Sir,

Disagree. By stating logical lines of operations are existential in nature, you are limiting the scope to things which are hard, if not impossible, to influence at a military level and perhaps best left to the diplomats, local political and tribal leaders, market economies, etc. Logical lines of operations are existential in part, but there are very real, physical elements, which will have an impact on overall objectives. For instance, securing a Sunni/Shia mosque can be a logical line of operation. It becomes logical because if a Sunni element blows up a Shia mosque, it will move an area closer to sectarian violence/war. Force protection is another logical line of operation. It is logical because we know if we lose political will (massive loss of lives = loss of political will), we will lose a critical resource (time) and jeopardize our ability to complete mission. Point being is that even in conventional wars we have similar logical lines of operations. We decided to drop the A-bomb on Japan to break the will of the Japanese government and end the war sooner rather than later. This got directly at the heart of the population (ours and theirs). This was a logical line of operation for us during World War II.
I also disagree with your assessment that population security is a nebulous term. Just because securing the population is untraditional compared to destroying it does not mean it is nebulous for the military. Tell a police officer his job of protecting/securing a city is nebulous, and I bet he could provide you with several non-nebulous ways to do his duties. We can, as a military, secure areas. It is a common military task. The question is not whether we can secure an area (which I believe is the overarching military objective we have been called upon to do in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to support the whole of government approach to building an effective capacity in the local governments to eventually secure it on their own), the question is how do we secure (which is answered by identifying logical lines of operations) and how many resources (including Soldiers, equipment, and time) will our government provide the military to do it.
v/r
MAJ Shane Sims
Student, Command and General Staff College
Satellite Location: Fort Lee, Virginia

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.