Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post

The COG is something you strike.
I think US military doctrine has botched the hell out of COG theory in an effort to over codify it. But I also find it counter intuitive that if the COG is the Enemy's "source of all stregth and power" why I would by necessity "strike" it, when in fact what I want to do is "Defeat", "Neutralize", "Co-opt" or in whatever way is appropriate (acceptable, suitable, feasible) render it ineffective.

Dr. Strange's work helped my think about this, but I could never fully get on board with his analysis either. It just didn't make sense to me to call something the COG's "Critical Capability" and then say it was something that the COG requirred. To me it was something the COG produced.

So to may way of thinking (makes sense to a mind educated in the Myrtle Creek public school system)
- A COG is like a factory that is the producer of the things the enemy must have to prevail
- Critical Capabilities are the things that factory produces. Targeting this output has little effect on the COG, but does reduce effectiveness. The importance of these things are what validates your assessment of what the COG is.
- Critical Requirements are those raw inputs to the COG that it must have to produce the Critical Capabilities. These are what must be disrupted to render the COG ineffective.
- Critical Vulnerabilities. THESE MUST BE A SUBSET OF YOUR CRITICAL CAPABILITIES. CVs are those CCs that are also vulnerable to attack. You can get at them with reasonable risk, and their disruption will produce your desired effect.

Anyway, I always think of attacking the COG like attacking an Enemy Strongpoint. Yes its important, but you don't want to attack it if you can defeat it in other ways. Find the CVs, and attack those.