population between the competing goals and methods of the local and international insurgents? What we need is a political surge.

I don't know what all the different local insurgent groups really want. Heck, I can't keep track of who is who and who they speak for over there. Do the groups want some kind of local autonomy? Is it about getting their fair share of whatever money there is? Or are they just jockeying for position in the real civil war when we leave. I'd like to hear from some of the men who've been over there on this subject.

Divide et impera
Divide and conquer

[TROUFION]

Just some food for thought, Van mentioned "AQ is more like a petri dish for a highly contagious disease." Made me think I know I 've heard this before, I don't know who mentioned it but the idea of trans-national insurgency as a virus or more to the point being sold along the same lines as viral marketing. I've included below a summary of viral marketing as a guide for discussion. When you read it replace viral marketing with viral insurgency and reread it, I found that interesting: (enjoy)

"you have to admire the virus. He has a way of living in secrecy until he is so numerous that he wins by sheer weight of numbers. He piggybacks on other hosts and uses their resources to increase his tribe. And in the right environment, he grows exponentially. A virus don't even have to mate -- he just replicates, again and again with geometrically increasing power, doubling with each iteration:

1
11
1111
11111111
1111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 11111111111111

In a few short generations, a virus population can explode.

Viral Marketing Defined:
What does a virus have to do with marketing? Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions.

The Classic Hotmail.com Example
The classic example of viral marketing is Hotmail.com, one of the first free Web-based e-mail services. The strategy is simple:

Give away free e-mail addresses and services,
Attach a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out: "Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com" and,
Then stand back while people e-mail to their own network of friends and associates,
Who see the message,
Sign up for their own free e-mail service, and then
Propel the message still wider to their own ever-increasing circles of friends and associates.
Like tiny waves spreading ever farther from a single pebble dropped into a pond, a carefully designed viral marketing strategy ripples outward extremely rapidly.

Elements of a Viral Marketing Strategy
Accept this fact. Some viral marketing strategies work better than others, and few work as well as the simple Hotmail.com strategy. But below are the six basic elements you hope to include in your strategy. A viral marketing strategy need not contain ALL these elements, but the more elements it embraces, the more powerful the results are likely to be. An effective viral marketing strategy:

Gives away products or services
Provides for effortless transfer to others
Scales easily from small to very large
Exploits common motivations and behaviors
Utilizes existing communication networks
Takes advantage of others' resources

[Jedburgh]

Military Review, Jul-Aug 07: We The People Are Not The Center of Gravity in an Insurgency

...Military thinkers and planners often identify the people as the COG in an insurgency because the people represent a tangible target against which the elements of national power, particularly military power, can be applied and their effectiveness measured. While this seems acceptable on the surface, it represents a misunderstanding of the COG concept, a limited perception of the COG analysis process, and a targeting methodology that is stuck in the Cold-War era and does not recognize the importance and effectiveness of intangible variables....