Center of Gravity Construct

[marct]

Hi RTK,

You make soem interesting points that I'd like to pull apart a bit.

I'm not sure that targeting will is necessarily a feasible goal. Targeting and mitigating ideology in a fanatical people isn't going to get you very far. To say that we'll target their will infers that adversarial will is based upon logic and reason. When you're an extremist, no amount of logic or reason is going to allow you to look at the other side of the coin.

I have to disagree with you on this - specifically your last sentence. One thing most Anthropologists learn pretty quickly is that "logic" and "reason" are cultural constructs rather than absolutes. What we, in the West, assume to be logic (and it is for us) may not operate in other cultures. This is not because they are not "logical" but, rather, because other cultures use different axiomatic assumptions and different syllogisms of logic.

Given we're strangers in a society as unfamiliar with us as we are of them, IO must be an imperitive in COIN operations. Many of the preconceptions Iraqis have of Americans is based upon the information operations that insurgent groups propegate amongst the people of the society. In this sence, the insurgents are winning the IO war. We must make IO as important to us as combat operations are.

Hmmm, again, I think you may be understating Iraqi sources of information on America. Yes, you are quite correct about the IO from the insurgents, but I don't think that it is a good idea to forget about all of the information comming in from other sources as well. In particular, I am thinking about Internet based sources, family diasporic networks, and IO passed through tribal lines.

There's a model in Anthropology that may be useful for looking at this. "Information" is just a set of sensory perceptions which must then be interpreted for and by individuals. Most of these sensory perceptions are "value neutral" originally and get their valuation during the interpretation stage. This "interpretation stage" is where cultural logics and interpretive schema get added into the mix and, if they run long enough, get converted into "rules of thumb" which, in turn, are passed throughout personal networks. In order to establish something as a "rule of thumb" interpretation (aka a "meme") within a given population, there has to be fairly strong reinforcement in the environment for that interpretation.

One of the most successful IO campaigns I saw in Ninwah province was a series of fliers with pictures of children killed by a homicide car bomber. After that flier went out, tons of tips came in, most actionable. The problem is that after doing this once or twice, we figure that the momentum will continue. Oftentimes we kill our own initiative by resting on our laurels and figuring that one or two fliers is enough, particularly if they produce some sort of temporary action. By constantly reengaging the IO target, we chip away at the base of support the insurgents enjoy until eventually its a moot point.

Yup. In effect, you are doing it by creating your own memes, "rule of thumb" interpretations, and then reinforcing them. Let me take this situation a little further and see how it could have been extended, and please excuse me if I'm unaware of a chunk of the details of this specific situation.

From the sounds of it, right after the car bombing, flyers with pictures of the dead children went out and the tips started coming in. Did any military personelle go to the funerals and show grief over their deaths? If not, they should have.

"Momentum" in most pastoralist societies is based on ongoing personal connections and relationships and, grotesque as it may sound, this was a perfect opportunity to establish this type of personal relationship while, at the same time, clearly showing that Americans value the lives of Iraqi children. More importantly, the people who should have attended would be the ones involved in tracking down the others involved in the car bombing. This action would have been perfectly understandable to the Iraqi people since it would be interpreted as a blood vendetta.

As has been written in multiple threads, the only way to do this properly is to understand the culture with which you are working. Obviously, what would be sound logic in the United States doesn't necessarily work in Iraq or Afghanistan. Its up to small unit leaders in both of these areas to get to know their populace, forge relationships with local leaders, and get inside the psyche of those their working around, with, and for.

I totally agree, and probably the best way to do that is to look at cultural parallels. For example, most Western cultures understand blood feuds even if we don't use them (well, most of the time). Most pastoralist cultures have them as central to their orientation. Most Western cultures say that personal relationships are not as important as legal relationships, but the reality is that they are, in all probability, more important (e.g. "networking"). In most pastoralist cultures, personal ties are crucial to social operations.

If we really want to hammer at the will of the insurgency, then we have to do it by changing the interpretations of action, the memes, of the population such that the commonalities with the Coalition are stronger than the commonalities with the insurgency.

Marc