Ken, "Hearts and Minds" and "Carrots and Sticks" are overly simplistic and often misunderstood and misapplied. Unfortunately "hearts and minds" is too often interpreted as some politically correct feel good crap, and carrots and sticks while understood almost always turns out to be nothing but carrots when put into practice. However, when the phrases are correctly understood they can be useful guidelines to developing your strategy.

Frequently strategists define the center of gravity as the will to fight, while I don't think it is that simple, I do think that is critically important. How do you influence their will their fight?

If we're the counterinsurgent, then winning hearts means convincing the populace that their interests are best served if we win. This requires a considerable amount of information engagement to clearly deliniate the differences between an insurgent and government victory to the target audience. They don't have to love us, but they need to understand an insurgent victory will be a less desirable outcome. Relating back to Jone's Populace Centric Engagement argument, if we can't convince them that this is the case, then we probably can't win without employing draconian measures.

Winnng minds means convincing the populace that we're going to win both the short and long term fight. The short term fight means we can protect them from insurgent coercion, and the long term fight means they know we're going to go the distance and do what it takes to win. If they think otherwise, then it would be to their benefit to support the insurgency since they will continue to live there regardless of who wins.

Written by Mike,
Love that last line, Ken.....Far away and long ago, lots of hamlets in various provinces where economic prosperity seemed almost incongruous (indicators include power tillers having replaced buffalo, proliferation of well-built, new stucco houses, etc. )--Yet they remained insecure to the GVN...VCI ran the hamlets, usually in tandem with the menacing effect of a nearby enemy base area. (one example, southern panhandle of my first province, Tay Ninh, with NVA base area across the border in Svay Rieng)...
We failed to protect the populace, you can't win their hearts our minds unless we do. This is my biggest beef with our Civil Affairs folks, they do great work, and their projects make excellent Kodak Picture moments with smiling kids standing around the new school, etc., but it doesn't mean anything if we don't continue to exert continued presence in that area to ensure that the populace is protected and that they answer to State Law, not insurgent law.

This involves tough love, aggressive tactics, and higher risk operations (more exposure to attack).

Actually, in Malaya the British -- correctly -- first went after the CTs and removed their ability to terrorize minds; then they terrorized the Malays and the Chinese civilians not playing CT by virtually eliminating Civil Rights and moving the majority of them into 'New Villages.' There was no winning of hearts and the minds involved were coerced, not coaxed.
I don't think they terrorized the Malays, but they did control them so they could eliminate the threat. War is tough, I think the measures that were taken were effective and I think they are in line with the hearts and minds concept. That approach won't work in most countries, the tactics you use to control the populace must be based on local factors.

""People will act in their perceived self interest and they will follow their heart -- but they will not let you win that heart. Nor do you need to...""
We have to find what their self interests are and show how a government victory is better aligns with those interests than an insurgent victory. If you don't do that you may have to do a lot more killing, which in the information age is not generally a feasible course of action.