Operationalizing The Jones Model through COG

[Bob's World]

Sorry but CvC is the only valid provider of what a COG is.

He is quite clear. The/A COG is that from which the enemy draws his "strength and cohesion", - and which can be harmed (against which the blow should be focussed)! If a COG is "destroyed", then the enemy cannot exist or even re-generate as an effective force.

We can make up new words and new definitions to alter the fact and truths to fit the opinion, but as concerns the only precise meaning of "COG" in military thought, that is it!

In war each opponent has a COG; he must defend his own and seek to destroy the other's.

In COIN the COG is shared. Both insurgent and Counterinsurgent compete for the support of the populace, both compete to be perceived as the provider of Good Governance. A COG is something to be earned, not protected or destroyed.

Carl is the master of warfare, and his theories can be applied to Insurgency, but they must be adapted in full recognition that Warfare and Insurgency are two different things.

Those who believe COIN to be extremely difficult and likely to be a long drawnout affair believe so because they fight it like a war; or because they think they can develop their way out of it. One can fight a long war and ultimately suppress the symptoms of insurgency; one can perhaps give a populace so much "stuff" that they stop resisting your poor governance. Or, one can produce Good Governance and make the insurgency go away. I'd love to have this conversation with CvC. While most of his deciples will fight me to the mat, like Peter slicing the Roman soldiers ear from his head with his sword to protect his master; I think CvC would immediatlely grasp the nuance I put before him.