Addressing the Fog of COG

Perspectives on the Center of Gravity

in US Military Doctrine

By Select Faculty of 

US Army Command and General Staff College

 Celestino Perez, Jr., Ph.D.

General Editor

 Combat Studies Institute Press

 US Army Combined Arms Center

 Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
Cover Photos: “See Something or Say Something:” Washington, DC. Orange dots are locations of Flickr 

pictures, Blue dots are locations of Twitter tweets. White dots are locations that have been posted to both. 

Photo was taken on 11 July 2011 in Franklin Mcpherson Square, Washington, DC. Photographer: Eric 

Fischer’s photostream, http:www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/592579889/in/set-7215762140310742 (accessed 19 June 2012). CGSC Copyright Registration Number: 12-1071 C/E.
Addressing the Fog of COG: 

Perspectives on the Center of Gravity 

 in US Military Doctrine

Celestino Perez, Jr., Ph.D.

General Editor

Combat Studies Institute Press

US Army Combined Arms Center

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

By Select Faculty of

US Army Command and General Staff College
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Perez, Celestino.

 Addressing the fog of COG : perspectives on the center of gravity in US military 

doctrine / Celestino Perez, Jr.

 p. cm.

 Includes bibliographical references and index.

 ISBN 978-0-9855879-4-9 (alk. paper)

 1. Military doctrine--United States. 2. Clausewitz, Carl von, 1780-1831--Influence. 

3. Military art and science--United States--History. I. Title. II. Title: Addressing the fog 

of center of gravity. 

 UA23.P447 2010

 355.4--dc23

 2012036040

First printing, December 2012.

CSI Press publications cover a variety of military history topics. The views 

expressed in this CSI Press publication are those of the author(s) and not 

necessarily those of the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense. 

A full list of CSI Press digital publications can be found at http://usacac.army.

mil/cac2/csi/csipubs.asp.

The seal of the Combat Studies Institute authenticates this document as an official publication of 

the CSI. It is prohibited to use CSI’s official seal on any republication of this material without the 

expressed written permission of the Director of CSI.

Editing and layout by Elizabeth J. Brown
iii

Preface

The Combat Studies Institute continues its mission of publishing CGSC Faculty 

scholarship and adding to the public discourse the learned thoughts of these distinguished 

professors and practitioners. These analyses on the concept and application of Center 

of Gravity are thought provoking while at the same time illustrative of the depth of the 

professional unrest with the concept. As military professionals set out to do their work, 

the planning done prior to beginning operations is crucial; and, if that planning hinges on 

identifying the center of gravity (or centers of gravity if you are so inclined to believe) how 

the concept is used, or not, could be paramount. Readers are invited to join the professional 

dialogue.

CSI – The Past is Prologue!

Roderick M. Cox 

Colonel, US Army 

Director, Combat Studies Institute 

v

Foreword

Nearly twenty years ago, as a new student in the Army’s Command and General Staff 

Officer’s College, Infantry Branch officers introduced to me the relatively newly codified 

doctrinal term “center of gravity.” Throughout the “best year of our lives” as students, 

we wrestled with how to apply or integrate center of gravity with the Military Decision 

Making Process. We read Clausewitz’ On War. I marked every reference he made to center 

of gravity. We consumed Army Field Manual 100-5 AirLand Battle. I dog-eared the few 

center of gravity references it had. Some of us stayed at mother Leavenworth for a second 

year and studied even more Clausewitz, even more Field Manual 100-5, and studied the 

application of center of gravity in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. After two 

years of studying, thinking, talking, and writing about center of gravity, it was time to apply 

this new concept while assigned to a combat unit. 

A few weeks later as a Division G3 Planner, I led the staff through several planning 

exercises and developed Division level operations orders that were intended to be training 

aids for Brigade Combat Teams which were preparing to deploy to the National Training 

Center. The staff included enemy and friendly centers of gravity in the written orders. 

The G3 and Division Commander were duly impressed. They were impressed when the 

staff identified the enemy and friendly centers of gravity in an operations order for a USRussian tactical exercise. Trouble emerged in 1995 when the Commander asked his staff 

what the enemy and friendly centers of gravity were in the developing situation in BosniaHerzegovina. This peace enforcement operation did not fit the mold of scenarios that had 

been discussed and debated in Fort Leavenworth or within the Commander’s headquarters.

Initially I was not involved in the Stabilization Force planning, so it was safe to throw 

darts at the wall to determine the unit or headquarters or personality which might be the 

enemy center of gravity; but we didn’t really have a focused enemy, or, depending to whom 

you spoke, everyone was our enemy. It was then that it dawned on me; there was no logical 

process to identify a center of gravity. There was no principle or criteria available for 

testing the validity of a proposed center of gravity. Furthermore, there was no procedure or 

process included in our doctrine to coherently discern how to “attack” the enemies’ center 

of gravity in this peace enforcement mission.

Luckily for me, I had a civilian friend who was an Engineer. Just by chance, while 

discussing his systems analysis processes, he unknowingly clarified a way to determine the 

center of gravity. When the Army temporarily assigned me to United States Army Europe 

to complete the SFOR planning, much smarter officers had already determined centers 

of gravity and methods to address them, which could lead to our success. This was very 

fortunate for the US Army. 

As concepts go in the US Army, those that are useless fall to the way side, while the 

useful ones tend to grow in importance. Tactics, techniques and procedures addressing 

these useful concepts are shared until the Army incorporates them into doctrine. Once they 

are written in doctrine, the Army addresses these concepts more fully in all of its relevant 

Professional Military Education. 
vi

Joint and Army doctrine provides a common language and defines the terms used 

in our profession. It is sound military advice prepared collectively, and to be used as a 

common framework for planning and executing a range of military operations. Doctrine is 

founded in previous and successful applications of tactics, techniques and procedures, but 

also guides modernization and budgeting programs to shape future applications. It also sets 

fundamental principles to guide the employment of future forces and facilitate organizing 

future forces for specific operations. 

Over time, the definition for center of gravity in Army and Joint doctrine matured and 

grew more similar. Through experience and experimentation, methods emerged to better and 

more thoroughly analyze the environment which enables commanders and their planners 

to more accurately identify an adversary’s center of gravity. Furthermore, this analysis, 

if properly applied and integrated into the Military Decision Making Process or Joint 

Operational Planning Process, helps a commander and his staff to identify several ways to 

attack the adversaries’ center of gravity directly or indirectly, or to protect one’s own center 

of gravity. Through the years commanders and staff officers became more comfortable 

in their comprehensive preparation of the environment, even when the environment was 

wickedly complex, through Design. 

When developing Contingency Operations and Campaign plans for NATO’s military 

operations in Libya, OPERATION UNIFIED PROTECTOR (OUP), I comfortably 

contributed to the analysis that identified the enemy center of gravity upon which NATO 

focused its operations. Subsequently, as the Chief of the Combined Joint Task Force UP’s 

Operations Cell, I observed how essential it was for the commander and staff to continue to 

focus on the center of gravity analysis and its products during the conduct of the operation. 

Historians may tell a different story of the successes and failures in this operation, but 

from my foxhole, the center of gravity remained a focal point for the Commander and the 

operations that the staff directed, which ultimately led to NATO victory. 

Interestingly enough, through the insistence of NATO senior mentors and NATO 

colleagues, NATO planning staffs became comfortable with applying the same analysis 

with other key players in today’s complex environment, and not just criminal or terrorist 

organizations. We applied the same analysis to UN organizations in the theater of operations, 

or other international organizations, non-governmental organizations, civil organizations 

and the local society at large, etc. This analysis helped us to identify the element that gave 

these organizations the power to achieve their objectives. It also helped us to identify where 

these organizations might have problems. Our analysis helped us to identify where our 

efforts merged or intersected with the efforts of these other organizations; and, furthermore, 

helped us to anticipate their requests for assistance and their possible points of failure. 

Soon after this NATO experience, I found myself back in the Fort Leavenworth 

schoolhouse and responsible for shaping the educational environment and preparing 

curriculum. My responsibilities included leading the very experienced faculty to achieve the 

school’s mission—to educate and prepare our future leaders to win our nation’s current and 

future wars and conflicts. When the center of gravity became the focal point for discussion 

amongst the faculty, it was déjà vu all over again. Although the discussion was conducted 

at a much higher aptitude than 20 years before, and positions were staked out with more 
vii

precise definitions and even principles, the positions taken by the various interlocutors 

were similar to the viewpoints of 20 years ago. These viewpoints were: it’s an irrelevant 

concept for today’s complex environment; the definition is insufficient; the definition is 

sufficient, but the methods provided for analysis are too narrow; descriptions of how to 

apply the analysis are incomplete; we can apply better analysis processes and procedures; 

center of gravity analysis is relevant only in a traditional force-on-force scenario; etc.

At the conclusion of this rather heated and professional debate, several faculty 

members agreed to put their “pen-to-paper.” Maybe, they thought, they could induce a 

larger audience to join them in the debate and persuade them to proliferate their ideas 

throughout the Army. They are passionate about this subject, and believe their view of 

center of gravity is most appropriate for the future of the US Army. Therefore, we have this 

terrific collection of articles in this pamphlet focused on the center of gravity and driven 

by various opinions on the concept’s utility today and tomorrow, and on how to improve 

or replace it. The various authors poured their enthusiasm into the enclosed articles, which 

is quite evident. Moreover, they provide some limiting stakes to their arguments...all you 

have to do is to read the articles, stake out your own position, and then enter the debate. 

The anticipated intellectual discussion on this subject will be healthy for the Army. It 

will most likely stimulate relevant criticism as well as produce some current and recent 

vignettes—both positive and negative—on the center of gravity, the use of center of gravity 

analysis, and ways to directly or indirectly apply that analysis. The authors of these articles 

hope you are as excited about this topic as they are. They look forward to your comments 

and suggestions, and anticipate professional dialogue. The joint force and the Army might 

possibly benefit from your insights and contributions to this discussion. 

Regardless of how current doctrine addresses center of gravity, you can contribute to 

its modification to help ensure doctrine remains relevant to conducting operations in future 

complex and undefined environments. The time to engage is now. 

John C. Buckley, II

Colonel, US Army

Director, Command and General Staff School

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

ix

page 

Contents

Preface .............................................................................................................................. iii

Foreword.............................................................................................................................v

Chapter 1 

Behind the Mosaic: Insurgent Centers of Gravity and Counterinsurgency 

by Jonathan Klug..................................................................................................1

Chapter 2 

Center of Gravity: A Quest for Certainty or Tilting at Windmills? 

by Kurt P. VanderSteen......................................................................................33

Chapter 3 

Exploring Outside the Tropics of Clausewitz: Our Slavish Anchoring to an 

Archaic Metaphor 

by Christopher R. Paparone and William J. Davis, Jr. ...................................65

Chapter 4 

Center of Gravity Analysis—the Black Hole of Army Doctrine 

by Stephen L. Melton..........................................................................................81

Chapter 5 

Thoughts on Clausewitz, Strategy, and Centers of Gravity: 

When Jargon Meets Reductionism 

by John T. Kuehn .............................................................................................101

Chapter 6 

Center of Gravity: Right Idea, Wrong Direction 

by Phillip G. Pattee ...........................................................................................113

Chapter 7 

Modernizing the Center of Gravity Concept—So It Works 

by Colonel (Ret) Dale C. Eikmeier ..................................................................133

xi

page Figures

Figure 1. COG Schooner..................................................................................................65

Figure 2. Various Computations of COG. .....................................................................67

Figure 3. Without Reflection-Metaphoric Displacement of Meanings........................68

Figure 4. Center of Gravity Systems Slide.....................................................................92

Figure 5. Center of Gravity Analysis Examples..........................................................145

Figure 6. Revised Center of Gravity Analysis. ............................................................146

Figure 7. Center of Gravity Identification and Analysis. ...........................................148

Figure 8. Systems Analysis, Network Analysis Diagram. ...........................................150

Figure 9. Lines of Effort. ...............................................................................................161

Figure 10. Center of Gravity Sources...........................................................................163
1

Chapter 1 

Behind the Mosaic: Insurgent Centers of Gravity and Counterinsurgency 

by Jonathan Klug

“For every human problem there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong.”

—H.L. Mencken1

Counterinsurgency has defined the United States conventional military experience 

from the summer of 2003 to the present.1 During this period American military forces 

faced multiple insurgencies in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines, and other areas.2

 These 

operations brought heightened military and academic interest in counterinsurgency history, 

theory, and doctrine, precipitating efforts to update counterinsurgency doctrine.3

 The US 

Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency manual, or Field Manual (FM) 3-24,4

 is the most 

well known part of these doctrinal efforts. This rapidly produced counterinsurgency doctrine 

sparked debate on how to execute effective counterinsurgency operations. Unfortunately, 

misunderstanding of the concept of centers of gravity and the content of FM 3-24 led to the 

mistaken notion that “the people are the center of gravity.” As a consequence, some units 

conducting counterinsurgency operations incorrectly determined centers of gravity, which 

led to unnecessary expenditure of time, blood, and treasure. This manuscriptmonograph 

examines centers of gravity, particularly in counterinsurgency operations in the context of 

multiple insurgent groups operating in one area of operations and insurgent groups using 

localized approaches. This manuscript argues that rather than one static, monolithic center 

of gravity, there are multiple operational and tactical centers of gravity in counterinsurgency 

that vary by insurgent political purpose, location, approach, and phase.

United States forces have conducted counterinsurgency throughout their past and there 

will be a requirement for them to conduct counterinsurgency in the foreseeable future, 

which makes examining centers of gravity as part of counterinsurgency campaign planning 

and operations worthwhile. First, analyzing centers of gravity in context will help leaders 

articulate the nature, costs, opportunities, and risks of conducting counterinsurgency 

operations to policy makers. Second, clarifying this key element of operational art will aid 

in campaign planning, thereby likely improving the execution and probability of success 

of counterinsurgency operations.5

This manuscript examines multiple insurgent areas of operation and the dynamic 

and varied nature of multiple insurgent operational centers of gravity, recognizing and 

accounting for the notion that insurgency can form a complex, shifting mosaic. More 

specifically, many insurgencies conduct different types and combinations of operations 

at the local or tactical levels. For example, in one area an insurgency can be weak and 

consequently conducting small-scale operations, where forces of the same insurgency in 

an adjacent area can be strong and conducting larger-scale operations. From a macro or 

theater perspective, these variations form a mosaic not of small colored tiles, but of areas 

of varying insurgent efforts. This contextual understanding of the mosaic nature of most 

insurgencies and their multiple operational centers of gravity facilitates equally nuanced 

and tailored efforts to effectively counter insurgency. Similarly, conducting effective 
2

counterinsurgency depends on recognizing when there are multiple insurgencies operating 

in the same area.6

The first section of this manuscript is a review of key literature on centers of gravity, 

insurgency, centers of gravity in counterinsurgency, and the independent variables used in 

the case studies. The second section of the manuscript consists of two case studies. The 

conclusion is the final section of the manuscript and provides a summary of insights into 

centers of gravity in counterinsurgency.

Carl von Clausewitz’s discussion on a center of gravity appears relatively late in 

On War.

7

 Clausewitz stated that: “[O]ne must keep the dominant characteristics of both 

belligerents in mind. Out of these characteristics a certain center of gravity develops, the 

hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends.”8

 Based on this statement, 

each belligerent has a center of gravity, and a center of gravity must be determined in 

relative opposition. In other words, each side’s center of gravity emerges depending on its 

political aims in opposition to the opposition’s political aims. Thus, Clausewitz explicitly 

supports the notion that multiple centers of gravity vary by time, space, and purpose.

While Clausewitz’s key statement on a center of gravity defines a single center of 

gravity, he allowed for multiple centers of gravity. He stated that it was a goal or ideal 

to analyze back to the fewest number or, preferably, to one center of gravity. Clausewitz 

outlined two aspects important when attempting to isolate a single center of gravity. The 

first was to examine the distribution of political power. For example, an alliance may 

have only one center of gravity if the members of that alliance only loosely share political 

interests. The second analytical aspect was the situation in the theater of war. “[T]he effect 

that events in a given theater will have elsewhere can only be judged in each particular case. 

Only then can it be seen how far the enemy’s various centers of gravity can be reduced to 

one.”9

 Clausewitz added, that when an enemy’s “resistance cannot be reduced to a single 

center of gravity...two almost wholly separate wars have to be fought simultaneously.”10

Clausewitz felt that centers of gravity simultaneously cause the greatest impact on the 

enemy and are a target for the enemy. Thus, centers of gravity are a concentration of combat 

power; a concentration of combat power that can attack or be attacked. Clausewitz felt that 

force should be concentrated to strike a cohesive army and excess mass in striking a less 

coherent force is a waste and is part of the tension between dispersing forces to control 

territory and massing forces to strike. This major battle is often “a collision between two 

centers of gravity; the more forces we can concentrate in our center of gravity, the more 

certain and massive the effect will be.”11 Thus, centers of gravity clashing in a major battle 

will have an effect on the entire theater.

Cohesion was another key consideration for centers of gravity. Fighting forces have 

unity through cohesion, and “[w]here there is cohesion, the analogy of the center gravity 

can be applied.”12 Clausewitz also drew a distinction between the cohesion of a single 

army and an allied force. The former naturally has more cohesion than the latter, as one 

represents a single body politic and the other separate political groups. Clausewitz said that 

in coalitions political unity varies by degree between how each coalition member pursues 

independent interests or if there is dominant leader. Further, if defeating one foe will break 
3

the coalition, this one foe is the center of gravity. This is one of the exceptions where it is 

not “realistic to reduce several centers of gravity to one.”13

According to Clausewitz there were several possibilities for centers of gravity. In most 

cases he said that the center of gravity was the army; however, for a small country with 

a protector nation, the center of gravity may be the army of the protector. The center of 

gravity for alliances is shared interest amongst the members of the alliance or, in other 

words, what holds it together and working towards common goals and interests. Finally, 

Clausewitz said, “in countries subject to domestic strife, the center of gravity is generally 

the capital.”14

Clausewitz discussed centers of gravity in the chapter, “The People in Arms.” As 

Clausewitz linked his notion of centers of gravity to strength and concentration, he felt 

armed civilians were not a center of gravity. Armed civilians, however, could attack the 

invader’s center of gravity. Clausewitz recommended that armed civilians only “nibble 

at the shell and around the edges”15 and must not concentrate to avoid destruction. The 

resistance of the armed civilians would set the example that would “spread like a brush 

fire,”16 spurring further resistance and eroding the invaders’ strength and will. Clausewitz 

clearly felt the prospects of armed civilians succeeding alone were low, and that armed 

civilians should support a regular army.17

Retired Israeli Reserve Brigadier General Shimon Naveh wrote extensively on 

operational art and systemic operational design, and this subsection provides a short 

examination of his operational theory, including his discussion of centers of gravity. 

Additionally, this subsection very briefly surveys Soviet operational history and theory, as 

they are the basis of Naveh’s work. 

The Soviet operational pioneers included Svechin, Tukhachevsky, Triandafillov, 

Isserson, and others. Retired US Army Colonel David Glantz and Dr. Harold Orenstein 

provided key Soviet contributions to the theory and practice of operational art in a two 

volume work: The Evolution of Soviet Operational Art, 1927-1991.

18 In his summary of 

the Soviet theorists, Glantz pointed out that the Soviets viewed military art as “the theory 

and practice of preparing for and conducting military operations.”19 More importantly, 

the Soviets subdivided military art into the interrelated fields of strategy, operations, and 

tactics.20 These fields, or levels as current doctrine refers to them, have distinct standards 

of mission, scale, scope, and duration.21

An extensive study of the history and theory of operational art underpinned Naveh’s 

work. Naveh believes that before the Napoleonic Wars was the “age of the strategy of the 

single point [emphasis original],”22 where commanders sought a single, decisive battle. 

However, warfare began to change during the Napoleonic Wars. Based on this historical 

study, Naveh asserted that the drastic growth of nineteenth-century military forces, which 

in turn expanded operations in time and space. The integration of operations distributed in 

time and space distributed operations into a coherent whole in the hallmark of operational 

art. Similarly, simultaneous and successive operations are the “heart of operational art.”23

Soviet theorist G. K. Isserson’s study of warfare led him to conclude that modern 

operations “must be ready to overcome the entire depth [emphasis original].”24 With these 
4

three points in mind, a single battle could not be decisive; only a series of battles that 

attacked in depth could be decisive.25 This fact led to the expansion of warfare in time 

and space precipitated the genesis of abstract concept of operational art. Naveh provided 

the arguably best explanation of operational theory and operational art. He felt that, “The 

essence of [the operational] level, as the intermediary field between strategy and tactics, is 

the preparation, planning, and conduct of military operations in order to attain operational 

objectives and strategic aims.”26 Naveh articulates that operational campaigns occur within 

a theater and accomplish strategic goal within a framework of time and space. Naveh also 

noted that an independent command conducts a campaign.27

Systems theory is at the core of Naveh’s explanation of operational art, and his use 

of this approach is arguably Naveh’s key contribution to operational theory. Naveh uses 

systems theory to demonstrate that operations exist in a framework between two belligerent 

systems to attempt to achieve their objects. In fact, this framework is itself a system. As each 

belligerent attempts reach its ends, their efforts disturb the overall system. The overarching 

system and its components attempt to overcome these disturbances and maintain system 

equilibrium. As each belligerent’s operations attempt to disturb the system, they cause 

violent clashes with their contending systems, which are part of the larger system.28

Naveh felt that using centers of gravity “must involve cunning, which is the essence 

of operational art, at its best.”29 To Naveh centers of gravity played a vital role within 

the larger framework of the theater, war plans, and campaigns and that there were three 

elements for centers of gravity. First, planners must identify the points of strength and 

weakness in the opposing system. Second, the friendly force must create vulnerabilities 

in the opposing system. Third, maneuver strikes must exploit such vulnerabilities. These 

three elements combined both physical and cognitive operational vulnerabilities.30

Naveh implicitly supports that notion that multiple centers of gravity vary by time, 

space, and purpose. First, he points out that a campaign has an aim, or purpose, and a defined 

framework of time and space. Second, Naveh continually stresses that the operational field 

of war is dynamic and that successful operational art must be equally dynamic. Third, he 

believes that operational art must address the ubiquitous factor of randomness and chaos, 

as the various elements within the system have a dynamic interaction. Fourth, Naveh’s use 

of systems theory inherently distributes multiple centers of gravity in space and purpose. 

Fifth, Naveh explicitly mentions that centers of gravity are dynamic. Finally, he repeatedly 

points to the importance of synchronization, which arranges activities in time, space, and 

purpose. This implicitly demonstrates the dynamic nature of warfare in general and centers 

of gravity specifically.31

Dr. Joe Strange is an influential recent interpreter of Clausewitz’s work on centers of 

gravity. In fact, US joint doctrine adopted key aspects of his thought on centers of gravity. 

Strange’s most important work is his 1996 monograph Centers of Gravity & Critical 

Vulnerabilities,

32 where Strange promulgated his centers of gravity methodology and 

provided instruction on how to determine centers of gravity at each level of war. The “CGCC-CR-CV” concept is the core of his work. This concept consisted of centers of gravity 

(CG), critical capabilities (CC), critical requirements (CR), and critical vulnerabilities 

(CV). This concept provided depth and breadth to determining centers of gravity and, 
5

therefore, facilitated understanding the operational environment and informed planning. 

Strange’s concept also supported his assertion that centers of gravity are not characteristics, 

locations, or capabilities, but they are moral, political, and physical entities that either 

posses characteristics and capabilities, or benefit from a given location or terrain. Most 

importantly for this manuscript, Strange explicitly supports that multiple centers of gravity 

vary by time, space, and purpose.33

Strange subdivided centers of gravity into moral and physical types. Moral centers of 

gravity could include leaders and popular support, and physical centers of gravity could 

include military forces, economic power, and large populations. Strange also emphasized 

that centers of gravity are dynamic, meaning they vary with time and by context. 

Strange defined critical capabilities as the primary abilities which make a center of 

gravity as such in the context of a given scenario. Strange’s examples of CCs were to 

remain alive, stay informed, communicate, and remain influential. As they are something 

that the center of gravity does, critical capabilities are normally verbs. The third aspect was 

critical requirements, which are conditions, resources, or means for a CC fully effective. 

An example of a CR was the support of the people and powerful national leaders. CRs 

are normally nouns. Finally, critical vulnerabilities are deficient or vulnerable CRs or 

CR components; thus, one can exploit CVs in order to attack an enemy center of gravity. 

Strange also emphasized that a center of gravity cannot be a critical vulnerability at the 

same time. Like CRs, CVs are normally nouns.34

Dr. Milan Vego provided contemporary discussion on joint operational warfare and 

operational art. According to Vego, destruction of a center of gravity will have a decisive 

affect on a belligerent’s ability to achieve an objective and that an effective plan therefore 

relies on the proper determination of the friendly and enemy centers of gravity. Determining 

centers of gravity are therefore essential to operational art and improves the chances of a 

short and effective military effort. Vego also very aptly points out that “tactical actions 

are useful only when linked together as part of a larger design framed by strategy and 

orchestrated by operational art.”35 As center of gravity analysis is essential to successful 

operational art, it is vital to ensure that tactical and operational efforts contribute to attacking 

the enemy operational and tactical centers of gravity and protecting friendly operational 

and tactical centers of gravity. Vego also mentioned that modern ground forces are smaller 

and more dispersed than during World War II; thus, land combat is growing more like air 

and naval warfare—forces are more dispersed yet have massed effects.36

Vego differentiated centers of gravity into nonmilitary and military types. The former 

could include the will to fight, a key leader, an ideology, or a government’s legitimacy. 

The latter could be a military force or function, such as an elite formation or command and 

control. Vego made a vital observation that an enemy is not fully defeated until the relevant 

mass of power—the relevant center of gravity—is defeated. Vego began his analytical 

concept for centers of gravity with the key point that centers of gravity cannot be determined 

in a vacuum. He asserted that, the objective is a principal factor to determine the center 

of gravity and the solution to any military problem. When conducting center of gravity 

analysis, one must examine the belligerents’ objectives in relative opposition to each other, 

which implicitly means that centers of gravity vary by time, space, and purpose.37
6

To accomplish the military end state, Vego asserted that there is a required set of military 

and nonmilitary aspects of the situation, and he referred to these aspects as critical factors.

The three types are critical strengths, critical weaknesses, and critical vulnerabilities. 

Critical strengths are an essential capability required to accomplish an objective. For the 

strategic level, the leader of a nation, coalition, insurgency, or extremist group is typically 

the most important critical strength. Vego’s second type is critical weaknesses. Critical 

weaknesses are a source of power necessary to achieve an objective, but the capability is not 

adequate for the requirement. For example, an insurgency’s critical weakness could be the 

population’s waning support of their cause. Finally, Vego examines critical vulnerabilities. 

These are military or nonmilitary sources of power that are vulnerable to attack, control, 

leverage, or exploitation. As an example, Vego stated that the US aversion to casualties 

helped weaken US resolve during the Vietnam War.38

Vego believed that the higher the level of war, the more static the centers of gravity. In 

other words, there are less frequent shifts among strategic centers of gravity than operational 

centers of gravity and, similarly, frequent shifts in tactical centers of gravity relative to 

shifts in operational centers of gravity. Thus, Vego believes that centers of gravity are fluid, 

underscoring that there are often multiple centers of gravity at each level of war that vary 

depending on time, space, and purpose.39

Vego provided several key insights into insurgent centers of gravity. First, the strategic 

objective is predominantly nonmilitary and is often ideological in nature. As an example, 

ideology is a critical strength of al Qaeda. For the government fighting an insurgency, the 

strategic objective is predominantly nonmilitary and is often how the population views an 

insurgency’s or a government’s legitimacy. Insurgents will seek to attack the government’s 

strategic center of gravity—its legitimacy. Consequently, the government must seek to 

protect and improve its legitimacy. Legitimacy is a critical strength based on how the 

population views the justness of the government’s actions. As the insurgents often seek 

to undermine and, consequently, exploit poor government legitimacy, those conducting 

counterinsurgency must protect and bolster government legitimacy. Second, insurgents 

conducting guerrilla warfare will rarely present a physical operational center of gravity, 

as their forces will normally remain dispersed to avoid destruction. Instead, insurgent 

commanders and forces will often be tactical centers of gravity, although if these forces 

concentrate they could be an operational center of gravity.40

Dr. Antulio Echevarria is a Clausewitzian scholar and has written several pieces on 

Clausewitz’s center of gravity concept. Echevarria believes that it remains valid and useful. 

He suggests that, “the concept’s advocates have perhaps been too optimistic, and its critics 

too skeptical.”41 Echevarria draws a distinction between these efforts and what Clausewitz 

intended. 

Echevarria examines the influence of contemporary science on Clausewitz’s concept 

of centers gravity, as understanding the scientific concept upon which Clausewitz based 

his military concept provides insight into Clausewitz’s military concept. Nineteenthcentury physicists described a center of gravity as the point where gravitational forces 

converge within an object and that removal of the center of gravity should cause collapse. 

More importantly for this manuscript, Clausewitz’s approach mirrored that of science: 
7

successfully striking a center of gravity would shatter the object, or, in a military setting, lead 

to victory.42 Echevarria also showed that a scientific center of gravity is not an individual’s 

source of strength, but is concerned with balance.43 Second, a “center of gravity is not a 

weakness, per se, though it can be weak, or vulnerable if it is exposed.”44

According to Echevarria, many have misunderstood Clausewitz’s center of gravity 

concept, and Echevarria explored what he suggests Clausewitz really meant. First, one can 

apply Clausewitz’s concept wherever there is unity, connectivity, and interdependence with 

respect to enemy forces and the space occupied. Echevarria provides a long quotation from 

Clausewitz that is worth repeating here:

Just as the center of gravity is always found where the mass is most concentrated, and just as every blow directed against the body’s center of 

gravity yields the greatest effect, and—more to the point—the strongest 

blow is the one delivered by the center of gravity, the same is true of war. 

The armed forces of every combatant, whether an individual state or an 

alliance of states, have a certain unity and thus a certain interdependence

or connectivity (Zusammenhang) [emphasis Echevarria’s]; and where such 

interdependence exists, we can apply the center of gravity concept. Accordingly, there exist within [emphasis Echevarria’s] these armed forces 

certain centers of gravity which, by their movement and direction, exert a 

decisive influence over all other points; and these centers of gravity exist 

where [emphasis Echevarria’s] the forces are most concentrated. However, just as in the world of inanimate bodies where the effect on a center 

of gravity is at once limited and enhanced by the interdependence of the 

parts, the same is true in war.45

Thus, Echevarria believed that Clausewitz’s center of gravity concept was “a focal 

point...where energies came together to be redirected and refocused elsewhere,” 46 and 

Echevarria provides a plausible example that al Qaeda’s strategic center of gravity may 

be its ideology. Furthermore, Echevarria’s example supports the notion that, center of 

gravity refers “less to the concentrated forces than to the actual element that causes them 

to concentrate and gives them purpose and direction.”47 Echevarria also stated that centers 

of gravity have spheres of effectiveness or spheres of influence; thus, a moving center of 

gravity will draw in forces as they come into its sphere of influence. Echevarria states that, 

“[i]n short, Clausewitz’s centers of gravity draw energy and resources to themselves, and 

then redirect them elsewhere: they possess centripetal...force, which they can convert into 

a centrifugal...power.”48 This means that a Clausewitzian center of gravity is more than just 

a powerful entity that strikes a blow or friendly forces must protect; it is a powerful entity 

that provides unity to forces at a specific level of war. Finally, Echevarria’s interpretation 

implicitly demonstrates that centers of gravity vary by time, space, and purpose.

Echevarria believes that his views on centers of gravity resonate with today’s 

counterinsurgency. First, he states that “the personalities of key leaders, a state’s capital, 

or its network of allies and their community of interests might perform the centripetal or 

centralizing function of a focal point.”49 Similarly, finding a center of gravity depends 
8

on the enemy’s political connectivity, which is also useful in analyzing an insurgency’s 

centers of gravity; however, the enemy may have insufficient unity to have a specific center 

of gravity emerge or that “an adversary might not have a [center of gravity], or at least one 

we can attack.”50 Similarly, there may be multiple centers of gravity, although Clausewitz 

stressed attempting to trace this back to one.51 Echevarria made a superb point in that 

opposing centers of gravity may be different in that a physical center of gravity may be 

opposing a moral one. His example is an army pitted against public opinion. Not only can 

this asymmetry prove difficult in execution, but it can also bring disproportionate effects.52

Finally, “Centers of gravity are more than critical capabilities...[which] if attacked...bring 

about the complete collapse of an opponent.”53

Contemporary insurgents continue to use revolutionary warfare to attempt to reach 

their desired goals. Experts see Mao Tse-tung as a key revolutionary warfare theorist, even 

referring to him as “the founder of protracted revolutionary warfare.”54 Some contemporary 

analysts further opine that Mao’s approach remains the “most sophisticated form of 

revolutionary warfare.”55 Mao’s approach, however, did not materialize overnight. Years 

of struggle, many Chinese lives, and the Japanese invasion of China formed a crucible 

for Mao’s theory,56 allowing him to form “a synthesis between guerrilla warfare and mass 

organization.”57

Mao’s theory had several key points. First, his thesis for winning the revolutionary 

war in China was to “uphold the strategy of protracted war and campaigns of quick 

decision.”58 Four characteristics of the war in China framed Mao’s thesis: China was a 

vast, semi-colonial country; the enemy was large and powerful; communist military forces 

were comparatively small and weak; and a close relationship of communist leaders and 

peasants existed. The relatively weak position of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 

required protracted war to husband and slowly build strength while simultaneously eroding 

enemy strength. To successfully change their relative strength through a protracted effort, 

the communists had to understand the situation and use an appropriate approach of cyclic 

strategic retreat, strategic counteroffensive, or strategic offensive. Mao expected that 

success would require multiple iterations of retreat, counteroffensive, and offensive. This 

cycle demonstrated that Mao implicitly understood that centers of gravity vary by time, 

space, and purpose; furthermore, Mao’s theory took advantage of this notion to concentrate 

to attack the enemy’s centers of gravity and disperse to protect the friendly centers of 

gravity. He believed that campaigns of quick decision were required to execute these efforts 

to conserve manpower, fiscal resources, and military strength. Mao also emphasized the 

importance of the support of the peasantry to support the weak communist military forces. 

According to Mao, political unity is a key advantage of the CCP, the communist military 

forces, and the people.59

Mao advocated studying experience and history in context, as “each historical stage 

has its special characteristics, and hence the laws of war in each historical stage have 

their special characteristics and cannot be mechanically applied in another stage.”60 Thus, 

Mao wrote his theory for a specific place and time: China in the late 1930s. The success 

of the Chinese fight against the Japanese and then the CCP’s defeat of the Nationalist 

Chinese also support his theory. His theory, however, is broadly applicable to revolutionary 
9

warfare, demonstrated by many insurgent groups having used or been influenced by Mao’s 

theory; however, some of these groups have blindly applied Mao’s theory for revolutionary 

warfare in China.61 These groups ignored Mao’s caution against copying “exactly without 

the slightest change in form or content, we shall be ‘cutting the feet to fit the shoe’ and be 

defeated.”62

Mao improved this theory with subsequent additions and refinements, including the 

thought of Sun Tzu and ideas from Clausewitz’s “The People in Arms” chapter in On 

War.

63 In this way Mao used both practice and theory—experience fighting the Nationalist 

Chinese and Imperial Japanese and melding military theory from the West and East Asia—

to refine his revolutionary warfare theory, solidifying his work’s continued relevance. The 

essence of Mao’s theory of revolutionary warfare—using a strategy of protracted war, 

campaigns of quick decision, and ensuring support of the people—is still applicable and 

influencing insurgents today. It also demonstrates that Mao implicitly understood and 

accounted for multiple insurgent centers of gravity varying with time, space, and purpose. 

Dau Tranh, roughly translated as “struggle,” was the communist Vietnamese’s 

formidable adaptation of Mao’s revolutionary warfare theory and practice. Unlike many 

of other practitioners’ attempts to use Mao’s theory, however, the communist Vietnamese 

understood the context of their struggle and successfully adapted their strategy to fit the 

operational environment.64 Merely calling dau tranh a strategy does not do it justice. Robert 

S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, felt that dau tranh, “appeared 

to be an extreme and lethal form of fanaticism, and the capacity of the rebels to sustain it 

throughout the war would be a continuing source of fear and wonderment.”65 Dau tranh

was a total war, using all means to conquer South Vietnam.66 This subsection examines dau 

tranh as it is a key factor in a subsequent case study, because it is a successful example 

of insurgents combining political and military aspects into a holistic approach, and since 

it supports the notion that multiple insurgent centers of gravity vary by time, space, and 

purpose. 

Communist military leader General Vo Nguyen Giap summarized dau tranh by stating, 

“We not only conduct an armed struggle but also have the benefit of the masses’ fierce 

political struggle. We also attack the aggressors by recruiting troops and gaining enemy 

converts.”67 The communist Vietnamese attacked all of their enemies, including the United 

States, using all means available; thus, the communist Vietnamese type of warfare was 

“waged simultaneously on several fronts—not geographical fronts, but programmatical 

fronts.”68 Dr. George Tanham supports this by stating that, “the central theme of the 

Communist effort [was]...the integration or orchestration of all means—political, 

economic, psychological, and military—to control the people and seize political power.”69

Political dau tranh and armed dau tranh attack an enemy holistically to unleash a general 

insurrection, and the communist Vietnamese leaders expected this to be a long struggle. 

Furthermore, they adapted their military and political approach during ongoing operations, 

always seeking to maintain the military and political initiative. Most importantly, dau tranh

is a mosaic approach. A mosaic is a piece of art made with many small colored pieces that, 

when combined, create a larger picture. A mosaic insurgent approach is where insurgents 

in one area may be using conventional warfare, in another area using guerrilla warfare, and 
10

in a third area using propaganda and terrorism. Furthermore, the local approach would shift 

depending on the local situation. Again, this supports the notion that multiple centers of 

gravity shift by time, space, and purpose, especially at the tactical level.70

According to historian Douglas Pike, there are two major forms of dau tranh 

armed struggle or violence program: regular force strategy and protracted conflict. The 

communist Vietnamese used these two forms in combination depending on the situation, 

including regressing to lower levels of violence depending on the relative capabilities of 

the insurgents and counterinsurgents. Regular force strategy consisted of high technology 

warfare and limited offensive warfare. Giap used high technology warfare, matching their 

opponents’ technology, and the communist Vietnamese first used this form of regular force 

strategy in the 1972 Easter Offensive. In response to the failure of the Easter Offensive, 

the communist Vietnamese used the limited offensive form of warfare, which included the 

1975 campaign.71

Protracted conflict was dau tranh’s second form of violence and divided into classic, 

or Maoist, guerrilla war and neo-revolutionary guerrilla warfare. In Mao’s revolutionary 

warfare, the conflict progresses through three phases. However, the communist Vietnamese 

felt that elements of the Mao’s theory were not as relevant in their contemporary context, 

mostly due to advances in technology. Partly based on this, Giap’s conception was that 

the third phase, or the counteroffensive, would consist of a general people’s insurrection, 

which differs from Mao.72

Political dau tranh was a broad spectrum of nonmilitary efforts: political, diplomatic, 

psychological, ideological, sociological, and economic. Like armed dau tranh, Pike 

outlined components of political dau tranh. Dich van was action among the enemy, binh 

van was action among the military, and dan van was action among the people. First, Dich 

van focused on the Vietnamese population controlled by the government of South Vietnam 

as well as the American population. Second, binh van undermined the morale of enemy 

troops, causing desertion or eroding combat effectiveness. Third, dan van focused on 

political indoctrination and administration in “liberated areas” in South Vietnam or, in 

other words, areas of South Vietnam under communist control. Dan van was essentially 

the communist use of the counterinsurgency oil spot technique; thus, the insurgents created 

ever-expanding areas of control. Overall, political dau tranh was a mix of disinformation, 

propaganda, agitation, uprisings, terror, and subversion.73

If armed dau tranh defeats the counterinsurgent forces, the insurgents win. Conversely, 

if the counterinsurgents defeat the insurgents militarily, the insurgents merely revert to 

the strategic defense to build political and military strength. Thus, the counterinsurgents 

must defeat the insurgents both militarily and politically to succeed. This success over the 

insurgents will normally only be temporary if the core grievances that caused and sustained 

the insurgency remain unresolved. If these core grievances are not resolved, insurgency 

may reemerge, which it did time and time again in South Vietnam.74

The population is not a center of gravity at any level of war by definition and by 

Strange’s methodology. More specifically, the population cannot be the insurgent center of 

gravity using Echevarria’s interpretation of Clausewitz, nor is the population a center of 
11

gravity using Strange’s methodology. First, Echevarria’s interpretation of Clausewitz shows 

that a center of gravity is something that draws together or unifies something. In the case of 

an insurgency, a charismatic leader, such as the Peruvian insurgency Shining Path’s leader 

Abimael Guzmán, and the ideology that underpins an insurgency, such as Guzmán’s fierce 

mix of the thought of Marx, Lenin, and Mao with strong historical appeals to the Incan 

past, are examples insurgent strategic centers of gravity.75 Second, the historical example of 

Guzmán’s as an insurgent charismatic leader demonstrates that by Strange’s methodology 

the population is not a strategic center of gravity. Using Strange’s methodology, Guzmán 

needs the population to support him to reach his end state, and Guzmán’s ideology is a key 

aspect of gaining this support; thus, support of the population is not in itself a center of 

gravity.

Although not a center of gravity, support of the population is a critical aspect of 

operational art in counterinsurgency. Support of the population is often an insurgent critical 

requirement and a critical vulnerability. As a hypothetical example, a charismatic leader 

who is a strategic center of gravity has several CCs, including the ability to mobilize the 

population and the ability to generate resources. Support of the population is essential to 

mobilize the population and generate resources, so support of the population is a CR for 

both of these CCs. As the counterinsurgents can contest the insurgency’s control of the 

population, these CRs are also CVs.76

In the hypothetical example above, support of the population is both a CR and CV for 

the insurgents. The same methodology applies for the counterinsurgents. Thus, achieving 

support of the population in the hypothetical example is a strategic, operational, and 

tactical objective for both belligerents. In other words, support of the population is very 

important in most cases, but it is definitionally and methodologically inconsistent to refer 

to the population as the center of gravity.77 In fact, if counterinsurgents treat the population 

as a center of gravity, it is very likely that they will waste resources and, worst case, the 

insurgents will win.

The operational level and operational art are context for operational centers of gravity. 

The key tenets of operational art apply in insurgency and counterinsurgency; however, 

one must adapt these tenets to account for the differences in relative force, time, space, 

and will.78 In counterinsurgency insurgents tend to avoid battles. Instead, insurgents often 

keep their forces dispersed to avoid the normally more militarily powerful and mobile 

counterinsurgency forces. Insurgents normally have the advantage when protracting the 

conflict, as Clausewitz noted, “Both belligerents need time; the question is only which of 

the two can expect to derive special advantages from it in light of his own situation.”79

Insurgent groups also use different approaches based on their relative strength to their 

opponents.80

Schneider posited that key characteristics of modern operational art were field 

armies and distributed logistics, campaigns, operations, maneuver, and battlefields. 

While insurgents normally do not have field armies, they normally have distributed 

logistics, campaigns, operations, maneuver, and battlefields. Schneider’s statement that 

the “hallmark of operational art is the integration of temporally and spatially distributed 

operations into one coherent whole”81 and that simultaneous and successive operations 
12

are the crux of operational art apply for insurgent efforts as well; however, these efforts 

are normally also smaller and distributed further in time. In other words, the insurgents’ 

normal military inferiority forces them to protract their wars, campaigns, and major 

operations. Finally, Isserson’s point that modern operations “must be ready to overcome 

the entire depth [Isserson’s emphasis]”82 also applies to counterinsurgency. In other words, 

counterinsurgents should strive to overcome insurgent efforts—both operational and 

tactical—throughout the entire depth of the theater.

Strachan claimed that “the center of gravity was at the confluence of strategy and 

tactics,”83 illustrating the importance of operational centers of gravity on both the operational 

level and operational art. Before conducting center of gravity analysis proper, there are two 

key steps. First, analysis of the strategic context and strategic centers of gravity frame 

operational center of gravity analysis. Second, operational objectives and the nature of each 

belligerent determine operational centers of gravity, as an opponent’s operational centers 

of gravity resist their foe achieving threat objectives and friendly operational centers of 

gravity facilitate achieving friendly objectives.

An insurgency may disperse to avoid having an operational center of gravity destroyed 

by counterinsurgent forces, yet an operational center of gravity, such as a key insurgent 

leader, may exist. “Creating sub-[centers of gravity] is artificial, unless our opponent 

is too dispersed or decentralized to have one [center of gravity].”84 Mao’s third stage is 

an exception. In this case, an insurgency’s operational center of gravity is able to draw 

operationally significant forces together and employ them to strike the enemy, forming a 

center of gravity in line with Strange’s model. In the first two stages of Mao’s theory, an 

operational center of gravity instead will conduct efforts through tactical centers of gravity 

and tactical centers of critical capabilities.

Joint Publication 3-0 defines the tactical “level of war at which battles and engagements 

are planned and executed to achieve military objectives assigned to tactical units or task 

forces. Activities at this level focus on “the ordered arrangement and maneuver of combat 

elements in relation to each other and to the enemy to achieve combat objectives.”85

The tactical level of war in counterinsurgency is normally a protracted series of small 

engagements where the insurgents try to erode the counterinsurgents’ capabilities and will 

and the counterinsurgents attempt to defeat the insurgents. 

The mosaic nature of many insurgencies, such as how the Vietnamese insurgents used 

dau tranh in South Vietnam, tends to focus attention on the tactical level. In fact, the 

frequent lack of an assailable insurgent operational center of gravity emphasizes tactical 

areas of operation and tactical activities. Clausewitz noted that “all parts of the whole are 

interconnected and thus the effects produced, however small their cause, must influence all 

subsequent military operations and modify their final outcome to some degree, however 

slight.”86 The lack of assailable operational insurgent centers of gravity further emphasizes 

the tactical actions in counterinsurgency.

This manuscript’s four independent variables are insurgent political purpose, location, 

approach, and phase. These independent variables are key contextual components that 

determine centers of gravity at every level of war, and centers of gravity are dependent 
13

variables. Not only do the independent variables determine centers of gravity, changes 

in the independent variables determine when a center of gravity changes. As previously 

discussed, there are often multiple centers of gravity for each level of war. Given the 

typical “mosaic” nature of counterinsurgency, there are typically more centers of gravity 

at the tactical level of war in counterinsurgency and the independent variables at the local 

level impact their corresponding tactical centers of gravity.

There are three general insurgent political purposes: change, overthrow, and resistance. 

Seeking political or economic change on a government is a basic end that most insurgencies 

share. Second, an insurgency may seek to overthrow and replace a government. Resisting 

a foreign invader’s occupation is a third basic insurgent political purpose. An insurgency 

may combine these ends and these ends may change depending on the strategic context. 

In terms of operational art, ends are some of the conditions that make up the insurgent’s 

desired end state. Additionally, the core grievances that underpin the ends are also important 

to consider for an insurgency’s political purpose. Perceived core grievances—which may 

include identity, religion, economy, corruption, repression, foreign exploitation or presence, 

foreign occupation, and inadequate essential services—are the basis of insurgency.87

Insurgent centers of gravity vary by location or space. Competent insurgents use space 

to wear down their opponents’ will and tailor local efforts to suit the tactical situation. 

They often attempt to exploit areas in which counterinsurgents are relatively weak. 

Insurgents tend to operate fluidly and thereby react quickly to changing conditions. They 

often have the tactical initiative and can consequently avoid counterinsurgent efforts to 

decisively engage them. Porous international borders are also key aspects of space. When 

insurgents can exploit these political boundaries, the borders create sanctuaries. This 

affords the insurgency a space where they are difficult or impossible to assail, thereby 

allowing the insurgency to further capability to retain the operational initiative. Finally, 

single insurgencies may operate alone in an area, but there may be multiple insurgencies 

operating in the same location. In the case of multiple insurgencies operating in the same 

area, different insurgent groups may cooperate, ignore, or fight each other depending on 

their group’s ends.88

Insurgent approaches include conspiratorial, military-focused, terrorism-focused, 

identity-focused, protracted popular war, and subversive. The conspiratorial approach 

involves a small group seizing power and then normally focuses on quickly gaining support 

of key groups and the population. The military-focused group attempts to reach its ends 

by acting against the opposing security forces. A terrorism-focused insurgent uses terror to 

gain and maintain power, and they may focus their efforts on the population, the opposing 

government, and/or the opposing security forces. Insurgents who use an identity-focused 

approach based on common identity, such as clan, tribe, religion, or other group identity. 

Insurgents may use many variations of protracted popular war to erode counterinsurgent 

physical and psychological strength. Insurgents may also focus on subversion and use 

relatively less violence to support its subversive efforts. Additionally, insurgencies may 

use a composite approach or several insurgencies using difference approaches can form a 

coalition.89
14

Insurgent phasing and timing play a key role in determining insurgency centers of 

gravity. First, insurgents can normally afford to be patient. While they are normally 

materially inferior to their opponents, they often have a superior strength of will. This 

often allows them to erode their opponents materially and psychologically over time. From 

a perspective of phasing and timing, one can view insurgents as being on the defensive, 

at equilibrium, or on the offensive. Insurgent operations while on the defensive normally 

can include subversion, terrorism, and guerrilla warfare. These operations often continue 

during equilibrium, but increase in size and may include some convention warfare. The 

offensive phase will often include more conventional warfare and the overall conflict will 

often become more properly viewed as a civil war. The insurgent phasing and timing does 

not have to be the same on all levels of war simultaneously. For example, an insurgency 

may be on the strategic defensive, on the operational defensive in one area, and on the 

tactical offensive in one small area.90

American involvement in Vietnam followed a long tradition of Vietnamese resistance 

to outsiders, most recently the Japanese during the Second World War and the French 

attempt to reassert their control of Vietnam after the Second World War. The communists 

defeated the French, which led to the partition of Indochina into Laos, Cambodia, North 

Vietnam, and South Vietnam. Second, the Vietnam War was a complex war in that it was 

both an external and internal war. It was external as North Vietnam and its communist 

supporters fought South Vietnam and its American partners. The Vietnam War also was an 

internal war as the National Liberation Front (or Viet Cong) fought an insurgency against 

the forces of South Vietnam and its supporters. 

Some strategic context is required for a discussion of operational and tactical centers 

of gravity before, during, and after the Tet Offensive. There are four broad phases in the 

Vietnam War from the US perspective. The initial phase was US security force assistance 

to the Diem government of South Vietnam. The second phase began with the assassination 

of President Ngo Dinh Diem in November 1963 and included growing US involvement in 

South Vietnam.91 The third phase began with the introduction of US ground forces in 1965 

ends with the Tet Offensive and other attacks of 1968. The fourth phase was the after the 

communist offensives of 1968, included the American Vietnamization effort, and ended 

with the Paris Peace Accords of 1973. 

The type of war—limited or unlimited—that each of the belligerents fought impacted 

the overall conduct of war. While in practice all wars have limits on the means used,92 the 

willingness of a belligerents is important, especially when there is a distinct asymmetry 

between the belligerents as there was in the Vietnam War. Similarly, Clausewitz wrote, 

“the value of this object must determine the sacrifices to be made for it in magnitude and 

also in duration [emphasis original].”93 To America the Vietnam War was a limited war 

within the framework of the Cold War. American policy was to maintain a non-communist 

South Vietnam while avoiding touching off a larger, more destructive war. Consequently, 

the US strategy in Vietnam had to strike a balance between achieving the desired end 

state and risking the direct Chinese or Soviet intervention. To South Vietnam the war was 

total. If South Vietnam could not defeat communist conventional and insurgent forces, 

South Vietnam would cease to exist. Because of previous assistance of the United States, 
15

however, South Vietnam did not fully appreciate this existential threat until after US support 

drastically waned during the Ford administration. To the communist Vietnamese the war 

was a total war for national unification under communist rule, although the communists 

portrayed the war as an effort against outsiders and the outsiders’ puppets.94 From their 

perspective, the communist Vietnamese desire to reunite Vietnam stemmed from interest 

and honor. More importantly for this manuscript, the core grievances of the insurgent 

narrative were nationalism, anti-colonialism, and social justice,95 although the communist 

ideology was a key component of the narrative as well.

The asymmetry between belligerents also impacted how the war evolved. As Clausewitz 

stated, “the degree of force that must be used against the enemy depends on the scale of 

political demands on either side.”96 Over the course of the Vietnam War, the communist 

Vietnamese were willing to escalate means and maintain the use of these additional means 

more readily than the United States. Nevertheless, this case study focuses on the operational 

and tactical centers of gravity before, during, and after the Tet Offensive.

Throughout the Vietnam War, the communist Vietnamese used dau tranh to attack 

their foes politically and militarily; however, the communist Vietnamese insurgents always 

fought first politically and second militarily. The Americans, however, used a strategy of 

attrition, feeling that it “offered the Army the prospect of winning the war quickly, or at 

least more quickly than with traditional counterinsurgency operations.”97 The issue was 

that there were insufficient enemy forces exposed to attrition. 

Instead of massing battalions conveniently for American attritional efforts, the 

communists would cycle though the tactical offense, equilibrium, and defense, as 

appropriate to the situation, and maintain military and psychological pressure on the 

Americans and South Vietnamese. The communist response to American firepower and 

advanced technology was to disperse their forces. By dispersing, the communists controlled 

the tempo of attrition and, consequently, the “long war in Vietnam [was] fought almost 

exclusively on the tactical level.”98

The communists tailored their approach to fit the local conditions, using both North 

Vietnamese regular forces and South Vietnamese insurgent forces. These regular and 

insurgent forces focused on executing small, well-planned precision strikes and mounting 

multiple daily attacks, thereby varying their tactical approach by location and time. While 

these tactical iterations eroded both sides, the communist Vietnamese were more willing to 

accept this tactical protracted attrition to hold the village and hamlets. The intent of these 

methods was to erode military strength and, more importantly, undermine the enemy’s 

morale. The steady escalation of these efforts was to culminate in a major attack, such as 

Dien Bien Phu, that would impact enemy military and political will. Additionally, the Viet 

Cong were very adept at capturing and disseminating tactical lessons, where the Americans 

and South Vietnamese were not.99

By mid-1967, the American commitment of ground troops hindered communist 

progress. While the mosaic approach of dau tranh was slowly proceeding at the operational 

and tactical levels, the Vietnamese communists viewed the war as strategic stalemate. 

Despite the apparent stagnation of their strategic approach, the communist Vietnamese 
16

felt they were in a position to attempt to spark a general uprising in South Vietnam. They 

planned to seize the strategic, operational, and tactical initiative, and they scheduled their 

offensive to begin during the Tet holiday of 1968—the Tet Offensive.100

Before the Tet Offensive there were no operational insurgent centers of gravity in 

South Vietnam, nor were there many operational communist conventional centers of 

gravity in South Vietnam. Insurgent forces remained dispersed down to the tactical level 

to avoid detection and destruction. The sanctuaries just over the Cambodian, Laotian, and 

North Vietnamese borders were operational centers of gravity; however, America and 

South Vietnam did not allow conventional land forces to attack across these borders. The 

communist forces that attacked Khe Sanh were an operational center of gravity; however, 

the efforts of these forces were merely a shaping operation for the actual Tet Offensive. 

More specifically, the attacks on Khe Sanh were a deception effort designed to convince 

the Americans and South Vietnamese that the main offensive would come on the periphery 

of South Vietnam and not the urban areas of South Vietnam.101

In addition to Khe Sanh, the communists planned multiple operational and tactical efforts 

that were supporting efforts to the larger deception operation. Communist conventional 

forces conducted a tactical attack on the border town of Song Be near the Cambodian border, 

and communist insurgents conducted a similar attack at Loc Ninh, another border town and 

provincial capital. Giap’s final shaping operation was an operational-level attack—four 

conventional regiments—in the Dak To region. Unfortunately for the communists, these 

battles did not draw enough US forces away from the communist objectives for the Tet 

Offensive.102 Nevertheless, these efforts demonstrate that the communists formed multiple 

operational and tactical centers of gravity that varied by purpose, location, and phase.

The communist Vietnamese had three objectives for the Tet Offensive. The most 

important was to spark the aforementioned general uprising amongst the people of South 

Vietnam. Second, this offensive was to defeat the armed forces of South Vietnam and 

America. Third, the Tet Offensive was to convince the Americans that communist victory 

was inevitable. The plan called for a three-pronged offensive to bring about a popular 

uprising. Supporting operations in outlying regions were to draw forces and attention 

away from the urban areas, the actual objectives of the offensive. Second, the main effort 

was a countrywide attack on cities, key units, headquarters, communications, and air 

bases. In order to conduct these attacks, the communist Vietnamese would concentrate 

formerly dispersed forces, forming conventional and insurgent operational and tactical 

centers of gravity. Third, the communists executed a massive binh van—action among 

the military—effort to get South Vietnamese forces to flip to support the communist 

Vietnamese. Additionally, major communist efforts in May and August 1968 followed the 

Tet offensive.103

The military results of Tet were horrendous for the communist Vietnamese. From 

a communist perspective, “after the summer campaign of 1969 a major portion of our 

main force army was forced to withdraw...to regroup...the strength of our local forces was 

seriously eroded.”104 From an American point of view, “for once we could find him...and the 

cost to him was enormous militarily.”105 The communist guerrilla forces in South Vietnam 
17

never recovered, and North Vietnamese regular forces did much of the fighting for the 

remainder of the war. The Tet Offensive, however, had a more important political impact: 

“The confidence of the American people had been badly shaken.”106 Not only did Tet end 

General Westmoreland’s tenure as the American military commander in Vietnam, but 

President Johnson chose not to run for another term and the South Vietnamese government 

believed that the US was losing its resolve to continue the war.107

The American approach changed significantly in early 1969 due to the Tet Offensive. 

For the Americans, the “One War” concept and Vietnamization came to the fore. While 

Vietnamization was an American policy decision, the “One War” concept permeated all 

three levels of war, although it had profound impacts on the operational level of war. The 

“One War” concept linked military efforts with pacification. Additionally, the Americans 

and South Vietnamese placed more emphasis on the Phoenix Program. After Tet, Phoenix 

more effectively attacked the Vietnamese insurgent infrastructure.108

The failure of Tet required the communists to adapt their military efforts. The insurgent 

effort had lost many of its personnel and its underground infrastructure. As a result, the 

communists reverted back to dispersing their forces, thereby changing their operational 

and tactical approaches. After several months of experimentation and development, the 

communist Vietnamese began to use neo-revolutionary guerrilla warfare in some areas. 

The underpinning notion was to remain at stage two of classic guerrilla warfare, thereby 

avoiding concentrating forces. Elite guerrilla forces would again take up the routine 

of precision strikes and mounting multiple daily attacks. They coupled this approach 

with increased operations by North Vietnamese conventional forces in South Vietnam. 

Many communist leaders, however, felt that this approach would never generate enough 

momentum to lead to victory. In fact, communist Vietnamese leaders vowed to never again 

risk all of their military forces.109

Despite their earlier vow, the communist leaders did plan and execute a major 

offensive in 1972. This Easter Offensive, however, did not have to contend with American 

ground forces. Due to Vietnamization, only South Vietnamese ground forces and American 

advisors remained. Thus, the communist Vietnamese concentrated conventional forces, 

which formed an operational center of gravity. In fact, the communist forces staged major 

attacks in three separate areas simultaneously. South Vietnamese forces fought well, albeit 

with many American advisors and ample American air support. However, the communist 

Vietnamese were still more willing to sacrifice more than their South Vietnamese foes.110

After the 1972 failed Easter offensive, the North Vietnamese Central Committee 

examined it strategy to defeat South Vietnam and its supporters. Communist forces had 

recovered from previous operations and, with the withdrawal of American ground forces 

and American difficulty with direct intervention, were growing stronger than their South 

Vietnamese foe’s military forces; however, some party members were concerned that a 

major offensive with Soviet and Chinese support could backfire and draw direct American 

intervention. The committee consequently compromised. They decided to shift from 

primarily focusing on the political to focusing on the military aspect of dau tranh and 

continue to erode South Vietnamese military and psychological strength. This strategy 
18

quickly began to affect the South Vietnamese, whose military forces struggled in 1973 and 

1974. This strategy so weakened the South Vietnamese psychologically, that they rapidly 

collapsed in 1975. In fact, the speed of the final offensive campaign that toppled South 

Vietnam even surprised the communist Vietnamese.111

The complexity of the Vietnam War was the genesis of the concept of “mosaic warfare.” 

Both before and after the Tet Offensive, local circumstances drove the communists’ tactical 

purpose, approach, and phase. Thus, North Vietnamese conventional forces could be 

conducting offensive operations in a South Vietnamese province adjacent to an area where 

communist insurgents were mobilizing the population of a South Vietnamese hamlet and 

avoiding combat. While this approach was successful at the tactical level before and after 

Tet, lack of strategic progress led to the communists to attempt to foment a general uprising 

with the Tet Offensive as an operational catalyst. The analysis of the insurgent centers of 

gravity before and after the Tet Offensive demonstrates that there were multiple insurgent 

strategic, operational, and tactical centers of gravity that varied by insurgent political 

purpose, location, approach, and phase.

This case study does not address the invasion of Iraq. Rather, the analysis concentrates 

on the period of insurgency after the spring and summer of 2003. However, the invasion 

itself and subsequent occupation acted as core grievances of many of the insurgent groups. 

This case study examines multiple insurgent operational and tactical centers of gravity 

before and after the US change in theater strategy, commonly known as “The Surge.” The 

Iraq case study is different from the Vietnam case study in that multiple insurgent groups 

were operating in Iraq where there was a single insurgent group operating in Vietnam.

When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, the existing regime and its security 

apparatus fractured and subsequently seemed to dissipate like so much vapor.112 This was 

partly due to coalition combat operations, coalition informational efforts, Iraqi design,113

and the centralized nature of the Iraqi government. In the years following 2003, the Iraq War 

was multifaceted and often difficult for non-Iraqis to fathom. The Iraq War has several key 

points: a change in strategic center of gravity, examples of unbalanced counterinsurgency 

approaches (including both enemy-focused and population-centric approaches, the 

previous discussion of the initial American approach in the Philippines is an example of an 

unbalanced population-centric approach), and a mosaic nature similar yet more complex 

than that of the Vietnam War. 

After the fall of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime, the United States chose to remain 

in Iraq rather than treat the operation as a punitive expedition.114 Thus, the United States 

forced regime change in Iraq.115 Despite establishing a transitional military authority,1176a 

tremendous power and governance vacuum existed after the fall of the Iraqi central 

government. The task of working on post-invasion Iraq fell to Jay Garner. Garner led the 

Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA).117 For reasons beyond 

the scope of this manuscript, this civilian transitional military authority was not capable 

of accomplishing its mission.118 The failure of ORHA meant squandering the “golden 

window” of post-conflict termination: the first year after hostilities.119 In fact, Iraq was in 

a state of anarchy or, as Metz aptly stated, “It was ‘Lord of the Flies’ on a monumental 

scale.”120 The meager resources—insufficient numbers of security forces and insufficient 
19

reconstruction capability and capacity—allowed several future threat groups to gestate, 

which included several proto-insurgencies to coalesce.121 In more traditional insurgency 

terms, these groups were in the latent and incipient phase of insurgency.122

When forces of the United States occupied Baghdad, they occupied a strategic objective 

thereby collapsing a strategic center of gravity.123 As mentioned previously, if a strategic 

center of gravity falls, the enemy should collapse at that level of war. In this case, the Iraqi 

nation and military did indeed collapse after Baghdad fell. In addition to Baghdad, there 

was another strategic center of gravity: Saddam Hussein. This second strategic center of 

gravity, however, went into hiding while his nation shattered.124 Although he remained 

at large, he no longer had a tangible operational center of gravity. Because of continued 

survival, the Ba’athist resistance would later re-emerge. Overall, the initial US campaign 

is an example of the collapse of one enemy strategic center of gravity—Baghdad—and the 

severing of a second strategic center of gravity—Saddam Hussein—from its operational 

centers of gravity. The lull in enemy efforts and apparent lack of capabilities appeared to 

indicate a Coalition strategic victory; however, this lull was merely a period where new 

centers of gravity emerged.

During the period immediately after the fall of Baghdad, there were no operational 

centers of gravity, as there are no operational centers of gravity for an emergent insurgency 

that is in the latent and incipient phase. The insurgency is normally too small and lacks 

sufficient capability and capacity to act on the operational level of war. Instead, a latent 

and incipient insurgency has emerging tactical centers of gravity. These may be early 

insurgent leaders and associated nascent underground infrastructure. Instead, small groups 

of guerrilla fighters coalesced during this period. 

There were several emergent insurgent groups in 2003 in Iraq. Although there were 

other smaller groups, On Point II listed seven major groups of insurgents: Sunni Arabs, 

secular ideologues, Sunni tribes, religious groups, ultra radical Salafis and Wahhabis, 

Shia groups, and Al-Qaeda and other foreign groups. These multiple groups emerged and 

grew quickly given the security and power vacuum. Each of these groups had their own 

goals and approaches; however, elements of these major groups had different approaches 

depending on local conditions. For example, local conditions dictated if a group was 

conducting offensive guerrilla warfare or if a group had to remain hidden and terrorize the 

local population. While these groups often fought each other, the Coalition was a common 

foe.125 Consequently, the Coalition attempted to stabilize the situation in an environment 

that included a confusing array of multiple groups with multiple emerging tactical centers 

of gravity.

Local tactical commanders took unique approaches in their areas of operation to 

counter the emerging enemy tactical centers of gravity, which is appropriate given this 

shifting mosaic of insurgents and irregular actors. The real challenge for each unit was 

finding the right balance of aggressive counterguerrilla operations with stability operations 

given the operational environment and resources. When the 4th Infantry Division relieved 

the Marines in Tikrit, they used an enemy-focused approach that some historians view 

as heavy-handed; however, the division used a multifaceted approach, although initially 

the approach was likely too aggressive. Similarly, some historians feel the 82nd Airborne 
20

Division used an overly enemy-centric approach; however, the division task force defined 

its overall objective as winning the support of the Iraqi people. The 101st Airborne 

Division’s used a less-enemy centric approach than the 4th Infantry Division or the 82nd 

Airborne Division, but this approach was appropriate for the area of operations and given 

the 101st Airborne Division’s combat power in relation to area of operations, the size of 

the Iraqi population, and the local threat. The 1st Armored Division took an approach that 

focused on fighting for intelligence or fighting based on intelligence. While the division 

performed well, the growing threat, however, meant that the division lacked the combat 

power to deal with the emerging insurgent forces and instability.126 Ultimately, there were 

insufficient Coalition forces to deal with multiple enemies, each of which “is a hydra with 

numerous heads and no single center of gravity.”127

The three years that followed the emergence of multiple insurgencies were bloody 

and chaotic. The fighting, however, reached a new level in 2006 when Sunni extremists 

attacked the al-Askari Mosque. The Sunni destruction of this key Shia mosque unleashed a 

new, unprecedented wave of sectarian violence. Thus, insurgent groups and other irregular 

actors fought each other and anyone who attempted to quell the violence. If this event did 

not change the nature of the conflict, it certainly underscored the need to address sectarian 

violence. Policy makers consequently realized they had to craft a “new” strategy for Iraq. 

Although it did not change the strategic ends, this “new” strategy called for changes 

in ways and increased means in order to decrease the risk of strategic failure. This revised 

strategy became the so-called “Surge.”128 The increase in means came in additional military 

and non military resources. Importantly for this case study, the key military component of 

“The Surge” was to increase ground forces. The new ways for the strategy of “The Surge” 

incorporated lessons that US forces had learned in combat since 2003. The key aspect of 

the new ways was a change in operational approach. The additional ground forces were 

to clear and hold Baghdad with the objective of securing the population and, hopefully, 

earning the support of a greater portion of the population. From a US policy perspective, 

the strategy relied on improved security and support from the population to allow for an 

Iraqi political settlement.129

As the Coalition commander in Iraq as of February 10, 2003, General Petraeus oversaw 

the implementation of an operational approach that focused on protecting the population. 

As “The Surge” increased the combat power available to the Coalition by five US Army 

brigades and two US Marine infantry battalions, with additional military police, aviation, 

a division headquarters, and other enables. These additional forces and forces already in 

Iraq increased the tactical ground density of Coalition forces in key areas in Iraq, especially 

Baghdad. For the clear phase, the additional combat power allowed Coalition commanders 

to mass combat power and effects to achieve tactical objectives and deal with the multitude 

of insurgent tactical centers of gravity. For the hold phase, the additional combat power 

allowed dispersion of forces not involved in clearing, specifically dispersed in small 

outposts called joint security stations. Thus, the additional combat power allowed tactical 

sequencing of concentrating combat power to clear an area and then dispersing combat 

power to hold an area.130
21

On June 15, 2007, Coalition forces began several major operations outside of Baghdad. 

This was a change in the operational approach. Coalition commanders coupled successful 

operations in Baghdad with operations outside of the capital; thus, relative tactical combat 

power now allowed a change in operational art: simultaneity instead of sequencing. The 

point was to conduct simultaneous tactical operations to prevent terrorists to simply move 

from point-to-point away from Coalition pressure and thereby gain an operational effect 

on the enemy.131 More specifically, the Coalition approach undermined the enemy’s tactical 

flexibility to choose its purpose, approach, and phase by location. Instead, the Coalition had 

the combat power to seize and retain the operational and tactical initiative. The insurgent 

groups, however, would regenerate and fight in other areas, such as Anbar province.132

The surge efforts were successful in the short- and medium-term, as they created some 

breathing space in the violence, a vital condition for potential political negotiations. While 

“The Surge” gets most of the credit for creating this breathing space, there were many other 

military and nonmilitary efforts that contributed to the reducing the violence.133 One area 

that is often sadly neglected is the Iraqis themselves. Not only was the population weary 

of the violence, Iraqis joined their new nation’s security forces in the thousands. Like the 

additional “Surge” forces, these forces also added combat power to fight the insurgent 

groups and help reduce sectarian violence, although building the capacity of the Iraqi 

security forces pre-dated “The Surge.” However, some also speculate that the declining 

sectarian violence had more to do with the completion of sectarian cleansing; nevertheless, 

the overall efforts reduced the level of insurgent and sectarian violence in Baghdad.134

At the time of writing this manuscript, insurgent and sectarian violence continues in 

Iraq. The United States continues to maintain military forces in Iraq; however, the future of 

these forces is open to speculation. Currently, there is no political agreement between the 

US and Iraq to keep US forces in Iraq after December 2012. However, it is unclear if all US 

forces will depart. If some US forces remain, the size of the US forces in Iraq is unclear. 

The US forces that stay would likely conduct security force assistance, primarily as trainers 

and advisors supporting Iraqi security forces.

The Iraq War was a “perfect storm” of circumstances and initial mistakes followed by 

rapid tactical and operational adaptation.135 The Coalition’s “Surge” was a strategic effort 

that attempted to institutionalize field adaptations, increase the means available in theater, 

and to better nest theater ends, ways, and means. The analysis of the insurgent centers 

of gravity before and after “The Surge” demonstrates that there were multiple insurgent 

strategic, operational, and tactical centers of gravity that varied by insurgent political 

purpose, location, approach, and phase; thus, Clausewitz’s centers of gravity concept 

proves useful. 

This manuscript’s literature review examined Clausewitz’s original center of gravity 

concept, interpretations of Clausewitz’s concept, key insurgent theory, and centers of 

gravity in counterinsurgency. The centers of gravity in counterinsurgency subsection also 

explained the vital point that the population is not a center of gravity; rather, the support 

of the population is often a critical requirement/critical vulnerability. The cases studies 

in this manuscript validated the hypothesis that there are multiple centers of gravity in 
22

counterinsurgency that vary by insurgent purpose, location, approach, and phase. However, 

the case studies also outlined the difficulties of affecting insurgent operational and tactical 

centers of gravity if insurgents vary their efforts by local conditions. This challenge 

becomes more acute if there are multiple insurgent groups and other violent actors in the 

same area of operations. Overall, this underscores the difficulty of directly acting against 

an insurgent operational center of gravity and thereby achieving decisive results. 

Centers of gravity continue to be relevant; however, leaders and planners need to place 

them in their proper context for understanding and planning counterinsurgency operations. 

By placing them in context, understanding there are often more than one at any level of war, 

and understanding they vary by insurgent purpose, location, approach, and phase, previous 

material on centers of gravity is useful for counterinsurgency. Center of gravity analysis 

from the proper point of view can support effective counterinsurgency campaign planning 

and help avoid the historical conceptual planning issues, such as improperly focusing on 

just the insurgents or just protecting the population. 

As mentioned previously, the population is not a center of gravity. Rather, operational 

leaders and planners should understand that the support of the population is often a critical 

requirement and a critical vulnerability. As a likely insurgent and friendly critical requirement 

and critical vulnerability, the support of the population is often an objective for insurgents 

and counterinsurgents. This is also true on more than one level of war and for both the 

insurgents and counterinsurgents. Regardless of approach, insurgents are often dependent 

on a portion of the population for resources, such as food and shelter, and for protection, 

often in the form of early warning and concealment. Counterinsurgents, especially foreign 

forces conducting counterinsurgents, are often dependent on a segment of the population 

for human intelligence. Consequently, the support of the population should be a strategic, 

operational, and tactical objective for both insurgents and counterinsurgents.

The approach should fit the environment. In other words, there must be a proper 

balance between countering the actual insurgency and protecting the population; this is 

not binary or an “either/or” question. Instead, it is a question of balancing enemy-centric 

and population-centric activities given the current environment. Proper center of gravity 

analysis will determine an initial balance from which forces can quickly adapt.

Treating the population as a center of gravity will often skew the balance between 

attacking insurgent centers of gravity and efforts to protect and positively influence a critical 

requirement/critical vulnerability. Leaders and planners involved in counterinsurgency 

must look for the actual centers of gravity and properly treat the support of the population 

as an objective. Clausewitz, Strange, and Echevarria’s works would point to the notion that 

centers of gravity will form to attack or defend this objective. While this may seem overly 

nuanced or superfluous, treating the people as the center of gravity will naturally result in 

an approach that overemphasizes protecting the people at the potential price of ceding the 

insurgents the operational initiative. Conversely, not protecting the people leaves a critical 

vulnerability open to insurgent activities and, more importantly, the possible second-order 

effect of center of gravity destruction and the cascading third-order effect of friendly 

collapse. Overall, proper balance between will improve the probability of counterinsurgent 

success.
23

The two case studies demonstrated that counterinsurgency often occurs in a complex 

operational environment. Consequently, countering an insurgency requires understanding 

the operational environment, which the manuscript often refers to as a mosaic. Not only 

should leaders and planners understand that the operational environment is a mosaic— 

insurgents vary their purpose depending on the circumstances, use localized approaches in 

multiple areas of operations, and change over time. Multiple insurgent groups operating with 

or near other violent actors only add to the complexity and difficulty of counterinsurgency 

operations. Nevertheless, this complexity carries both risk and opportunity. Normally 

counterinsurgents are relatively strong compared to insurgents, and insurgents normally 

disperse their forces to avoid destruction. Savvy counterinsurgents can take advantage of 

this to seize the operational initiative, much like the Coalition forces did in Iraq 2007; 

however, this requires a sufficient relative combat power advantage to allow the feasible 

balance between protecting the population and conducting offensive operations directly 

against the insurgency.

United States land forces have continuously conducted counterinsurgency operations 

for nearly a decade. These operations have occurred in several countries, but most 

importantly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Looking to the future, it almost seems inevitable 

that the US will either conduct counterinsurgency operations or at least support another 

host nation government to conduct counterinsurgency. Naturally, the American military 

must be able to quickly and effectively adapt to effectively fight insurgent foes, and it is 

essential that the US military services capture and internalize the hard-won lessons of the 

past decade. While there are many areas to capture these lessons, future joint and service 

doctrine must capture what has been learned with respect to enduring fundamentals and 

successful tactics, techniques, and procedures, thereby continuing the to improve on the 

key doctrinal effort of FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5.

Planning and conducting counterinsurgency campaigns and major operations are 

key aspects of operational art in counterinsurgency operations. More importantly, the US 

military must capture the operational art lessons of the recent wars and internalize these 

lessons. Understanding centers of gravity in counterinsurgency at the operational and 

tactical levels is a vital part of these efforts. Centers of gravity point to several key ideas 

and concepts that aid in conducting counterinsurgency as a whole and at each level of war. 

However, “[i]f everything is a center of gravity, nothing is.”136 The population is clearly 

not a center of gravity. Instead, support of the population is normally essential for US 

involvement in counterinsurgency and important for most insurgent approaches—a critical 

requirement/critical vulnerability for both sides.

This manuscript examined centers of gravity, particularly in counterinsurgency 

operations in the context of multiple insurgent groups operating in one area of operations 

and insurgent groups using localized approaches. The two case studies demonstrated that 

rather than one static, monolithic center of gravity, there are multiple operational and tactical 

centers of gravity in counterinsurgency. Fighting an insurgency or multiple insurgencies 

is fighting a mosaic war, and centers of gravity determine the nature of tactical areas of 

operation—or, to continue the metaphor, each piece of the mosaic—and these centers of 

gravity vary by insurgent political purpose, location, approach, and phase. Quantitative 
24

study and additional qualitative analysis could further underscore that the independent 

variables—purpose, location, approach, and phase—cause multiple operational and tactical 

centers of gravity to shift. More importantly, this additional study may facilitate better 

understanding and practice of operational art in counterinsurgency operations.
25

Notes

1. Donald P Wright and Timothy R. Reese, On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign: The 

United States Army in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM: May 2003-January 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, 

KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2008), 87. Wright and Reese discuss that units arriving during 

the spring and summer of 2003 were confronted by insurgency.

2. For Iraq see Gregory Fontenot, E. J. Degen, and David Tohn, On Point: The United States 

Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom: Through 01 May 2003 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies 

Institute Press, 2004). For Afghanistan see Donald P. Wright et al., A Different Kind of War: The 

United States Army in Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, October 2001-September 2005 (Fort 

Leavenworth, KS: Department of the Army, 2010). While there has not been a book length study 

of Operation Enduring Freedom–Philippines, articles are available. See Eric P. Wendt, “Strategic 

Counterinsurgency Modeling,” Special Warfare 18, no. 2 (September 2005): 2-12. Also see 

Peter Brookes, “Flashpoint: No Bungle in the Jungle: Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines 

is Getting Results,” Armed Forces Journal (September 2007), http://www.armedforcesjournal.

com/2007/09/2926516 (accessed June 4, 2011).

3. Counterinsurgency operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Philippines set in motion 

the rewriting or writing of several doctrinal manuals. New manuals included: FMI 3-07.22, 

Counterinsurgency Operations; FM 3-07.1, Security Force Assistance; FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency; 

FM 3-24.2, Tactics in Counterinsurgency; JP 3-24, Counterinsurgency Operations; and JP 3-26, 

Counterterrorism. Updated manuals included: FM 3-0, Full Spectrum Operations; FM 3-07,

Stability Operations; and FM 5-0, The Operations Process. Manuals that were subsumed by FM 

3-24 and FM 3-24.2 included FM 90-8, Counterguerrilla Operations and FM 7-98, Operations in 

a Low-Intensity Conflict.

4. US Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency (Washington, DC: 

Government Printing Office, 2006.

5. The White House, National Security Strategy (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 

2010), 14; US Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations, Change 1 (Washington, 

DC: Government Printing Office, 2011), 7-5.

6. FM, 1-8; Kyle Teamey and LTC Jonathan Sweet, “Organizing Intelligence for 

Counterinsurgency,” Military Review 86, (September-October 2006): 24; Phillip B. Davidson, 

Secrets of the Vietnam War (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1990), 20. The literature review section 

will examine mosaic warfare in more detail. 

7. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, 1st ed., (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).

8. Clausewitz, 595-596.

9. Clausewitz, 617-618.

10. Clausewitz, 623.

11. Clausewitz, 248, 486-487, 489, 583, 596.

12. Clausewitz, 486.

13. Clausewitz, 596-597.

14. Clausewitz, 596, 633.

15. Clausewitz, 480.

16. Clausewitz, 481.

17. Clausewitz, 481-482.

18. David M. Glantz, ed., The Evolution of Soviet Operational Art, 1927-1991: Volume I, 

Operational Art, 1927-1964, trans. Harold S. Orenstein (Portland, OR: Frank Cass and Co., 1995). 

The second volume covers 1965 to 1991.
26

19. Glanz, xvi..

20. David M. Glantz, Soviet Military Operational Art: In Pursuit of Deep Battle (New York: 

Frank Cass and Company, 1991), 12-13.

21. Glantz, The Evolution of Soviet Operational Art, 1927-1991: Volume I, Operational Art, 

1927-1964, xvi.

22. Shimon Naveh, In Pursuit of Military Excellence: The Evolution of Operational Theory

(New York: Frank Cass Publishers, 1997), 75, 181-183; James J. Schneider, Vulcan’s Anvil: The 

American Civil War and the Foundations of Operational Art (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Command and 

General Staff College, 1992), 1. 

23. James J. Schneider, “The Loose Marble--and the Origins of Operational Art,” Parameters: 

19, (March 1989): 87.

24. Richard Harrison, Architect of Soviet Victory in World War II: The Life and Theories of G. 

S. Isserson (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2010), 109; Naveh, 230.

25. Harrison, 147.

26. Naveh, 9-10.

27. Naveh, 13. 

28. Naveh, 15.

29. Naveh, 19.

30. Naveh, 19.

31. Naveh, 10, 13, 167, 232, 308-309.

32. Joe Strange, Centers of Gravity & Critical Vulnerabilities, Perspectives on Warfighting No. 

4 (Quantico: Marine Corps University, 1997).

33. Strange, 43-48.

34. Strange, 43-51, 74.

35. Milan Vego, Joint Operational Warfare: Theory and Practice (Newport, RI: US Naval War 

College, 2007), VII-13, I-3.

36. Milan, VII-13.

37. Milan, VII-13 to VII-14.

38. Vego, VII-17 to VII-19.

39. Vego.

40. Vego, VII-15, VII-20.

41. Antulio J. Echevarria, Clausewitz and Contemporary War (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 2007), 177.

42. Echevarria, Clausewitz and Contemporary War, 179-180; Antulio J. Echevarria, 

“Clausewitz’s Center of Gravity: Changing our Warfighting Doctrine--Again!” (Monograph, 

Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2002), 5-6. Here Echevarria underscores how 

Clausewitz’s concept was closer to the physics analogy. See also, Antulio J. Echevarria “Clausewitz’s 

Center of Gravity: It’s Not What We Thought!,” Naval War College Review 56, (Winter 2003): 10-

110.

43. Echevarria, Clausewitz and Contemporary War, 179-180; Echevarria, “Clausewitz’s Center 

of Gravity: Changing our Warfighting Doctrine--Again!,” vi, 8; Echevarria “Clausewitz’s Center of 

Gravity: It’s Not What We Thought!,” 112-113.

44. Echevarria, Clausewitz and Contemporary War, 179-180; Echevarria, “Clausewitz’s Center 

of Gravity: Changing our Warfighting Doctrine--Again!,” 8.

45. Echevarria, Clausewitz and Contemporary War, 180-181. The quotation is originally from 

Clausewitz, 485, although Echevarria has added italicized emphasis and included on parenthetical 

referencing the original German word. Echevarria is also using a different translation than the 

Michael Howard and Peter Paret translation. See also, Echevarria, “Clausewitz’s Center of Gravity: 
27

Changing our Warfighting Doctrine--Again!,” vi, 10; Echevarria, “Clausewitz’s Center of Gravity: 

It’s Not What We Thought!,” 112-113.

46. Echevarria, Clausewitz and Contemporary War, 181. As mentioned previously, Vego also 

believes that al Qaeda’s ideology is its strategic center of gravity. See Vego, Joint Operational 

Warfare: Theory and Practice, VII-15.

47. Echevarria, Clausewitz and Contemporary War, 181.

48. Echevarria, Clausewitz and Contemporary War, 181; Echevarria, “Clausewitz’s Center of 

Gravity: Changing our Warfighting Doctrine--Again!,” 11-12, 19; Echevarria, “Clausewitz’s Center 

of Gravity: It’s Not What We Thought!,” 113-114.

49. Echevarria, Clausewitz and Contemporary War, 182; Echevarria, “Clausewitz’s Center of 

Gravity: Changing our Warfighting Doctrine--Again!,” vii; Echevarria, “Clausewitz’s Center of 

Gravity: It’s Not What We Thought!,” 114.

50. Echevarria, “Clausewitz’s Center of Gravity: Changing our Warfighting Doctrine--Again!,” 

5.

51. Echevarria, Clausewitz and Contemporary War, 183; Echevarria, “Clausewitz’s Center of 

Gravity: It’s Not What We Thought!,” 115.

52. Echevarria, Clausewitz and Contemporary War, 184.

53. Echevarria, Clausewitz and Contemporary War, 185; Echevarria, “Clausewitz’s Center of 

Gravity: Changing our Warfighting Doctrine--Again!,” 12-13.

54. John J. McCuen, The Art of Counter-Revolutionary War (1966; repr., St. Petersburg, FL: 

Hailer Publishing, 2005), 27.

55. Thomas A. Marks, Maoist Insurgency since Vietnam (Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1996), 2. 

This subsumes the refinements others have made to Mao’s original theory, such as the Vietnamese 

approach to revolutionary warfare.

56. Mao Tse-tung’s early life included working on a farm, education, and interest in politics, 

including joining the Chinese Communist Party. Mao led an abortive uprising in Hunan, resulting 

in retreat to an isolated mountain village. In 1934, CCP leaders decided to abandon their base due 

to relentless Nationalist pressure, leading to a year-long march where the vast majority of marchers 

perished. After this march, Mao found himself in “swirling levels of...debate and analysis.” To meet 

this internal challenge, he read voraciously and wrote several short works. See Jonathan Spence, 

Mao Zedong (New York: Penguin Group, 1999), 1-5, 42, 73-75, 80-83, 93.

57. Marks, 8.

58. Mao Tse-tung, “Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War,” in Selected Military 

Writings of Mao Tse-tung (Peking, China: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), 96-97.

59. Mao, 94-96, 113-114, 130-131, 144. The fourth characteristic is paraphrased to clarify and 

summarize Mao. Clausewitz’s discussion of modifications in practice, that war is never an isolated 

act, and erosion and protraction on the defense all clearly influence Mao’s thought. Clausewitz, 78, 

93, 479. Clausewitz’s On War permeated communist military and revolutionary thought, including 

his chapter “The People in Arms.” While indirectly influenced by Clausewitz from communist 

military thought, Mao read Clausewitz in 1937. Beatrice Heuser, Reading Clausewitz (London, 

United Kingdom: Pimlico, 2002), 47.

60. Mao, 79.

61. An illustrative list includes Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Peru. Marks, 1, 

19, 83, 174, 253.

62. Mao, 78.

63. Mao, 84, 88, 115; Clausewitz, 479-487.

64. Davidson, Secrets of the Vietnam War, 18; Douglas Pike, PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam

(New York: Presidio Press, 1986), 214; George K. Tanham, Communist Revolutionary Warfare: 
28

From the Vietminh to the Viet Cong, rev. ed. (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006), 2-3. This case study uses 

“Communist Vietnamese” in reference to both the North Vietnamese and communist insurgents in 

South Vietnam.

65. Robert S. McNamara, Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy

(New York: PublicAffairs, 1999), 162.

66. Davidson, Secrets of the Vietnam War, 20.

67. Vo Nguyen Giap, Banner of People’s War, the Party’s Military Line (New York: Praeger 

Publishers, 1970), 23.

68. Phillip B. Davidson, Vietnam at War: The History 1946-1975 (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 1988), 25.

69. Tanham, xi. See also Max G. Manwaring and John T. Fishel, Uncomfortable Wars Revisited

(Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006), 13-14.

70. Vo Nguyen Giap, People’s War, People’s Army: The Viet Cong Insurrection Manual for 

Underdeveloped Countries (1962; repr., Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2001), 29. See 

also Giap, Banner of People’s War, the Party’s Military Line, xvii; Davidson, Vietnam at War, 25; 

Davidson, Secrets of the Vietnam War, 18, 20-21; Robert Thompson, No Exit from Vietnam (New 

York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1969), 48-49; Pike, 226..

71. Davidson, Vietnam at War, 26-27; Davidson, Secrets of the Vietnam War, 19; David M. 

Toczek, The Battle of Ap Bac, Vietnam: They Did Everything But Learn from It (Annapolis, MD: 

Naval Institute Press, 2001), 48-49; Pike, 229.

72. Pike, 212, 215-216; Davidson, Vietnam at War, 26; Giap, Banner of People’s War, the 

Party’s Military Line, xix.

73. Pike, 212, 216, 224, 236-246; Davidson, Vietnam at War, 27-28; Davidson, Secrets of the 

Vietnam War, 19. For more on the oil spot technique, see Robert B. Asprey, War in the Shadows: The 

Guerrilla in History: Two Thousand Years of the Guerrilla at War from Ancient Persia to the Present

(New York: William Morrow and Co, 1994),153-155, 481, 672, and 711. Page 711 draws an analogy 

between Che Guevara’s foco insurreccional with the oil spot.

74. Pike, 227; Davidson, Vietnam at War, 25-26; Ben Connable and Martin C. Libicki, “How 

Insurgencies End” (Monograph, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, 2010), 20. See also US 

Department of Defense, Joint Publication (JP) 3-24, Counterinsurgency Operations (Washington, 

DC: Government Printing Office, 2009), III-3 to III-4; Angel Rabasa et al., Money in the Bank: 

Lessons Learned from Past Counterinsurgency (COIN) Operations (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 

Corporation, 2007), 71-72; Stephen T. Hosmer and Sibylle O. Crane, Counterinsurgency: A 

Symposium, April 16-20, 1962 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1963), 143.

75. Asprey, 1114-1115; Jeremy M. Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent 

Violence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 84.

76. Strange, 43-45.

77. Strange, 74-75.

78. JP 3-24, II-4.

79. Clausewitz, 597.

80. David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (New York: Praeger 

Publishers, 1968), 43-62.

81. James J. Schneider, “The Loose Marble--and the Origins of Operational Art,” 87-90.

82. Harrison, Architect of Soviet Victory in World War II, 109. Isserson conducted this study in 

the 1930s.

83. Hew Strachan, Clausewitz’s On War (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2007), 132.

84. Echevarria, “Clausewitz’s Center of Gravity: Changing our Warfighting Doctrine--Again!,” 

20.
29

85. US Department of Defense, Joint Publication (JP) 3-0, Joint Operations, Change 2 

(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2010), GL-28.

86. Clausewitz, 158.

87. JP 3-24, II-4 to II-7.

88. JP 3-24, II-4.

89. JP 3-24, II-20 to II-21.

90. JP 3-24, II-4, II-13 to II-16.

91. Graham A. Cosmos, MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Escalation, 1962-1967

(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2005), 95-106.

92. Donald J. Mrozek, Air Power & the Ground War in Vietnam (New York: PergamonBrassey’s, 1989), 167.

93. Clausewitz, 92.

94. John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (New York: Oxford 

University Press, 1997), 155-163. See also Maurice Matloff, ed., American Military History

(Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1988), 619; Wray R. Johnson, Vietnam and American 

Doctrine for Small Wars (Bangkok: White Lotus, 2001), 23-24; Andrew J. Birtle, US Army 

Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine: 1942-1976 (Washington, DC: Center 

of Military History, 2006), 223; H. R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert 

McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam (New York: HarperCollins 

Publishers, 1997), 23; Davidson, Secrets of the Vietnam War, 20.

95. Austin Long, “On ‘Other War’: Lessons from Five Decades of RAND Counterinsurgency 

Research” (Monograph, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, 2006), 36; John A. Nagl, Learning to 

Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam (Chicago: University 

of Chicago Press, 2005), 117; Ronald H. Spector, After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam (New 

York: The Free Press, 1993), 90-91; Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History, 2nd ed. (New York: 

Penguin Books, 1991), 474-479.

96. Clausewitz, 585, 605-606.

97. Andrew F. Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University 

Press, 1986), 164.

98. Clayton R. Newell, “On Operational Art,” in On Operational Art, ed. Clayton R. Newell 

and Michael D. Krause (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1994), 12.

99. Davidson, Secrets of the Vietnam War, 19-20; Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An: 

Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Province (Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 

1972), 148-149; Thompson, 33, 50-54; Long, 37; Nagl, 133; Bernard B. Fall, Street Without Joy: 

The French Debacle in Indochina (1961; repr., Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994), 351; 

Pike, 226-227; Tanham, 78-80, 85-93, 102-108.

100. James H. Willbanks, The Tet Offensive: A Concise History (New York: Columbia University 

Press, 2007), 9. For more information on the general uprising aspect of dau tranh, see Toczek, 51-

52; Pike, 218-219; Sam C. Sarkesian, Unconventional Conflicts in a New Security Era (Westport, 

CT: Greenwood Press, 1993), 87.

101. Davidson, Vietnam at War, 468.

102. Davidson, 468-469; Willbanks, The Tet Offensive, 15-22.

103. Willbanks, The Tet Offensive, 10-13, 66-68; Davidson, Vietnam at War, 442-443; Davidson, 

Secrets of the Vietnam War, 98; Spector, 25.

104. The Military History Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the 

People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954-1975, trans. Merle L. Pribbenow (Lawrence, KS: University Press 

of Kansas, 2002), 246.
30

105. Robert Komer, “Robert Komer Recalls Tet’s Impact,” in Major Problems in the History of 

the Vietnam War, ed. Robert J. McMahon (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), 327.

106. Clark M. Clifford, “Clark M. Clifford Remembers His Post-Tet Questions (1968), 1969,” 

in Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War, ed. Robert J. McMahon (New York: Houghton 

Mifflin, 2003), 329. See also Karnow, 538-565.

107. Am C. Sarkesian, America’s Forgotten Wars: The Counterrevolutionary Past and the 

Lessons for the Future (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984), 207; Lewis Sorely, ed. Vietnam 

Chronicles: The Abrams Tapes 1968-1972 (Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2004), xviii; 

Spector, 299, 311-316; Karnow, 594, 578-581.

108. Sorely, 19-20; Thompson, 145-161. The one war concept essentially viewed the Vietnam 

War as one effort, not a conventional effort and a pacification effort conducted separately. Robert 

W. Komer, Organization and Management of the ‘New Model’ Pacification Program-1966-1969

(Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1970), 257; Robert W. Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its 

Thing: Institutional Constraints on US-GVN Performance in Vietnam (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 

Corporation, 1972), 104-105; William Colby, Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America’s 

Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam (New York: Contemporary Books, 1989), 271-272. For more 

information on Operation Phoenix, see Dale Andrade, Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and 

the Vietnam War (Lexington, KY: Lexington Books, 1990), 71-98; Mark Moyar, Phoenix and 

the Birds of Prey: Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism in Vietnam, 2nd ed. (Omaha, NE: 

University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 242-244; Thomas L. Ahern, Vietnam Declassified: The CIA 

and Counterinsurgency (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2010), 318-320; Colby, 

331-334; Karnow, 617-618.

109. Pike, 227-229; Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and American in 

Vietnam (New York: Random House, 1988), 732-733; Richard A. Hunt, Pacification: The American 

Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), 218; James H. 

Willbanks, Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War (Lawrence, 

KS: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 67.

110. Willbanks, Abandoning Vietnam, 122-155; Karnow, 654-658, 673-674.

111. Willbanks, Abandoning Vietnam, 196-198, 256-258; Karnow, 676-684.

112. Bruce R. Pirnie and Edward O’Connell, Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006) (Santa 

Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2008), 9.

113. Pirnie and O’Connell, 7.

114. Steven Metz, Iraq & The Evolution of American Strategy (Washington, DC: Potomac 

Books, Inc., 2008), 121; Steven Metz, “Decisionmaking in Operation Iraqi Freedom: Removing 

Saddam Hussein by Force” (Monograph, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2010), 

47.

115. Wright and Reese, 27-29, 41-42.

116. Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 3-07, Stability Operations (Washington, DC: 

Government Printing Office, 2008), 5-2.

117. Dale R. Herspring, Rumsfeld’s Wars: The Arrogance of Power (Lawrence, KS: University 

Press of Kansas, 2008), 125-127.

118. Metz, Iraq & The Evolution of American Strategy, 132-134, 152-153; Michael R. Gordon 

and General Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq

(New York: Pantheon Books, 2006), 472; Wright and Reese, 149-153.

119. James Stephenson, Losing the Golden Hour: An Insider’s View of Iraq’s Reconstruction

(Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2007), 36,155.

120. Steven Metz, “Decisionmaking in Operation Iraqi Freedom: The Strategic Shift of 2007” 

(Monograph, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2010), 1.
31

121. David C. Gompert and John Gordon IV, “War by Other Means: Building Complete and 

Balanced Capabilities for Counterinsurgency” (Monograph, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, 

2008), 37-40. For additional information on proto-insurgencies, see Daniel Byman, Understanding 

Proto-Insurgencies (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2007), 1-6.

122. US Department of Defense, JP 3-24, II-14; US Department of the Army, Field Manual 

(FM) 7-98, Operations in a Low-intensity Conflict (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 

1992), 2-13 to 2-17.

123. Gordon and Trainor, 432-433.

124. Gordon and Trainor, 434.

125. Wright and Reese, 87, 105-110. For more information on the emergent Iraqi insurgent 

groups, see Ahmed S. Hashim, Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq (Ithaca: Cornell 

University Press, 2006), 17-124, 347-348; Thomas R. Mockaitis, Iraq and the Challenge of 

Counterinsurgency (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008), 103-107; Thomas R. Mockaitis, The Iraq War: 

Learning from the Past, Adapting to the Present, and Planning for the Future (Carlisle: US Army 

War College, 2007), 25-31; Bing West, The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq

(New York: Random House, 2008), 9-13, 18-20, 28-36; Carter Malkasian, “Counterinsurgency in 

Iraq: May 2003-January 2007,” in Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare, ed. Daniel Marston and 

Carter Malkasian (New York: Osprey Publishing, 2008), 241-242; Metz, Iraq & The Evolution of 

American Strategy, 147-148, 151-152; Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure 

in Iraq (New York: The Penguin Press, 2006), 190-191, 197, 215-216; Peter R. Mansoor, Baghdad 

at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s War in Iraq (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 28. 

126. Wright and Reese, 113, 199, 121-123, 127-129, 322-325; Gordon and Trainor, 447-448; 

Malkasian, 243-244; Ricks, 228-234.

127. Mockaitis, The Iraq War: Learning from the Past, Adapting to the Present, and Planning 

for the Future, 26.

128. Quotations are used here as many authors argue convincingly that “The Surge” did not 

represent a real shift in US strategy for Iraq. See Metz, Iraq & The Evolution of American Strategy, 

184.

129. Malkasian, 257-259; Metz, Iraq & The Evolution of American Strategy, 173-174; David 

Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (New York: 

Oxford University Press, 2009), 128-130. The nonmilitary aspects of “The Surge” are beyond the 

scope of this monograph.

130. Dale Andrade, Surging South of Baghdad: The 3d Infantry Division and Task Force 

Marne in Iraq, 2007-2008 (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 2010), 8, 16-22, 101-102; 

Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One, 119-122, 128-

129, 135-141; Pirnie and O’Connell, 15-19; Metz, “Decisionmaking in Operation Iraqi Freedom: 

The Strategic Shift of 2007,” 4-5; Linda Robinson, Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus 

and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq (New York: PublicAffairs, 2008), 25-45, 88-89; Malkasian, 

258; West, 228-229.

131. Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla, 144-145; West, 273-274.

132. Andrade, Surging South of Baghdad, 209; West, 250. 

133. Malkasian, 255-256; Metz, Iraq & The Evolution of American Strategy, 186-190; 

Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla, 141-143; Andrade, Surging South of Baghdad, 199-208; West, 

27, 250-251. 

134. Malkasian.

135. Andrade, Surging South of Baghdad, 211; West, 222-223, 248-251. 

136. Echevarria, Clausewitz and Contemporary War, 185.

33

Chapter 2 

Center of Gravity: A Quest for Certainty or Tilting at Windmills? 

by Kurt P. VanderSteen

Introduction

Don Quixote, the aging man of La Mancha, was filled with bookish enthusiasm for a 

model of chivalry that did not exist from history, nor was present in the everyday lives of his 

fellow Spaniards. Nonetheless, he mounted his old horse, Rocinante, and with his worldly 

companion, Sancho, began his quest to impose a model of chivalric code on everyone 

he met. He soon learned that his model of chivalry did not accord with the real world, 

and he found himself in multiple misadventures that eventually led to disillusionment and 

renunciation of what he once saw to be true. 

Is the military tilting at windmills by imagining centers of gravity with similar 

preconceptions that clash with reality? Since its doctrinal inception, center of gravity 

became a lightning rod for how we conceptualize doctrinal terms that have ambiguous 

meaning and doubtful application. Many of the early arguments focused on definition and 

process that soon became a cornerstone for methods and techniques, giving rise to a sense 

of certainty from the results of analysis. Over time, arguments began to look like “youhave-your-peanut-butter-in-my-chocolate” in that they failed to see the unifying aspect of 

centers of gravity in their relationship to other elements of war. 

There are many reasons why these arguments emerged, but most revolve around 

metaphysical ideas of how we come to know what is true, how we reason about what is 

true, and what we see as being real, or merely a shadow on the wall of a cave. If indeed 

centers of gravity are critical to war plans, then it is an important concept to study. But we 

should have no illusions—like gravity, our definitions can only be rough outlines for how 

we see forces operating in nature. We cannot see a center of gravity as a specific, physical 

property; rather, it’s an abstract concept that enables us to think about what is real. Centers 

of gravity help us to understand what governs the underlying processes in war.

Thinking about centers of gravity is like trying to visualize how individual pieces fit 

as part of a 100,000 piece puzzle. We have a picture on the box to guide us, but it’s hard to 

start with one piece when we don’t know how the other pieces fit in. Piece by piece, images 

begin to emerge, but we have a long way to go before completion. Throughout, we always 

keep the picture on the box in mind, but we look to the individual pieces to see how they fit 

with the whole. That is the quest for this monograph: to understand why centers of gravity 

are difficult to grasp as a concept based on its pieces, and to see how centers of gravity fit 

with the whole of war. 

Invitation to Conceptual Controversy

The art of war deals with living and with moral forces. Consequently, it cannot attain the 

absolute, or certainty; it must always leave a margin for uncertainty, in the greatest things 

as much as in the smallest.1

—Carl Von Clausewitz
34

It’s understandable why center of gravity as a usable concept in operational art 

continues to be a source of controversy in the military community. Clausewitz was not 

deeply studied by the American military community prior to his inclusion in doctrine, 

perhaps because his translated writings were considered dense and uninspiring, or perhaps 

because other thinkers held sway over the body of knowledge practitioners referred to in 

trying to understand war.2

 Once center of gravity was introduced to American doctrine, 

seemingly endless debates about its definition, methodology, and practical uses continues 

to appear in books, journals, and especially in the staff and war colleges where it is taught. 

Conceptual confusion can also be attributed to translations from the original German, 

Clausewitz’s use of dialectical reasoning, and arguments over the comprehensive nature of 

On War. Despite those shortcomings, military thinkers increasingly turned to Clausewitz 

and his ideas about the nature of war. Following strategic defeat in Vietnam and challenges 

of facing down Soviet power in Western Europe, doctrinal writers looked to a “curious 

mixture of Clausewitz and Jomini” for explanatory power and sparked renewed interest in 

operational art and the operational level of war.3

US Army doctrine had its origin in regulations concerning unit drill and was mostly 

concerned with the tactical level of war, but in 1986 the Army’s capstone doctrinal manual 

for warfighting, Field Manual 100-5 Operations, defined centers of gravity for the first time, 

including a greatly expanded theoretical treatment of operational art based upon “AirLand 

Battle” development first seen in the 1982 manual.4

 The introduction of operational art 

concepts—including center of gravity—invited controversy and criticism from the start. 

A Military Review article from 1986 anticipated problems with the soon-to-be-released 

manual intended to be read as a textbook, and an Army expecting to use the operational art 

concepts prescriptively.5

Military thinkers took to the pen to argue their points of view, and soon a large body 

of knowledge emerged that unknowingly contributed to further doctrinal confusion. There 

was recognition that centers of gravity were important to operational art, but writers 

diverged on several key points of contention. Inevitably, each military service and a 

multitude of theorists proposed their own definitions and methodologies for determining 

the “elusive” concept. Joint doctrine had a definition that reflected service disagreements 

and used language meant to appease all parties.6 Rather than resolve the issue, it provided an 

additional source of disagreement, but over time critics of the joint definition paradoxically 

agreed on one thing: the joint definitions were flawed.Typical of many articles were those 

that questioned the relevance of the concept to the modern conduct of war. One writer came 

to grips with the ambiguous nature of centers of gravity by asking the question: Center of 

gravity or center of confusion?7

Since its doctrinal inception, the concept has undergone numerous changes in definition, 

description, and prescriptive uses. Although originally derived from On War, center of 

gravity was seen as a tactical and operational tool to attain campaign objectives or to strike 

at enemy weaknesses rather than as a theoretical concept nested in an overall understanding 

of the nature of war as Clausewitz originally intended. Theorists took one concept out 

of the whole of Clausewitz’s thinking in an attempt to extract concrete usefulness from 

abstraction. In doing so, how we think about center of gravity devolved from what should 
35

be a relational and holistic understanding to thinking about its parts, and from its parts to 

thinking in terms of a methodology, and from methodology to technique.

The first use of center of gravity doesn’t appear in On War until Book 6, which is a 

discussion of defense, and specifically in chapter 27, “Defense of a Theater of Operations.” 

Clausewitz began by describing factors and characteristics of the defense of a theater of 

operations with a sequence of actions that contribute to victory. This sequence of actions 

includes “blows” against concentrated enemy forces that:

leads us to an analogy that will illustrate it more clearly—that is, the nature 

and effect of a center of gravity. A center of gravity is always found where 

the mass is concentrated most densely. It presents the most effective target 

for a blow; furthermore, the heaviest blow is that struck by the center of 

gravity. The same holds true in war. The fighting forces of each belligerent—whether a single state or an alliance of states—have a certain unity 

and therefore some cohesion. Where there is cohesion, the analogy of the 

center of gravity can be applied.8

Although he had more to say about centers of gravity in Book 6, Clausewitz concludes 

his thoughts in On War’s final book, in chapters 4 and 9. Discussing the relationship of 

the defeat of the enemy to the military objective in chapter 4, Clausewitz provided a basis 

for action: “One must keep the dominant characteristics of both belligerents in mind. 

Out of these characteristics, a certain center of gravity develops, the hub of all power and 

movement, on which everything depends. That is the point against which all our energies 

should be directed.”9

 This description of a “hub of all power and movement” is cited most 

often in the literature about the concept, but it is an analogy created by Paret and Howard. 

The literal translation is a “center of power and movement.”10 Although Paret and Howard 

provide the reader with a superior visual analogy, they also introduce another reason for 

subsequent misunderstandings. From this definition, Clausewitz identifies likely centers 

of gravity that are conditional based on certain characteristics: “In countries subject to 

domestic strife, the center of gravity is generally the capital. In small countries that rely on 

large ones, it is usually the army of their protector...alliances...community of interest...

in popular uprisings...personalities of the leaders and public opinion.”11 After outlining 

priorities of effort against the army, capital, and principal ally, he provides a caveat about 

the nature of conflict related to assumptions about finding a single center of gravity: if 

there is more than one center of gravity, it’s likely that there are two wars to consider.12 In 

his final chapter (according to his text, Clausewitz intended to write a chapter on “supreme 

command” following chapter 9), he describes centers of gravity related to war planning 

with respect to a particular description for overthrowing an enemy:

The first principle is that the ultimate substances of enemy strength must 

be traced back to the fewest possible sources, and ideally to one alone....

In short, the first principle is: act with utmost concentration....From this 

it follows that the concept of separate and connected enemy power runs 

through every level of operations, and thus the effect that events in a given 

theater will have elsewhere can only by judged in each particular case. 
36

Only then can it be seen how far the enemy’s various centers of gravity 

can be reduced to one. The principle of aiming everything at the enemy’s 

center of gravity admits only one exception—that is, when secondary operations look exceptionally rewarding. But...only decisive superiority can 

justify diverting strength without risking too much in the principal theater....The first task, then, in planning for war is to identify the enemy’s 

centers of gravity, and if possible trace them back to a single one.13

Most of the criticisms about centers of gravity begin with one of the descriptions 

listed above. Some critics relate the concept to other ideas in On War, but many writers 

are content to begin their analysis on this basis. A review of the literature reveals several 

common themes related to critiques of Clausewitz. Some struggle with his use of dialectic 

thinking or the fact that On War is generally considered incomplete. Others take issue 

with Clausewitz’s conflicting definitions, and the fact that it does not provide an effective 

method for determining centers of gravity, that he was a linear, nineteenth-century thinker 

using outdated mechanistic explanations, and that he only thought in terms of state-onstate warfare that is irrelevant to twenty-first-century concerns.14 There are some writers 

who reject his conception altogether and prefer to start with their own ideas and definitions 

about centers of gravity.15

After On War was published in 1832, there were several translations into English 

that formed the basis for many of the disagreements about the definition of center of 

gravity. The current translation by Peter Paret and Michael Howard is considered to be 

the best translation to date, but it also contributes to hermeneutic confusion. Although 

the Paret and Howard translation recognized Clausewitz’s own thoughts about writing 

consistency, which emphasized “clarity of expression” rather than his confining himself 

to strict definitions of terms, they nonetheless standardized the center of gravity concept 

from different terms found in the text.16 Although their translation likely provides a more 

accurate understanding of Clausewitz’s thought and intent, their standardization of center 

of gravity and its acceptance as a standard of reference frustrates attempts at doctrinal 

application. 

In Book 6, Clausewitz uses centra gravitates and schwerpunkt to describe essentially 

the same concept. The first term, translated from Latin as “center of gravity,” is clearly 

used as an analogue from Newtonian science. Schwerpunkt has several related meanings. 

A literal interpretation is “heavy point.” It can also mean “focal point,” “highlight,” 

“emphasis,” “heavy emphasis,” “grave emphasis,” or even “center of gravity.”17 The 

key determination for which term applies is context, but because Clausewitz was more 

concerned with understanding the dynamics of war rather than providing precise definitions 

more applicable to doctrinal uses, it becomes easier to understand modern ambivalence 

and rejection of center of gravity as a conceptual tool. Newton also declined to be precise 

about definitions of gravity. He explained in Principia Mathematica that, although he could 

observe its effects, he did not have the conceptual tools at the time to be exact about its 

nature.18 The center of gravity literature is replete with discussions about the misuse of 

schwerpunkt, with some key arguments hinging on the proper use of the term.19
37

Historians and other biographers of Clausewitz’s life and writings investigated On 

War’s completeness or lack thereof. Clausewitz began his inquiry into the nature of war 

early in his life, and he spent the remainder of it adding and revising his thoughts. Because 

Clausewitz claimed that he was generally satisfied with Book 1, chapter 1, but not with the 

remainder of his manuscript, many writers adduced that an understanding of his concepts 

introduced elsewhere in the manuscript are subject to skepticism about the completeness 

of his thoughts. There can never be complete certainty in this line of inquiry because his 

archived material was destroyed near the end of World War II.20 Nonetheless, a more recent 

biography of Clausewitz and On War written by historian Hew Strachan makes the case 

that not only did Clausewitz revise some of his key concepts based on later understandings 

of the nature of war, but he also intended to conduct a complete rewrite of the majority of 

his manuscript.21 It is clear from letters he wrote in 1827 and what is presumed to be 1830, 

shortly before his death, that Clausewitz was generally unhappy with the overall thrust of 

his arguments.22 The impetus for rewriting his theories on war was based on his insight 

later in life about the overarching political nature of warfare, thus elevating the discussion 

above merely military considerations into the sociopolitical realm of discussion.23 Strachan 

highlights an important point about understanding Clausewitz: if we limit ourselves to 

specific descriptions in On War, we exclude other considerations within the comprehensive 

nature of Clausewitz’s thought that can only be detrimental to making conclusions about 

some aspect of his thinking.

Clausewitz did not provide a prescriptive center of gravity methodology that campaign 

planners could reference. Soon after its introduction to doctrine, center of gravity became 

part of the planning process. Timothy Keppler, as a member of a US Army War College 

project that attempted to “operationalize” the concept in the early 1990s, observed that 

discussions of center of gravity’s usefulness to planning placed participants in two camps: 

champions of a logical approach, and those who thought that discerning centers of gravity 

could be reflected only in the genius of the operational art practitioner.24 He further quotes 

two officers who thought that a methodology was needed: 

Students and practitioners of operational art often find themselves guided 

by little more than intuition. While intuition certainly has its place, a modicum of logic should guide our thinking about the important relationships 

between the fundamental concepts of operational art and the application of 

the military element of power for strategic purposes.25

Keppler is indicative of a trend toward seeking ways to place the concept in the context 

of planning. A problem arises when implicit understandings of centers of gravity are at 

odds with the explicit process for discovering them. As an illustration of an attempt to 

merge the center of gravity concept with planning, editor Eliot Cohen, writing in the Gulf 

War Air Power Survey series, sought to understand how operational concepts that included 

center of gravity were integrated into the planning for Operation Desert Storm. He noted 

from the beginning that there were several disagreements concerning the identification of 

centers of gravity.26 Colonel John Warden, the air operations planner, had his own ideas 

about centers of gravity based on his five-ring model, with strategic leaders occupying 
38

the “bullseye” of the model. Subsequently, target sets evolved from an analysis of several 

centers of gravity within categories, ranging from leadership through key production or 

system essentials, infrastructure, population, and fielded forces.27 These general categories 

are universal sets of targets for any conflict and form the conceptual basis for a drive toward 

certainty in planning. This makes his model attractive for planners who want to get beyond 

arguments over centers of gravity and continue with operational planning.

Players in an Ongoing Debate

Over time, debates within the military began to coalesce after Dr. Joe Strange and 

the USMC War College published Centers of Gravity & Critical Vulnerabilities. Later, 

Strange and Colonel Richard Iron published articles that criticized the joint doctrinal 

definition at the time, and they also provided a simplified methodology for determining and 

analyzing centers of gravity that became very influential throughout the military. Reactions 

to his publications took on two strains: those who saw his methodology as a way out of 

doctrinal incoherency, and those who saw his thinking as conceptually flawed from the 

start. Strange is joined by Dale Eikmeier and Jack Kem, both currently instructors at the 

US Army Command and General Staff College, in their agreement that centers of gravity 

are analyzed by determining their critical capabilities, critical requirements, and critical 

vulnerabilities. Eikmeier and Kem have also influenced a generation of officers in the Army 

and throughout the joint community with their versions of Strange. The negative reaction to 

Strange is exemplified by Dr. Antulio Echevarria, who is currently the director of research 

for the Strategic Studies Institute and the US Army War College. Eikmeier and Echevarria 

have written extensively on the subject over the course of more than a decade, and they 

are both adamant about their particular understandings of centers of gravity. They tend 

to represent the poles of the same argument, a sort of “unity of opposites,” which will be 

discussed further in the monograph.

Strange does not reject Clausewitz; in fact, he defends him against well-known 

critics John Keegan and Martin van Creveld.28 Strange sees himself a defender of a body 

of knowledge that should not be removed from military canon but modified to suit the 

times. The problem he originally identified following his reading of the joint definition 

in Perspectives on Warfighting, and one that he emphasizes in an article cowritten with 

Colonel Iron in “What Clausewitz (Really) Meant by Center of Gravity,” is that “many 

hours are thereby wasted in fruitless discussion and argument; hours that could be better 

spent on planning....It’s all supposed to be so much simpler than this.”29 This expression 

is common to many planners and students of warfare. They are frustrated with constant 

bickering over a concept they see having little overall utility to planning. The attraction of 

the Strange approach is found in the ease with which planners can reduce complexity to 

a simple methodology of finding either moral or physical sources of strength in order to 

“solve” problems in planning. Look for the sources and find the greatest source that is a 

“dynamic and active agent.”30

Strange takes his understanding of center of gravity from On War in Book 6 and 

the “clash of armies,” thereby rejecting subsequent descriptions found in Book 8.31 He 

analyzed all relevant center of gravity passages from On War, provided an analysis for 

each part, and described these as “what Clausewitz really meant,” with the further goal 
39

of ensuring that center of gravity had only one meaning that applied to all levels of war.32

His solution was to redefine center of gravity in light of its critical capabilities, critical 

requirements, and critical vulnerabilities (CG-CC-CR-CV).33 The Strange definition for 

centers of gravity is “primary sources of moral or physical strength, power and resistance.” 

Critical Capabilities are “primary abilities...in the context of a given scenario, situations, 

or mission.” Critical Requirements are “essential conditions, resources and means for a CC 

to be fully operative,” and Critical Vulnerabilities are “critical requirements or components 

thereof which are deficient or vulnerable.”34

Strange’s method of analysis begins once a moral or physical center of gravity is 

identified. He does not propose a method to logically infer centers of gravity from their 

critical capabilities, although it is implicit in his proposition that physical centers of gravity 

are composed of certain capabilities that have an ability to do something, which he explained 

in his refined definition: “They are dynamic and powerful physical and moral agents of 

action or influence with certain qualities and capabilities that derive their benefit from a 

given location or terrain.”35 This became the standard of reference for subsequent theory 

and doctrine. His explanatory power is evident, especially with his detailed descriptions for 

each part of a center of gravity related to On War and historic case studies at the operational 

level. Strange based his descriptions on a comprehensive reading of On War. He also 

identifies the importance of placing centers of gravity within an adversarial conception, 

and the fact that centers of gravity can only be found as a result of a “clash of wills.” But 

he caveats its strategic relevance by insisting that centers of gravity are equal regardless of 

the level of war, and his method of analysis begins with first identifying centers of gravity 

rather than understanding the context of how centers of gravity may emerge in war, which 

is a critical a priori requirement.

His dualism of moral and physical centers of gravity separates an irreducible property 

of war into two spheres; instead of looking for one, we have to search within two realms: 

the tangible and the intangible. Is there any case in which both are instantiated into one 

rather than two? Might we say that Jerusalem is a center of gravity that holds both moral 

and physical characteristics for Israelis and Palestinians? It is moral in that Jerusalem is a 

cultural-religious symbol as a seat of power, and physical in its existence as a capital city. 

Clausewitz warned us that “military activity is never directed against material force alone; 

it is always aimed simultaneously at the moral forces which give it life, and the two cannot 

be separated.”36 The problem with a dualistic viewpoint is that there can be no reconciliation 

between the two poles; they are metaphysical creations that do not substantiate in the real 

world, where moral and physical properties both reside in one being, such as the moral 

characteristics of key leaders and the will of armies to fight. These have real effects and are 

not mere abstractions.

His perspective was likely tempered by the need to explain complex theoretical 

concepts to future practitioners at Marine Corps University, a dilemma all war and staff 

college instructors have to address. Students often demand clear concepts that have direct 

application to problems they face in the operational environment. They are not interested 

in theory that is contradictory and ambiguous and provides no clear answer. The Strange 

method solves their problem at the operational level, but his reductionist and dualistic 
40

construct largely fails to provide convincing evidence for its use at the strategic level of 

war. Skepticism about the relevance of center of gravity in campaign planning was largely 

abolished by Strange for most students of war, especially related to its targeting potential, 

but doubts about it properly reflecting Clausewitz’s conceptual thinking persists. 

Dale Eikmeier continues to be a consistent contributor to center of gravity theory since 

his 1999 master’s thesis, “The Center of Gravity Debate Resolved.”37 Eikmeier teaches at 

the Army’s Command and General Staff College. His theory enjoys wide influence, and 

his method-turned-technique is popular with students. He also shares Strange’s quest for 

certainty and the need to get on with planning as evident in the title to his monograph. He 

solved the theoretical dilemma; the debate must end. 

Eikmeier’s thinking about centers of gravity has changed over the years, but his central 

conceptualization remains. He accepts the Strange definitions but adds by incorporating 

the ends-ways-means construct derived from the strategically relevant Lykke model. He 

also changes the order for considering centers of gravity from CG-CC-CR-CV to CC-CGCR-CV. This reflects the importance he places on indentifying centers of gravity from a 

menu of critical capabilities, thus rejecting moral centers of gravity—all are physical.38

The body of his writings has similar themes in that he finds center of gravity to be a useful 

construct but rejects any conception based on Clausewitz’s thinking. There is no discussion 

about the relational aspect of centers of gravity that Strange acknowledged and also found 

in Clausewitz’s theory. He considered Clausewitz a “linear” thinker and was terse in his 

assessment that Clausewitz is a hindrance to conceptual understanding and should be 

ignored—“forget Clausewitz.”39

Eikmeier’s 2004 article identified two reasons why centers of gravity were difficult 

to understand. The first reason was that the joint community failed to agree on a common 

definition and allowed conflicting definitions to take root. The second reason was that 

joint doctrine did not provide a framework to “make the theory useful.”40 Eikmeier agrees 

with Strange that centers of gravity determination should be easy for the aspiring joint 

planner. He thought that centers of gravity are sources of power, at least in 2004; by 2010 

he thought that “sources of power” lacked clarity.41 His 2004 concept coincides somewhat 

with current joint doctrine in that a center of gravity is a source of power: “a source of 

power that provides moral or physical strength, freedom of action, or will to act.”42 But his 

current preferred definition is: “The center of gravity is the primary entity that possesses 

the capability to achieve the objective.”43

At the strategic level, Eikmeier recognizes only two instruments that have the power 

to act, which are military and economic power. Will of the people and other instruments 

of power, including diplomatic and informational, are not proper sources for centers of 

gravity. He more narrowly defines the strategic center of gravity in conventional war as 

being within the economic or industrial capability of a nation (which represented Warden’s 

second ring).44 In the same article, he uses the analogy of a train system to explain how the 

does/uses criteria work in validating a chosen center of gravity.45 Since only the locomotive 

is a “doer,” then the remaining parts of the system are requirements. It is interesting that 

a systems theorist would use an analogy derived from what is essentially a linear, closed 

system to describe an aspect of what is inherently an open system, but it serves the purpose 
41

of reminding us that his conceptualization is focused on a part of a system rather than a 

holistic framework. 

Perhaps he recognized deficiencies in his reasoning. For his last two articles from 

2010, he included a strategic framework for identifying centers of gravity. Rather than 

starting with critical capabilities as he originally proposed in 2004, his first step now is to 

identify the goal (ends), the ways (critical capabilities), and then list the means (critical 

requirements). From the means that have “the inherent ability (critical capability) to 

execute the chosen way,” you will derive the center of gravity, and everything else is just 

a requirement.46 He considers this formula as the most efficient and effective method for 

determining a center of gravity. Certainty is now more guaranteed with this method and 

a validation test. He concludes with an appeal to adopt Dr. Strange’s definition and drop 

nodal analysis, replacing it with his ends-ways-means framework of center of gravity 

analysis for a more “logical” outcome.47

Eikmeier shares with Strange the notion that if the definition is fixed, problems of 

understanding centers of gravity will go away. Although he appreciates systems theory 

and a holistic approach to centers of gravity, he advocates a reductionist approach: “So 

as with attacking a complex problem, we can break strategic centers of gravity down into 

more manageable pieces. Campaigns focus on these pieces, which are operational centers 

of gravity.”48

Dr. Jack Kem, also an instructor at the Army’s Command and General Staff College, 

has similar points of understanding shared by Strange and Eikmeier, and he has similar 

influence in the promulgation of technique for discerning centers of gravity. His thoughts on 

the subject are in his Campaign Planning: Tools of the Trade,49 another popular handbook 

often referenced by students and others. His handbook is a logical approach to campaign 

planning that begins with his ideas of critical thinking and creative thinking, establishes the 

importance of ends-ways-means for solution framing, and begins a discussion about centers 

of gravity before tackling concept of operations development that incorporates elements 

of operational art and targeting from center of gravity analysis.50 His intent is not to spend 

much time on theory but to provide techniques that may be helpful for streamlining the 

planning process and a method that planners can use as a starting point for developing the 

“science of war.”51 

Kem thinks about centers of gravity from a planning perspective: where is the real 

power, and where can I strike a blow that will cause the enemy to culminate or knock him 

out? He sees the will of the population of a country as the true strategic center of gravity or 

perhaps a key leader, thereby accepting examples from Strange.52 Kem describes various 

strategic and operational centers of gravity that were likely in Operation Iraqi Freedom, 

with the observation that at the operational level, it’s typically the military that is the center 

of gravity, which is consonant with Clausewitz’s writings.53 Where he differs from both 

Strange and Eikmeier is the recognition that there is little chance of consensus among 

planners as to what a center of gravity is, but that it is still useful for understanding the 

problem, regardless of what level it’s being planned against. His bottom line is that a center 

of gravity “at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels is critical for linking plans to the 

end state.”54
42

Now students have models and examples from which they can choose that may be the 

“best fit” for their particular circumstances. His thoughts on method again have us focusing 

on some capability that can be targeted. The upshot of looking to Kem for center of gravity 

guidance places us back to the same muddle that Eikmeier was trying to solve with his 

method for center of gravity certainty. His pastiche of techniques and attempts to merge 

them into a coherent body of praxis in search of solutions gets us answers but at the expense 

of understanding. 

There are several other writers in the same vein. A consistent theme is the drive toward 

technique that will remove all confusion. Typical among other writers is the search for a 

“model” that planners can use. One writer saw the need for an “American Theory of War” 

that would provide the locus of a model for combining all joint forces under a theory 

that leads to operational planning success. Rather than a theory of war, his is a theory 

of warfare at the operational level. By overthrowing Clausewitz and his comprehensive, 

strategic understanding of war, we are left with buzzwords such as “strategic geometry” 

that misplaces the strategic value of center of gravity with a purely operational concept that 

joint commanders can use.55 The reductio ad absurdum in the search for a methodology to 

replace thinking about centers of gravity can now be found in a computer program.56

A curious coincidence among these theorists also becomes apparent when you peer 

into their theories: none of them really seems to care about the political nature of war that 

Clausewitz saw as being central to any theory of war and its understanding. Their focus 

remains at the operational level, despite an occasional tip and nod toward strategic issues. 

And because they cause planners to concentrate on capabilities and requirements from 

one perspective, their views are one-sided and ultimately lack the incorporation of the 

reciprocal nature of war that is at the heart of any political understanding of war. Students 

of these techniques use centers of gravity as a “MacGuffin” to drive the plot because they 

are uncomfortable with ambiguity that is the essence of war and desire quick answers to 

continue planning. Like a Hitchcock movie, it drives the first act, but by the end of the 

story, it remains forgotten in the entire scheme of the war plan. The fog of war remains, 

despite all attempts to lift it. 

Napoleon once said that the moral is to the material as three is to one.57 Although 

mathematical certainty is impossible when calculating moral characteristics, it is clear from 

his conception that any theory of war must give greater weight to human aspects of warfare, 

including passion and irrational behavior, chance and probabilities, operational friction and 

rational miscalculation, and intuitive genius and the iron will of the commander. Instead we 

have methods and techniques that inevitably lead to some physical or material construct, 

such as found in an army, a navy, an air force, or some other physical thing thereof. This 

drive toward reification in their theories causes us to think of Clausewitz’s original center 

of gravity conception as a thing rather than a theoretical visualization of a particular 

confluence of human energy, force, and will as part of a larger strategic framework of 

political understanding about conflict. You cannot separate the moral from the physical. 

The Japanese calculated that a knockout blow against the US Pacific Fleet in 1941 would 

influence the strategic calculation of the United States to withdraw in the region. This 

was a purely military consideration without understanding the strategic implications that 
43

would eventually manifest itself in the American trinity—disunited before the attack—

now united in purpose. Paret identified in The Cognitive Challenge of War: Prussia 1806

that Clausewitz was “writing to understand war, not to establish a doctrine for engaging 

it.”58As we look to their methods for a sense of understanding about where centers of 

gravity fit into the entire phenomenon of war, we start with the Cheshire Cat but end up 

with only the grin remaining.

Antulio J. Echevarria’s body of scholarship on Clausewitz is extensive. Echevarria 

has authored several journal articles and books that explore strategic subjects, with many 

of his themes returning to Clausewitz as his muse. He can be properly called a Clausewitz 

scholar. Like Strange, Echevarria identified flaws in doctrine and thinks we should return to 

Clausewitz for our understanding about centers of gravity. But he departs from Strange and 

his disciples on fundamental issues that make his view on center of gravity to be greatly at 

odds in construction and uses. 

Whereas Strange and Eikmeier sought to create new meaning for center of gravity, 

Echevarria returned to Clausewitz to bring original meaning back into the discussion. 

He analyzed the problems of translation, debunked the capabilities-based approach or 

references to sources of strength or power, and gave us a more comprehensive appreciation 

for all of Clausewitz’s thinking.59 

Starting with Clausewitz’s original use of schwerpunkt in relation to the mechanical 

science analogy of center of gravity, Echevarria describes the strength of the metaphor 

in terms of effects of striking a blow against a concentrated mass. Theoretically, striking 

a blow at the center will cause the entire mass to shift or lose balance. This is where the 

physical science analogy is most appropriate. It’s not meant in the literal sense but rather 

as a metaphor to describe an effect theoretically. But, as Echevarria observes, the thrust of 

previous doctrine was to think of it in a literal sense.60

Because we are looking for things we can call a center of gravity, we literally lose sight 

of their purpose: to provide a focus for our aims in war. As a construct of physical science, 

centers of gravity have focal points where the forces of gravity come together. As explained 

by Echevarria, when you exert force against the center of the forces affected by gravity, 

you move the entire system.61 If the aim in war is to overthrow an opponent, you focus all

your energies against that focal point. In Book 6 of On War, Clausewitz had this analogue 

in mind: maximum exertion for maximum gain—a throw of the “iron dice.” In theory, 

Clausewitz saw decisive battle as a clash of forces that would decide the fight, but he knew 

in reality that war is a series of battles whose outcome is unsure and most appropriate for 

a military force as the center of gravity where chance and probabilities play out in a war. 

This is the aim for war in the absolute sense: to overthrow your enemy and impose your 

will.62 But in Book 8, where the predominant political characteristics of the strategic level 

are discussed, specific relationships within an alliance, or the relationship of the capital to 

its people, government, and military, or some other political characteristic that is related to 

limited outcomes, may become the focal point for a campaign.63

Clausewitz’s notes from 1827 and 1830 points to his dissatisfaction with Book 6 and 

his conclusions about the nature of war from his discussion of defense in a theater of 
44

operations. Book 8 was meant to encapsulate his thinking about the overall phenomenon 

of war. Upon completion, he intended to rewrite the previous books to ensure that his 

main ideas were accounted for in the text. In Book 8, centers of gravity are now seen as 

relating directly to human considerations and political purposes in warfare, which is why 

he identifies politically relevant centers of gravity, such as leaders of popular uprisings, 

alliances, and capitals—these are now primary focal points for strategic decision makers 

rather than simply the armies of opposing belligerents.64 This does not mean that military 

forces cannot be centers of gravity—they often are—but they are subordinate in priority to 

the human and political dimensions that predominate in war. His description of centers of 

gravity in Book 6 was clearly thought of in terms of armies clashing. This is where Strange 

and Eikmeier derive their understanding and why they are limited to a purely military 

perspective. But by Book 8, where Clausewitz intended to explain all his ideas within an 

overall framework, strategic considerations are more important. This is why Echevarria 

properly translates schwerpunkt as a focal point based on his understanding of Clausewitz 

derived from a holistic appreciation for On War. 

This is not overthrow or even defeat of any military force as Eikmeier’s theory suggests. 

You may attain your strategic goals through diplomacy and information instruments 

by focusing efforts or applying more emphasis toward disrupting an emerging or actual 

alliance. Clausewitz likened this relationship to policy as taking the heavy battle sword of 

pure war to “a light, handy rapier—sometimes just a foil for the exchange of thrusts, feints, 

and parries.”65 This does not mean that decisive battle is excluded from his thinking in Book 

8—far from it. Clausewitz knew that in reality war in a pure sense is decided in decisive 

battle, the means for attaining the goals of war: victory. But victory is conditional to rational 

calculations: policy. It’s also conditional to reciprocal understandings of policy, in that 

each participant calculates his chances relative to the policy calculations of the opposing 

belligerent. If policy precludes absolute victory, limited ends are sought. In chapter 3 of 

Book 8, Clausewitz discussed the relationship between means and ends to calculations 

about the amount of effort required. He then relates it to his conclusions about policy. 

Policy is the driver for strategic considerations; the military point of view is irrelevant until 

considerations turning on policy are taken into account.66 He emphasized this point in one 

of his “Two Letters.” When a fellow general gave Clausewitz an operational level problem 

to solve, he protested about its lack of strategic political and policy considerations, which 

made the exercise moot.67 To be grounded in reality, policy and political decisions about 

war must also be grounded in a proper understanding of the means required to attain the 

ends of war. Policy considerations are essential to any approach to understanding centers of 

gravity. A capabilities approach tends to focus on military capabilities, which are only the 

means. Centers of gravity can be considered only in relation to interrelated policies, politics, 

and other human characteristics between parties of war. Perhaps this is what joint doctrine 

and Eikmeier mean by centers of gravity being related to the objective, but objectives are 

not considered until a complete appreciation is formulated prior to their determination, the 

essence of a strategic approach. Echevarria understands this distinction; Strange, Eikmeier, 

and Kem—including many other writers—do not adequately consider policy or politics.

Looking for centers of gravity based on a capabilities-based approach gives us a 

problem the Israelis had in their fight against Hezbollah in the 2006 battle in Lebanon. 
45

Hezbollah knew that the Israelis were searching for “strategic” centers of gravity to target. 

The Israelis were looking for “assets” (capabilities) to use precision weapons against. 

Hezbollah chose not to present any materiel centers of gravity that could be targeted.68

Echevarria warns us that in wars of this nature, centers of gravity as an analogy can fail 

us.69 Clausewitz identified caveats to the analogy being applicable. If centers of gravity 

are not readily discernible and lack unity or cohesion, then you don’t have visualization 

where you can provide a focus that matches reality, or you are in a different war than 

you anticipated in your estimates.70 Not only must they be discernible, they must be in 

accordance with the political reality of the conflict. 

Because the myriad interplays between policy, politics, enmity, and other considerations 

in war cannot be neatly reduced to exact calculations, centers of gravity determinations 

will always be a concept subject to error. Clausewitz was clear on our ability to be exact in 

light of uncertainty: 

At this point, then, intellectual activity leaves the field of the exact sciences of logic and mathematics. It then becomes art in the broadest meaning 

of the term—the faculty of using judgment to detect the most important 

and decisive elements in the vast array of facts and situations. Undoubtedly this power of judgment consists to a greater or lesser degree in the 

intuitive comparison of all the factors and attendant circumstances; what 

is remote and secondary is at once dismissed while the most pressing and 

important points are identified with greater speed than could be done by 

strictly logical deduction.71 

Clausewitz further adds that “at the outset, then, we must admit that an imminent war, 

its possible aims, and the resources it will require, are matters that can only be assessed 

when every circumstance has been examined in the context of the whole.”72 In other 

words, it is futile to discuss centers of gravity without understanding war from a holistic 

perspective. This is one of the reasons why students of war flounder when determining 

centers of gravity without a complete appreciation for the contextual elements involved.

We began with a concept poorly understood from the original Clausewitzian framework 

and proceeded to add and subtract until the concept lost much of its meaning. Is center of 

gravity a source of strength? Is it a source of power? Or is it a key vulnerability? We want 

to guarantee certainty by relying on steps of a technique, and our reluctance to accept 

ambiguity intrinsic to war displays an epistemological problem of knowledge—how we 

know what a center of gravity is or isn’t. We have problems with reasoning when we 

argue over metaphors and analogies and over-rationalize their meaning but fail to grasp the 

unitary essence of war by analyzing its parts without considering relationships within the 

whole phenomenon. And the unitary essence of war, the whole versus the parts, the process 

of thought, leads us to ontological problems of being—what is the proper relationship of 

centers of gravity to the whole of war? 

Clausewitz always had his critics. Paret identified several who viewed the history of 

warfare from only a military perspective. He noted that the military lens had its strengths 

but also glaring gaps in understanding that “prevented its practitioners from recognizing 
46

deeper causes, which in the end could weigh more heavily than the overt operational and 

tactical factors they analyzed with such knowledge and understanding.”73Paret finds the 

seat of Clausewitz’s strength in his inquisitive nature and his “intellectual and cultural 

background,”74 a background that was not necessarily dedicated to direct military 

application, but to other intellectual pursuits in science, philosophy, and the arts.75 To 

further our understanding as to why it is difficult to create a positive doctrine for center of 

gravity, it’s best to turn to historians, philosophers, physicists, anthropologists, and thinkers 

from other disciplines to gain a deeper appreciation.

Problems of Knowing, Reasoning, and Being: Unpacking Approaches to 

Understanding Centers of Gravity 

“It is the mark of an educated man to seek precision only so far as the nature of the subject 

admits.”

—Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

Most of the military writers who look to concepts in On War for practical knowledge end 

up making similar mistakes. Instead of asking why it’s difficult to take theoretical concepts 

and develop practical uses for them, they soldier on and create new meanings and context. 

Some of their conceptualizations have real-world use, but as an overall approach there will 

continue to be arguments until we recognize that the theory has limits. Among other sources, 

Clausewitz grounded his theory in experience and readings from history, but he also knew 

that he had to “rise above” his own limited experience.76 He recognized the importance of 

history, not with the narrative descriptions of battles, but the testing of theoretical ideas 

against actual outcomes. Despite limitations inherent in historical understandings, outside 

of real experience, there were no other means that provided a greater understanding of the 

nature of war. The ability to make judgments based on experiences in war assumes a priori 

knowledge—that which you find from theoretical observations in historical studies as a 

basis of comparison. This was the method of understanding Clausewitz used.77 His search 

for truth about the nature of war incorporated the dialectic of thesis and antithesis as a 

means to test theoretical reasoning against experience. An example is to compare policy 

against the military imperative: to understand the tension of these opposing poles, the 

means used toward attainment of policy ends had to be considered.78 We find conditional 

truth from an understanding of the tension. That doesn’t mean that there is strict resolution 

in accordance with the Hegelian Dialectic, but it does serve to highlight meaning.79 His 

knowledge about the reality of war was his way of reaching tentative conclusions about his 

observations, which are mainly found throughout Book 1. Yet he was still unhappy with 

his overall conclusions—for Clausewitz, truth about the real nature of war was always 

conditional on particulars, patterns, and relationships that he may not have fully developed 

in his own theoretical constructs. 

When it comes to understanding and the search for truth about the essential elements 

of war, there are tensions represented by the twin poles of Cartesian certainties versus 
47

Aristotelian doubt. Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, sought certainty of 

knowledge based on use of a rational method inspired by the newly discovered mechanistic 

sciences and his understanding of mathematics.80 The Cartesian method established criteria 

for truth. If the subject met the criteria of truth, certainty of knowledge was attained.81

Cartesian certainty is contrasted with an Aristotelian approach of conditional certainty in 

knowledge, especially in the realm of human affairs.82 The ambiguous nature of warfare 

is naturally subject to uncertainty of perfect knowledge, but there still is a Cartesian drive 

in some people to banish doubt. They seek clear and particular steps to follow that leads 

to an answer that “solves” the problem, and they especially respect a sort of scientific 

reductionism that can guarantee results every time, as long as the method is applied 

correctly. We see this originally with the Strange approach, and more strongly with the 

Eikmeier method for determining centers of gravity. As long as certain criteria are met—is 

it a doer? Is it a capability? Is it an entity that has an inherent capability? Is it linked to the 

objective? Then it’s “The-Center-of-Gravity.” We are left with choosing a method based 

on verisimilitude—which false theory is likely true? Echevarria sees probable truth rather 

than certain truth in how Clausewitz described centers of gravity: they are conditional on 

too many variables to claim perfect truth of understanding, but they provide an aim to test 

a theory of action, they don’t always obtain in every circumstance, and you cannot build 

universal truth around definitions of centers of gravity. Knowledge must be grounded in 

concrete reality and not subject to claims of certainty that do not exist in the real world. 

Along with limits to knowledge about centers of gravity, there are limits to rational 

methods for framing solutions to problems. Descartes may have ignited the modern 

philosophical drive toward rationalism, but by Clausewitz’s time, and reflected in On War, 

the romantic movement sought to put brakes on the use of pure reason for understanding 

reality.83 What we mainly see with Strange, Eikmeier, and, to a lesser extent, Kem are ex 

nihilo rationalist arguments that elevate method and technique in place of understanding. 

As rational men, they exchange intuitive genius with technical knowledge expressed in 

terms of rules and steps. Their goal is practical knowledge that can be learned by grasping 

their methods. The problem is expressed by Michael Oakeshott:

The heart of the matter is the pre-occupation of the Rationalist with certainty. Technique and certainty are, for him, inseparably joined because 

certain knowledge is, for him, knowledge which does not require to look 

beyond itself for its certainty; knowledge, that is, which not only ends with 

certainty but begins with certainty and is certain throughout. And this is 

what technical knowledge appears to .be...In short technical knowledge 

appears to be the only kind of knowledge which satisfies the standard of 

certainty which the Rationalist has chosen.84 

Those with a rationalist disposition lead others to think that their methods are reliable 

for choosing centers of gravity over a more intuitive approach, but their conclusions cause 

them to commit a historical fallacy by failing to account for the underlying processes 

involved. As Echevarria observed, using a capabilities method might get you centers of 

gravity, but only by accident.85
48

The ambiguous nature of centers of gravity, the “elusive concept,” brings us back to 

the earlier discussion Timothy Keppler provided about the two camps of thought: those 

who thought it should be restricted to the realm of genius and intuition, and those who 

argued for method. Students wrestling with centers of gravity also fall into both camps. 

There are those who prefer certainty, and others are comfortable with probable answers. 

William Perry studied learning preferences and noted that there were various gradations of 

comfort with learning in an ambiguous environment. It begins with absolute certainty—

things are black or white—but mature learners adapt to ambiguity and reflect comfort in 

knowing that there is only probable certainty.86 Until doctrine acknowledges that centers of 

gravity provide merely an aim and not necessarily a tangible substance subject to certain 

targeting, we will continue to have arguments for creating methodologies in place of 

intuitive judgment informed by concrete understandings. 

Along with problems of knowing are problems of reasoning about centers of gravity. 

On War is rich with analogies and metaphors. Because some phenomena are difficult to 

explain, analogies and metaphors help to bridge our lack of definitive language. Sun Tzu 

used several metaphors, including his use of boulders in water and birds of prey to describe 

the strategic advantages of timing and focused effort.87 Clausewitz used metaphorical 

reasoning and analogies to explain the whole concept of war itself. War is a duel, war is 

like two wrestlers, and war is like a true chameleon.88 In the case of metaphors, which are 

figures of speech, vivid imagery relates what is tangible and known to less tangible or hard 

to grasp concepts. Metaphors are not meant to be used as literal replacements or exact 

analogues to the concept they are explaining. Of course war is not really a chameleon, 

but it is like one in the singular property that both share, which is the ability to adapt to 

surroundings and circumstances. A chameleon changes its protective coloring, and war 

adapts to different levels of violence, calculation, and passion. Analogy is a cognitive 

device for understanding deep truths about a subject. It gives us a sense of relationships. 

In the case of a center of gravity, it is analogous to a point where forces come together and 

gives meaning to their relationship in a system of war. 

Like Newtonian mechanics, there is a tension that arises from the push/pull of competing 

forces as expressed in Newton’s third law of motion. Gravity cannot be seen, but it is a 

real force observed in the influence it has on physical substances in nature. It is real in its 

effects but not in its physical properties. It is both a description observed in the physical 

sciences, and phenomenon seen in war. It was a tool Clausewitz used to relate his theory 

of how forces converge that has meaning in the context of war where there are reciprocal 

responses. Where the analogy can falter in application is that force is not a constant in war; 

it is a variable that changes and adapts to its circumstances. Eikmeier sought clarity of 

thought about the concept, but it resists exact definition as a clarified analogy. The analogy 

is a generalization of similar properties.89

Contra Strange, it does not go too far to use the analogy in Book 8, where the 

description applies to political considerations. In fact, the analogy is even more relevant 

in that visualizing how all environmental forces come together provides us with a better 

understanding of how centers of gravity may emerge out of a given context rather than 

being some purely abstract concept that is given physical properties. The analogy gives 
49

us a picture of unity and cohesion in an observed system, much as gravity acts as force 

that imposes a state of being that we can recognize, such as our solar system. Cohesion 

and unity are necessary precepts to Clausewitz’s descriptions of centers of gravity.90 For 

Clausewitz, centers of gravity are based on the confluence of tangible and intangible forces, 

seen as both physical and moral characteristics that have cohesion and emerge out of the 

unique circumstances of a given war. Policy then dictates what a commander should aim 

for, his focal point, the schwerpunkt. Center of gravity is not an outdated concept. Despite 

Newtonian understanding being replaced by theories of relativity, and now quantum field 

and string theories, gravity as a force of nature still applies in the way we view the real 

world. We can still accord the same meaning for insights to twenty-first-century warfare as 

Clausewitz did for his nineteenth-century conception. 

Historians also have problems reasoning about history because the entirety of their 

subject matter is by nature unavailable to them. Historian John Lewis Gaddis recognized 

that some subjects cannot be measured by purely rational means, nor can they be measured 

by intuition alone. Besides reasoning by metaphor and analogy, Gaddis saw the value of 

cross-discipline inquiry by thinking in terms of consilience, or “fitting things together”91—

not synthesis, which is a product of reductionist thinking, but taking all relationships 

involved and seeing how other disciplinary fields would address the problem. Gaddis sees 

the value of reductionist science for understanding materiel properties, but reductionism 

fails to explain complex phenomenon that are unseen, such as quantum field theory or 

history for that matter.In contrast, an “‘ecological approach’... considers how components 

interact to become systems whose nature can’t be defined merely by calculating the sum 

of their parts.”92 Reductionist explanations of “parsimony, stability, and universality” 

are standard sets of rational criteria that are useful in the engineering sciences but fail 

to provide a more accurate description about human relationships and quantum physical 

properties we cannot accurately measure.93 We recall that Strange and Eikmeier wanted 

it all to be simple. Clausewitz warned us that war is simple in theory, but friction from 

myriad occurrences and events overcomes simplicity.94 Parsimony does not work well in 

explaining social systems in the real world, and because war is irreducibly complex, we 

cannot reduce all our understanding to a few methods that apply in every war. 

Purely inductive or deductive approaches do not work in explaining complex systems 

such as war. When you attempt either, you are forced to recognize that parts don’t 

inductively explain the whole and you cannot deduce the parts strictly from its properties. 

95 This is why Clausewitz preferred to use experience and history for inductive inferences, 

and theory for deductive reasoning. Current joint doctrine describes centers of gravity by 

looking at the parts of the enemy using variables based on the acronym PMESII (Political, 

Military, Economic, Social, Information, and Infrastructure) and nodal analysis to reach 

conclusions.96 This is an inductive approach. One of the problems we have with inductive 

reasoning is that we often forget that it is based on probabilities. It may be true in most 

cases, but there is always a possibility that we’ve left out a critical variable or failed to see 

the potential in a given property. If all we observe in nature are white swans, we will not 

understand a black swan when we see it.97 Nonetheless, inductive reasoning is essential if 

we seek to understand political probabilities based on centers of gravity. We use deductive 

reasoning when we evaluate the character of war by understanding a center of gravity from 
50

its cohesion, its relationship to one type of war, and reciprocal, competing relationships 

with political and policy purposes informed by enmity and means available. A purely 

deductive approach won’t work either: “Why should the physical world conform to the 

pattern of man’s reasoning?”98 Understanding centers of gravity from a holistic perspective 

requires both inductive and deductive reasoning. We inductively infer centers of gravity 

from all the characteristics that emerge between two opponents, but we deductively arrive 

at their meaning from their reciprocal competing relationships with politics, policy, and 

means available. What centers of gravity do is make sense of relationships within a system 

of conflict. It gives us an understanding of the character of the war and possible aims for our 

ends. That is their value and not simply a reductionist mechanism for targeting. 

I have chosen not to use the acronym COG to describe the concept of center of gravity 

throughout this monograph. As we have seen from the previous discussion, how we think 

about a concept has relevancy to our understanding about its nature. COG is semantically 

similar to a mechanical device, a physical thing, which moves other pieces within a closed 

system (e.g., the “cog” in a machine). When you consider that this is roughly analogous to 

the effect we want to achieve in war—that by moving a center of gravity we create effects 

throughout the rest of the system—a cog is still a material device, fixed in place. It does 

not have unpredictable and human characteristics that comprise the actual elements of war. 

We see this effect by descriptions of centers of gravity as being composed only of material 

properties alone. 

The thirty spokes converge at one hub, but the utility of the cart is a function of the 

nothingness inside the hub.

We throw clay to shape a pot, but the utility of the clay pot is a function of the nothingness 

inside it.

We bore out doors and windows to make a dwelling, but the utility of the dwelling is a 

function of the nothingness inside it. 

Thus, it might be something that provides the value, but it is nothing that provides the 

utility.

—Dao De Jing99

Understanding how we think and reason about centers of gravity leads us to questions 

of ontological importance: Are centers of gravity real? Where can we find meaning in 

centers of gravity as they apply to real war? Fortunately, Clausewitz provides us with a 

comprehensive way to address these questions in On War. Any approach to centers of gravity 

should consider both the whole of war and its parts: the “hermeneutic circle.”100 Jon Sumida 

argues in Decoding Clausewitz that, in its essential form, On War is a completed body of 

thought about the nature of war.101 His theory is compelling, but knowing that Clausewitz 

was always trying to refine his thinking leaves some room for doubt. Nonetheless, in its 

comprehensiveness Clausewitz comes as close as possible to a unified theory of the nature 

of war. Clausewitz wanted On War to be a treatise about the nature of war—not necessarily 

how to fight one—and the arrangement of his manuscript started with the elements of war 

that lead to an understanding of how they are unified in a holistic body of thought. In fact, 

his introduction should be kept in mind when reading the remainder of his writing:
51

I propose to consider first the various elements of the subject, next its various parts or sections, and finally the whole in its internal structure. In other 

words, I shall proceed from the simple to the complex. But in war more 

than in any other subject we must begin by looking at the nature of the 

whole; for here more than elsewhere the part and the whole must always 

be thought of together.102

Clausewitz attempted to understand and evaluate war from a holistic, unified perspective. 

Throughout On War are references to understanding war as a whole.103 Book 1 contains 

the constituent parts of his thinking, but Book 8 was meant to be his conclusions about 

the overall nature of war from his previous observations. He died before its completion, 

but we should evaluate center of gravity in light of its relationship to the remainder of his 

thinking about war, and in particular from our understanding formed in Book 8. Because 

the discussion in Book 6 was about a clash of armies in a theater of operations, centers of 

gravity were seen from the military perspective of a commander contemplating battle in 

light of characteristics found in the tension between offensive and defensive battle. This 

might be helpful from an operational perspective, but it does not give us sufficient strategic 

insight. Paret, quoting Clausewitz, tells us why this is so: “The emphasis Clausewitz places 

on strategy is reinforced by his next sentence: ‘Tactical matters I regarded as merely of 

secondary importance, at least wherever the strategic threads ceased to be visible.’ At first 

glance the conclusion seems paradoxical.... It disappears when we remember that for 

Clausewitz, it is the strategic context that renders tactical episodes comprehensible.”104 He 

meant to resolve his understanding in Book 8: “The last book will describe how this idea 

of a center of gravity in the enemy’s force operates throughout the plan of war. In fact, that 

is where the matter properly belongs.”105 In Book 8, centers of gravity are now considered 

with the “paradoxical trinity” in mind and the implications for directing energies against 

a center of gravity based on its political character. A capital city was viewed as a potential 

center of gravity with regard to the relationship of the people to its government and army. 

An alliance points out that other trinities also have an effect on the duel of trinity versus 

trinity. The whole and its parts must be thought of in a unified manner. In war, individual 

victories don’t necessarily matter; it’s the end that counts, but the end depends on individual 

victories. This is what we lack from most of the writings about centers of gravity. They 

direct “their principles and systems only to physical matters and unilateral activity. As in 

the science concerning preparation for war, they wanted to reach a set of sure and positive 

conclusions.”106

The philosopher Hegel was obsessed by unity and the ultimate harmonizing of reality. 

He saw unity in seemingly opposite properties, and his thought attempted to systematize all 

of history as an explanation for all phenomena.107 Paret places Clausewitz in a time where 

it was common to think in terms of opposites, contradictions, and paradox.108 Throughout 

On War we see references to polarity, thesis, and antithesis, and theoretical tests of rational 

extremes. Hegelian thought that had its origins in pre-Socratic philosophy provides the 

basis for our understanding of why centers of gravity as described by Clausewitz can be 

seen in the context of paradox and the unity of opposites.
52

Heraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic philosopher who developed his theory of 

unity of opposites to describe seemingly opposite properties that nonetheless have essential 

unity.109 The unity comes from their relationship. One of the most famous Greek tragedies, 

the Oresteia by Aeschylus, was about a curse on the family of Agamemnon, the high-seated 

leader of the Greek war against Troy. A series of blood feuds caused the next generation 

to murder members of its own family. The chain of murders began with a rivalry, and each 

murder caused reciprocal enmity that continued until the gods ended the cycle of violence. 

The reciprocal nature of conflict was composed of a unity of opposites that was informed 

by the relationship of hate and struggle between opposing forces. The relationship was a 

vendetta that could be broken only by a decision of justice by the gods.110

Clausewitz described this unity of opposites in his opening chapter in which war is 

a duel and a clash of wills. His other important concepts are likewise similar in polarity 

and resolution, including attack and defense, war and peace, absolute and limited war, 

destructive means versus policy, and probably his most important in relation to his entire 

theory, the “paradoxical trinity.” The paradoxical trinity was composed of the elements 

of calculation and policy, which can be represented by the government; passion and 

enmity, which are represented in the people; and chance, uncertainty, and action, which 

are represented by the destructive means held within the military. He likened any theory 

of war as having to consider the variability between these forces.111 It is paradoxical in 

that it is composed of unity and disunity at the same time. There is always competition 

and tension among these forces—between policy that is supposed to guide the efforts of 

war and the destructive psychological and physical means to attain the ends.112 But these 

elements are not important in and of themselves. The trinity finds its meaning only in its 

relationship with an opposing trinity. Their unity is found in the circumstances that arise 

from conflicts of interest and misunderstandings that lead to armed clashes and what may 

become full-blown wars of annihilation. Michael Handel comes to similar conclusions—

that the nature of war must be defined by the interactions of belligerents composed of their 

unique trinities.113

The clash of trinities forms a unity of opposites and is the beginning of our understanding 

of the relationship centers of gravity have to the whole of war. It begins with the duel. 

Clausewitz posited that there are two types of war: absolute war in which one side or 

the other is completely victorious, and limited war in which, for example, occupation of 

territory is a goal. He further observed that the entire phenomena of war runs on a scale 

from total wars of annihilation to armed observation.114 Absolute wars are characterized 

by the potential to escalate based on policy informed by enmity, and the reciprocal actions 

of destructive means that increases a tendency to extremes. If we use an analogy from 

quantum theory, trinities are now “entangled” in an escalating spiral of violence that policy 

may no longer have the ability to control. Each successive round of violence produces a 

desperate cycle, similar to the cycle of revenge in the Oresteia. Anthropologist René Girard 

sees this as the natural tendency to consider in all wars in that they are a part of the “hidden 

structure” of war, especially when destructive means are no longer limited in the nuclear 

age.115
53

The hidden mechanism that drives escalation is the entangled hatred that forms the 

relationship between the trinities. A form of mimesis takes place where mirrored hatred 

and action have tendencies toward cycles of unstoppable violence.116 When this happens, it 

is likened to the non-severability principle in quantum field theory in which “the joint state 

of the whole completely determines the probability distributions of the state-dependent 

properties of the parts.”117 In order to break this relationship, one or the other participants 

must be overthrown completely. Centers of gravity now become more apparent with this 

relationship in mind. Complete victory must ensure a more lasting peace, which is the 

ultimate goal for absolute war in theory.118 If policy differences between antagonists cannot 

be overcome, and political considerations based on enmity are taken into account, the final 

calculation for war must ensure that the means can attain their desired ends. Those ends 

include a lasting peace that can be attained only by overthrowing the enemy, breaking its 

will to fight, occupying its country, and imposing peace by violent means. At this point, 

discussions from Book 6 become apparent in that one country is the invader, and the other 

the defender. Clausewitz observed that a defender tends to have a more unified trinity in 

that the people, government, and military are unified by their moral claim to legitimacy of 

action. Among other things, this is why Clausewitz viewed defense as the stronger form 

of war.119 In this type of war, decisive battle and breaking the enemy’s will is the only 

means to victory; hence, the most important centers of gravity will likely be associated 

with military force, at least initially. They provide focal points for operations. Discernment 

as to which centers of gravity should be focal points for operations is based on Clausewitz’s 

understanding that force must be massed to have the effects desired. His observations from 

experience and his study of history led him to conclude that any other use of force diluted 

necessary effects at the decisive point.120

But Clausewitz also observed that the more likely type of war over time will have 

limited aims and therefore limited means. The hidden mechanism is not so hidden: policy 

considerations on both sides will conclude that their “policy entanglement” requires limited 

means. If one party to war demands territory, and has the means to take it, the defending 

party may not be able to employ the necessary means to oppose it, based on calculations 

of its own trinity. Those calculations would likely include whether the population of the 

territory supports annexation, its military capabilities, or its potential alliances. If the 

defending party makes an alliance, then it would be an example of what Clausewitz meant 

by alliances being centers of gravity and focal points for the attacking party to consider. This 

was the case for the run-up to World War II. Hitler was able to march into the Rhineland 

because he knew that France and Great Britain were incapable of forming an alliance to 

meet a threat of limited danger to their existence. France and Great Britain also knew their 

populations would not support preventive war at that point. Germany’s focal point was 

not directed against any military force. It was directed toward French and British politics 

with their people, and the potential for an alliance. For Hitler, this action was a rational 

calculation, despite Germany not having the military means to sustain its occupation should 

France have contested. Where it becomes seemingly irrational are the escalating tendencies 

that occur despite initial limited aims. The warning from Clausewitz is that despite initial 

intentions, war can grow far out of proportion than calculated policy can manage. The 
54

paradox in the opening stages of a new war was that Germany was acting in terms of a 

defender based on its moral claim that France was the aggressor from its imposition of 

unjust reprisals from World War I.121 Rather than simply being a policy decision, enmity 

was fused again in a trinitarian entanglement between France and Germany. “It was thus 

the French desire for peace that caused the new trend towards extremes.”122 At this point, 

new focal points emerged that required one or the other participant to consider total war to 

attain their ends. Lasting peace could not be attained until enmity was resolved by decisive 

battle. In theory, total war consists of all elements of a trinity united in purpose opposing 

another trinity that has the same characteristics. This is what Clausewitz observed from the 

Napoleonic Wars and the effects of a state system that overturned previous conceptions of 

warfare that tended to be limited.123 During the Napoleonic Wars, the French people, army, 

and government were united in purpose, and therefore total war had greater potential. At 

the dawn of World War II, they were thoroughly disunited. 

The ability to make judgments about centers of gravity in the context of the character 

of any conflict requires more than a simple methodology. Clausewitz placed this 

understanding in the coup d’oeil (strike of the eye) of the commander, the one with the 

ability to grasp the essential reality of a situation. Had Clausewitz completed his chapter on 

supreme command, we may have been treated to a more comprehensive understanding of 

how centers of gravity are discerned. Rather than Newtonian metaphors, perhaps modern 

scientific theory would be helpful for our understanding of qualities found in a commander 

with coup d’oeil. Quantum field theory is composed of the bewildering observation that 

matter consists of waves and particles simultaneously, with particles being the reality we 

can observe, and waves being the potential for particles to manifest themselves in time and 

space.

124 David Bohm called these properties explicate and implicate orders. The explicate 

order is what we observe. When we are not observing, there is implicate order—this is 

where chance and probability play out in small and big things that cannot be determined 

before they happen—in short, complexity. Particles—the stuff of the explicate world—can 

also be waves in the implicate world, where there is infinite potentiality for expression. In 

his seminal article, Alan Beyerchen noted that Clausewitz intuited the implicate order with 

his observations of dynamical patterns found in complexity theory.125 Centers of gravity 

are emergent from all the characteristics of a given conflict and constitute a property of 

complex systems. Like quantum waves, they exist in the abstract until observed in the 

context of conflict. Focal points are like particles in that they allow us to make sense of 

conflict related to purpose. Choosing focal points enables a theory of action for attainment 

of desired end states. For us to give the implicate order meaning related to what we observe 

in the explicate order, we have to “see” what we tangibly cannot observe and create a 

visualization that accords as closely as possible to reality. This can happen only in the 

intuitive realm because there are no physical properties available that enable us to deduce 

their importance—those physical properties become manifest in the future and are thus 

unavailable to us for direct observation. Bohm likens this to a holograph in that a holograph 

holds the same information as the real physical entity it is reproducing.126 A holograph 

is a 3D perspective of reality. So much of what we observe in war is from a singular 

perspective. Coup d’oeil that takes into consideration multiple perspectives provides a 
55

more accurate “hologram” as a picture of how centers of gravity emerge and how they are 

related to the aims of war. 

Writing about attributes of effective leaders, Roger Martin observed that rather than 

their actions, it’s best to learn how effective leaders think through their resolution of tensions 

that arise from competing ideas. Besides incorporating a comprehensive assessment and 

a multi-perspective appreciation for a problem’s causality, and appreciating problems 

based in a holistic sense, the best leaders are able to resolve tensions between competing 

ideas for creative solutions. Contrast this with a conventional approach that looks only 

for the obvious, analyzes causality as linear relationships, breaks problems into separate 

pieces, and makes a choice that is either/or or “best available option.” Clausewitz’s genius 

is comparable to the criteria listed by Martin as something done naturally by the best 

leaders he’s observed, whom he calls “integrative leaders.” 127 Comfort with ambiguity 

and an ability to visualize the reciprocal characteristics of the trinities are prerequisites for 

“supreme command.” Those who want a methodology and easy answers that are universal 

in all circumstances are common to the conventional approach described by Martin. It 

takes a leader with uncommon coup d’oeil who can recognize where forces might converge 

at a future time and place. Intuition informed by experience and deep study is a start, but 

it is an intuition informed by multiple perspectives. Intuition may let us down when we 

make snap decisions and don’t consider the complexity of data, but it becomes necessary 

for making choices that require meditation on complex, intangible properties and sussing 

out their interrelationships.128 Pure reason alone will not give us final answers, nor will 

shoot-from-the-hip intuition; it requires both. Philip Tetlock saw value in combining 

approaches that enable “theory-driven and imagination-driven” decision making, in which 

the “hedgehog that knows one thing” (theory driven) shakes hands and cooperates with 

“the fox (imagination driven) that knows many things.”129

How we view potential wars and centers of gravity has important strategic implication 

when we consider the reciprocal nature of “entangled” systems. The Cold War could 

be characterized as an entangled system based on competing ideologies, and the United 

States, with its allies, had a grand strategy of containment. With deterrence at the forefront 

of policy, focal points were naturally found at decision making related to nuclear weapons 

and armies stationed in Eastern Europe. This required more than military means to include 

diplomatic, economic, and informational instruments. When we think of grand strategy and 

an overarching approach that incorporates other strategies, what we really mean is that we 

perceive a unifying “entanglement” of trinities that forms a single system of conflict. Grand 

strategies don’t work well in a multipolar environment when there are several potential focal 

points to consider. Similar circumstances apply to centers of gravity when there are multiple 

trinities and the potential for multiple centers of gravity such as in counterinsurgency. A 

contemporary illustration of this dynamic can be found in Afghanistan, where there are 

multiple relationships involved that also constitute potential and actual centers of gravity. 

Difficulty tracing them back to only one no doubt contributes to confusion about war aims 

in the region. We are all “entangled” in Afghanistan, and it is difficult to discern a single 

focal point to engage. Enmity, calculation, and chance are interconnected in exponential 

numbers of combinations that would likely leave Clausewitz scratching his head. We can 
56

start with an understanding of the Afghan trinity and recognize that any potential solutions 

would have to consider their relationships, especially the ongoing struggle between the 

Pashtun Ghilzai and Durrani tribes that have fought for legitimacy among each other, and the 

Pashtun relationship to the Tajiks and the remaining ethno-cultural tribes and identities.130

That’s not even taking into account other centers of gravity in the region, such as Pakistan, 

India, Russia, China, plus the ethnic and cultural centers of gravity that consist therein. The 

Taliban, Haqqani, and HiIG networks are all entwined within multiple strategic centers of 

gravity. And the most relevant center of gravity that is a primary focal point for regional 

and global interests are NATO-led coalition forces. 

Knowing that there are numerous centers of gravity in a system of conflict should give 

us pause when thinking about the means necessary for attainment of strategic aims. In 

a conventional struggle between two opposing antagonists, it’s easier to calculate means 

applied to the ends. Afghanistan is illustrative of a system of conflict that has too many 

centers of gravity competing for conflicting ends. Simply calling the population the center 

of gravity for a counterinsurgency campaign is an operational construct that fails to account 

for emergent strategic centers of gravity in an extraordinarily complex environment. “The 

population” is an abstract, bookish concept. What exactly do you focus on, emphasize, and 

apply main efforts to that will satisfy all the conflicting requirements in such a system? If 

the population is the center of gravity, why is US policy focusing on governance? Or is 

policy focusing on internal, US domestic considerations? Or is policy focusing on the AfPak relationship? What we have are operational considerations dressed up as strategy, the 

results of accumulated policy rather than deliberate strategic judgment. United States and 

NATO disunited trinities are clashing with more unified ones, and the military is placed in 

the position of having to pursue strategic objectives without the means to accomplish them. 

Following closely on the heels of unrest in Tunisia and Egypt, Operation Odyssey 

Dawn was a brief, US-led operation against the Libyan regime in order to “protect the 

population” of the Libyan people in keeping with UNSCRs 1970 and 1973. US policy was 

to hand off responsibility for the final end state to NATO. 131 There was no strategic center 

of gravity to thereby focus on other than the speed of transferring operations to NATO. 

The operational imperative was to create conditions for transfer of authority, which then 

included tactical targeting of specific regime forces to prevent the Libyan rebels from being 

overrun and give time for NATO to assume operational control. This is an example in 

which centers of gravity did not inform strategic judgment. Where it may inform strategic 

judgment in the region is found in future potentials following regime change. Fighters 

radicalized by the war in Libya are streaming back to neighboring Mali, and based on a 

confluence of enmity, poor governance, and multiple bands of warring factions, another 

state may fall into anarchy and become another failed state.132

Since conceptual design was added to joint and Army doctrine, planners now seek 

tendencies and potentials in systems. Tendencies only account for what we see; the 

“particles” of an explicative view of war. Implicate perspectives look for potentials in a 

system, the “waves” of merging forces that are composed of will, matter, and purpose. 

Emergent centers of gravity might be interdicted to prevent their confluence, the essence 
57

of deterrence. For decisive action, enemy centers of gravity become focal points as they 

pertain to strategic goals. 

Center of gravity also has a role in conflict resolution. Rather than being only a 

focal point in war, it can also be a mechanism for focusing efforts toward peace. Peter 

T. Coleman sees intractable conflicts arising from a simplification of enmity. There is 

nothing to differentiate between belligerents in that they share entanglements of hatred and 

reciprocal violence. Central to his scheme of differentiation—which is necessary to break 

the cycle of violence—is to understand the degree of “betweenness” for the antagonists, 

and to determine “central hubs of activity” and “centers of energy in the system, gateways 

for high-impact intervention, strategic targets for introducing conflict-inhibiting feedback 

and peace reinforcing feedback [that] help to focus the analysis of conflict-mapping.”133 In 

other words, embrace complexity to reintroduce other aspects of reality rather than allow 

simplified feedback loops that enable escalations of violence. Centers of gravity properly 

conceived as focal points for de-escalating violence would look to the confluence of enmitygenerating forces that converge with calculation and violent means to use them. Focal 

points are also considered as those points of agreement or disagreement when calculating 

strategic moves in the classic strategy book that used game theory to explain opposing 

strategies in The Strategy of Conflict. 134

Toward a Positive Doctrine?

Should we still include centers of gravity in doctrine? If so, who should determine 

them? The center of gravity concept was not central to Clausewitz’s understanding of war. 

He used it to describe forces in nature that can be observed but not wholly defined, much 

as Newton found with his own discovery of gravity, which became part of his wider theory 

of physical mechanics. Clausewitz considered the process of identifying centers of gravity 

to be natural and attained by sound reasoning and intuitive judgment. Because of the 

political character of war, operational imperatives should always be secondary to strategic 

considerations. Clausewitz remarked that “we must be willing to wage such minimal wars, 

which consist in merely threatening the enemy, with negotiations held in reserve....The 

art of war will shrivel into prudence, and its main concern will be to make sure...the halfhearted war does not become a real war after all.”135 We constantly see operational art 

considerations trumping strategic thinking. Most explanations fail to show the relational 

aspect of war, that it takes at least two to tango, and that centers of gravity are abstractions 

until they are focused upon to provide a theory of action. Centers of gravity only emerge 

out of the unique circumstances found in any given conflict, and our understanding of 

them must be grounded in this organic conception, otherwise planners may as well begin 

determining centers of gravity for each country and plug them into war plans for later use. 

Although doctrine can include theoretical discussion, such as with principals of war and 

operational art, much of what we see is prescriptive. 

Current joint doctrine has the intelligence function determining enemy centers of 

gravity as part of their Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment 

(JIPOE). Other staff members, typically in Operations or Plans, determine friendly centers 
58

of gravity. An obvious problem with this approach is that a holistic understanding based 

on essential entanglement between opposing states of being are not considered. We have 

stovepiped viewpoints that do not take into account the reciprocal and political nature of 

the war. Additionally, joint-level planners are naturally concerned with the military aspects 

of conflict, and their tendency is to overlook other, more strategically important tensions, 

tendencies and potentials in systems of conflict. 

Strategic centers of gravity should be the concern of leaders who make decisions 

in pursuit of strategic goals. Only the president can make supreme judgments for final 

calculations of strategic aims after political, policy, and means considerations are brought 

to light and discussed. Discussing centers of gravity in this context leads to decisions about 

priorities and decisions about the use of strategic means. Strategic focal points for directing 

lethal and nonlethal energies are the natural province of the president and his cabinet, with 

the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and combatant commanders providing advice related to 

means and ways. The further centers of gravity determinations get from their political and 

policy relationships, the less effective they are as useful constructs for focusing efforts. 

Other terms, such as decisive points and main efforts, are more relevant to the tactical 

effects desired; otherwise we face an infinite regression for each level of war activity down 

to squad, team, or individual level. Centers of gravity are unifying constructs that can only 

be considered as part of other unifying phenomenon. They do not stand alone as separate 

units of analysis outside the system of war that gives them their meaning. 

Clausewitz did not clearly define centers of gravity, but preferred to describe their 

effects within his understanding of war. Based on a holistic view of the nature of conflict 

explained in On War, perhaps a doctrinal description would include the following: 

From the interplay and reciprocal collisions of competing interests and 

goals between opposing forces, each comprised of the elemental properties of psychology, calculation, and destructive means, centers of gravity 

emerge that can become focal points for directing instruments of power in 

pursuit of strategic aims. Centers of gravity are the confluence of unified 

physical and moral characteristics inherent in each opposing entity. They 

become focal points as strategic decisions are made for a theory of action. 

Their relevancy to strategic decisions is a matter of political and policy 

considerations for both war and peace. Focused efforts directed against 

centers of gravity enables attainment of strategic goals and objectives. 

They are less effective as focal points as strategic considerations become 

tactical. Strategic focal points will tend to shift slowly over time depending upon political and policy considerations; operational level focal points 

will change based on emerging centers of gravity as campaigns progress, 

such as the situation following OIF 1 with the emergence of insurgent and 

other state centric centers of gravity. 

The description above places emphasis upon the strategic nature of centers of gravity in 

our understanding about war. Design found in joint planning doctrine is uniquely suited for 
59

understanding the role center of gravity has in understanding the operational environment, 

but a similar construct needs to occur at the strategic level. 

Conclusion and Recommendations

There is no one way to define and articulate centers of gravity that will please everyone. 

Method alone cannot provide the certainty it desires and should be suspect as the final 

word on such an abstract concept. Competing philosophical interpretations of reality 

cause problems of knowing, understanding, and reasoning about how centers of gravity 

fit into the overall scheme of warfighting. For too long the argument has revolved around 

operational level considerations rather than on placing the concept back in the strategic 

dimension where it accords more with reality. Because it is useful for understanding the 

character of particular conflicts, centers of gravity have relevance for aims in both war and 

peace. But it is not a construct that is helpful for all conflicts where there are too many 

potential focal points to consider in the absence of unified war aims. For conflicts involving 

multiple centers of gravity, military commanders may need to take action in the absence of 

clearly delineated focal points in order to resolve immediate objectives; however, centers 

of gravity may thereby emerge from those actions that can then provide a focus for further 

action tied to strategic purpose. This is what Clausewitz meant by a military being the most 

likely center of gravity to consider for war. You may have to remove a belligerent’s military 

in order to further strategic aims. This is of primary value for considerations related to 

invasion and occupation of another state. 

Joint doctrine should reflect the ambiguous nature of the concept by recognizing both 

its abstract nature reflected in it being composed of emergent properties that we can call 

a center of gravity, and its more concrete expression as a focal point in which a theory of 

action is executed. Doctrinally identifying centers of gravity and potential focal points 

should be resident in the Joint Staff, Combatant Commands, or Joint Task Force level. 

Any further down into the tactical realm and the concept becomes less relevant to political 

and policy purposes. Joint staffs should no longer stovepipe the process for determining 

centers of gravity. They are part of conceptual design in planning and should be considered 

holistically rather than as individual staff functions coming up with their own determinations. 

As part of options recommendations to the president, the military should identify more 

than one center of gravity. Other centers of gravity are thereby linked to potential strategic 

options that run the range of possibilities from deterrence options to decisive combat. 

The president’s choice becomes the focal point for the whole of government efforts and 

provides the basis for operational decisions. 

A return to the roots of conceptual understanding about centers of gravity and their 

relationships to the overall phenomenon of war will allow us to wake from bookish dreams 

that have us tilting at windmills rather than truly knowing their place and purpose. 
60

Notes

1. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. and ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton University Press, 1984), 86.

2. Stephen L. Melton, The Clausewitz Delusion: How the American Army Screwed Up the Wars 

in Iraq and Afghanistan (Minneapolis: Zenith Press, 2009), 15.

3. Center of Military History, Historical Perspectives of the Operational Art, ed. Michael D. 

Krause and R. Cody Phillips (Washington, DC: Dept. of the Army [Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O., 

distributor], 2005), 14–15.

4. Walter E. Kretchik, US Army Doctrine: From the American Revolution to the War on Terror

(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011), 211.

5. Archie Galloway, “FM 100-5: Who Influenced Whom?” Military Review (March 1986): 

46–51.

6. Joe Strange, Centers of Gravity & Critical Vulnerabilities: Building on the Clausewitzian 

Foundation So That We Can All Speak the Same Language, 2nd ed. (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps 

University, 1996), iv–v. Marine doctrine no longer recognizes CVs equaling centers of gravity. 

Joint doctrine has undergone several changes since many of the critics wrote complaining about its 

definition; however, it still is defined as a source of power. 

7. Seow Hiang Lee and Air University (US), Center of Gravity or Center of Confusion: 

Understanding the Mystique, Wright Flyer Paper no. 10 (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air 

Command and Staff College, Air University, 1999). Lee makes the case that an adequate definition 

for center of gravity cannot be resolved, but he sees its importance as a theoretical construct that 

informs decisions. 

8. Clausewitz, On War, 484–486.

9. Clausewitz, On War, 595–596.

10. Joseph Strange and Richard Iron, “Understanding Centers of Gravity and Critical 

Vulnerabilities, Part 1,” www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/cog1.doc (accessed 19 January 

2012), 7.

11. Clausewitz, On War, 596–597.

12. Clausewitz, On War, 617–619.

13. Clausewitz, On War, 618–619.

14. Melton, The Clausewitz Delusion, 11–18. Melton argues that our lack of strategic vision for 

Iraq and Afghanistan is attributable to the American military embracing Clausewitz.

15. Dale C. Eikmeier, “Redefining the Center of Gravity,” Joint Force Quarterly, 59 (December 

2010): 156.

16. Clausewitz, On War, xi.

17. Eva Vennebusch, Horst Kopleck, and Robin Sawers, HarperCollins German College 

Dictionary: German-English, English-German (Glasgow: HarperCollins Publishers, 1996), 382, 

436–437.

18. Isaac Newton, Newton’s Principia: The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (New 

York: Daniel Adee, 1864), 506–507, http://www.archive.org/details/newtonspmathema00newtrich 

(accessed 1 February 2012).

19. Strange and Echevarria tangle over definitions based on the translated Clausewitz text. 

Other authors also used Book 6 as the textual hammer for arguing their definitions of centers of 

gravity; see James J Schneider and Lawrence L. Izzo, “Clausewitz’s Elusive Center of Gravity” 

(1987), http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA509969.

20. Clausewitz, On War, 3–4. 
61

21. Hew Strachan, Clausewitz’s “On War”: A Biography, 1st American ed. (New York: Atlantic 

Monthly Press, 2007), 106–108.

22. Clausewitz, On War, 69.

23. Strachan, Clausewitz’s “On War,” 131–133.

24. Timothy J. Keppler, “Center of Gravity Concept: A Knowledge Engineering Approach to 

Improved Understanding and Application,” Master of Military Art and Science Thesis, US Army 

Command and General Staff College, 1995, 8.

25. Keppler, “Center of Gravity Concept,” 8.

26. Eliot Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey, Volume 1: Operations and Effects and Effectiveness, 

ed. (Department of the Air Force, 1993), 145.

27. Gulf War Air Power Survey, Volume 2: Operations and Effects and Effectiveness, ed. Eliot 

Cohen (Department of the Air Force, 1 January 1993), 24.

28. Strange, Centers of Gravity & Critical Vulnerabilities, 5.

29. Strange and Iron, “Understanding Centers of Gravity and Critical Vulnerabilities, Part 1,” 

7–8.

30. Richard Iron and Joseph L. Strange, “Center of Gravity: What Clausewitz Really Meant,” 

Joint Force Quarterly, 35 (April 2004): 27.

31. Iron and Strange, “Center of Gravity,” 21–22.

32. Strange, Centers of Gravity & Critical Vulnerabilities, 41.

33. Strange, Centers of Gravity & Critical Vulnerabilities, 43.

34. Strange, Centers of Gravity & Critical Vulnerabilities, 44–46.

35. Strange, Centers of Gravity & Critical Vulnerabilities, 17–18.

36. Clausewitz, On War, 37.

37. Dale C. Eikmeier, “The Center of Gravity Debate Resolved,” Monograph, School of 

Advanced Military Studies, US Army Command and General Staff College, 1998.

38. Dale Eikmeier, “Centers of Gravity,” Marine Corps Gazette 94, (30 November 2010): 97–

105. Most of his conceptualization can be found in this article.

39. Eikmeier, “Redefining the Center of Gravity,” 156.

40. Dale C. Eikmeier, “Center of Gravity Analysis,” Military Review 84, (August 2004): 4.

41. Eikmeier, “Redefining the Center of Gravity,” 157.

42. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 5-0, Joint Operations Planning, Department of Defense Washington, 

DC, 10 August 2012, xxi.

43. Eikmeier, “Redefining the Center of Gravity,” 157.

44. Dale Eikmeier, “Centers of Gravity,” Marine Corps Gazette 94, (30 November 2010): 99.

45. Dale Eikmeier, “Centers of Gravity,” 100.

46. Eikmeier, “Redefining the Center of Gravity,” 156.

47. Eikmeier, “Redefining the Center of Gravity, 158.

48. Eikmeier, “Center of Gravity Analysis,” 5.

49. Jack D. Kem, Campaign Planning: Tools of the Trade, 3rd ed. (Fort Leavenworth, KS: 

Department of Joint, Interagency, and Multinational Operations, 2009).

50. Kem, Campaign Planning, v.

51. Kem, Campaign Planning, 3.

52. Kem, Campaign Planning, 25–26.

53. Kem, Campaign Planning, 27.

54. Kem, Campaign Planning, 31.

55. Gordon M. Wells, “The Center of Gravity Fad: Consequence of the Absence of an 

Overarching American Theory of War,” Landpower Essay, no. 01-1 (March 2001): 61–68. Col. 

Wells also agrees with Eikmeier in that a center of gravity must be something tangible, and that it is 
62

likely only relevant as a historical document rather than a body of knowledge that has insight to the 

essence of war. And he gets the “age of reason” incorrect for insight about how Clausewitz thought. 

Clausewitz was actually writing in the age of German romanticism that was a reaction against pure 

reason. He was influenced by Kant, Hegel, Schiller, Fichte, and others in his thinking. They were 

not rationalists. Newtonian physics is not a fad. We continue to use his concepts in day-to-day 

engineering because the latest fad, quantum field theory, does not provide many useful analogues 

as of yet. 

56. A student wrote his thesis on using software to decide operational level centers of gravity. 

When you reduce the concept to military systems only, then an algorithm based on fixed variables 

is a logical approach. Command decisions are now a whole lot easier.

57. Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations, Bartleby.com, http://www.bartleby.

com/73/1213.html (accessed 21 January 2012).

58. Peter Paret, The Cognitive Challenge of War: Prussia 1806 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton 

University Press, 2009), 120.

59. Antulio J. Echevarria, “Clausewitz’s Center of Gravity: It’s Not What We Thought,” Naval 

War College Review 56, (Winter 2003): 109–123.

60. Echevarria, “Clausewitz’s Center of Gravity,” 110–111.

61. Antulio Echevarria II, “‘Reining in’ the Center of Gravity Concept,” Airpower Journal 17,

(April 2003): 88–92.

62. Clausewitz, On War, 75.

63. Clausewitz, On War, 596.

64. Clausewitz, On War, 70–71.

65. Clausewitz, On War, 606.

66. Clausewitz, On War, 607.

67. Carl von Clausewitz, Carl Von Clausewitz: Two Letters on Strategy, trans. and ed. Peter 

Paret and Daniel Moran (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1984).

68. Matt M. Matthews, We Were Caught Unprepared: The 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War (Fort 

Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 2008), 21.

69. Echevarria II, “‘Reining in’ the Center of Gravity Concept,” 92.

70. Clausewitz, On War,, 484–487.

71. Clausewitz, On War,, 585.

72. Clausewitz, On War,, 585.

73. Paret, The Cognitive Challenge of War, 136.

74. Paret, The Cognitive Challenge of War, 138.

75. Paret, Clausewitz and the State, 147–168.

76. Strachan, Clausewitz’s “On War,” 40–41, 77.

77. Strachan, Clausewitz’s “On War,” 77.

78. Strachan, Clausewitz’s “On War,” 86–87.

79. Paret, Clausewitz and the State, 84.

80. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “René Descartes (1596–1650): Overview,” http://

www.iep.utm.edu/descarte/ (accessed 28 January 2012).

81. Ted Honderich, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 1995), 242.

82. Richard Kraut, “Aristotle’s Ethics,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. 

Edward N. Zalta, Spring 2012, under “Intellectual Virtues,” http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/

spr2012/entries/aristotle-ethics/ (accessed 28 January 2012).

83. Paret, Clausewitz and the State, 149–150.
63

84. Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, new and expanded ed. 

(Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991), 16.

85. Antulio J. Echevarria, Clausewitz’s Center of Gravity: Changing Our Warfighting Doctrine—

Again! (Carlisle Barraks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, September 2002), 

5.

86. Joanne Kurfiss, “Perry on Cognitive Development,” http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dabrent/

webliteracies/perry.htm (accessed 28 January 2012).

87. Roger T. Ames, trans., Sun-Tzu: The Art of Warfare, 1st ed. (New York: Ballantine Books, 

2010), 120. This is by far the best translation for explaining hermeneutical concepts relevant to 

understanding Sun Tzu from a Chinese perspective. There are many similarities between Sun Tzu 

and Clausewitz in their understanding of the “implicate order” of war. 

88. Clausewitz, On War, 75, 89.

89. G. Polya, Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, Volume 1: Induction and Analogy in 

Mathematics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 12–13.

90. Clausewitz, On War, 485–486.

91. John Gaddis, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past (New York: Oxford 

University Press, 2002), 49.

92. Gaddis, The Landscape of History, 54–55.

93. Gaddis, The Landscape of History, 57.

94. Clausewitz, On War, 119.

95. Gaddis, The Landscape of History, 60–62.

96. JP 5-0, Joint Operations Planning, 22–25. Note: JP 2-01.3 JIPOE goes into more detail but 

is unavailable to the general public. JP 5.0 specifically places enemy center of gravity identification 

squarely in the intelligence arena. Decisions about focus should be resident only in the commander 

for operational decisions, which is found in the design process. The J2 can help with military aspects, 

but because of the political nature of war, commanders need a broad range of disciplines to assist 

his thinking. 

97. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, 1st ed.

(New York: Random House, 2007).

98. Morris Kline, Mathematics and the Physical World (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 

1981), 470.

99. Roger T. Ames, Dao De Jing (New York: Ballantine Books, 2003), 91.

100. Ramberg and Gjesdal, “Hermeneutics,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. 

Edward N. Zalta, Summer 2009, under “Beginnings of Hermeneutics,” http://plato.stanford.edu/

archives/sum2009/entries/hermeneutics/ (accessed February 2, 2012).

101. Jon Sumida, Decoding Clausewitz: A New Approach to “On War” (Lawrence: University 

Press of Kansas, 2008), xi.

102. Clausewitz, On War, 75.

103. Clausewitz, On War, 75, 91, 95, 158, 177, 184, 231, 484, 501, 582, 606, 607. Just to name 

a few. Clausewitz is clearly seeking unity in the phenomena he studied. 

104. Peter Paret, Understanding War: Essays on Clausewitz and the History of Military Power 

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 204.

105. Clausewitz, On War, 486.

106. Clausewitz, On War, 134. Throughout On War, Clausewitz hammered contemporary 

theorists, especially Bülow and Jomini, who failed to take into account the human and complex 

aspects of war.

107. Honderich, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 339.

108. Paret, Clausewitz and the State, 150.
64

109. Honderich, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 349–350.

110. Richard Seaford, “Aeschylus and the Unity of Opposites,” The Journal of Hellenic Studies

123 (1 January 2003): 141–163.

111. Clausewitz, On War, 89.

112. Herberg-Rothe, “Clausewitz’s ‘Wondrous Trinity’ as a Coordinate System of War and 

Violent Conflict,” International Journal of Conflict and Violence 3 (2009): 205–219.

113. Michael Handel, Masters of War, 3rd rev. and expanded ed. (London: Routledge, 2005), 

106–107.

114. Clausewitz, On War, 69.

115. René Girard, Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoît Chantre (East Lansing, MI: 

Michigan State University Press, 2010), 57.

116. René Girard and James G. Williams, eds., The Girard Reader (New York: The Crossroad 

Publishing Company, 1996), 9–19.

117. Michael Esfeld, “Quantum Entanglement and a Metaphysics of Relations” (April 2004), 7, 

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/1735/ (accessed 2 February 2012).

118. Clausewitz, On War, 90–99, 579.

119. Clausewitz, On War, 388–389.

120. Clausewitz, On War, 486–487.

121. Girard, Battling to the End, 186–187.

122. Girard, Battling to the End, 183.

123. Paret, Clausewitz and the State, 341–342.

124. Harald Atmanspacher, “Quantum Approaches to Consciousness,” in The Stanford 

Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, Summer 2011, under “Mind and Matter as 

Dual Aspects” http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entries/qt-consciousness/ (accessed 2 

February 2012).

125. Alan Beyerchen, “Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Unpredictability of War,” International 

Security 17, (1 December 1992): 59–90.

126. David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, reissue (New York: Routledge, 2002), 

186.

127. Roger L. Martin, The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative 

Thinking, 1st ed. (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2007), 65.

128. Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 1st ed. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 

2011), 12–13.

129. Philip E. Tetlock, Expert Political Judgment (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 

2005), 214.

130. Thomas Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton 

University Press, 2010), 1–16.

131. “Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on Libya,” http://www.whitehouse.

gov/the-press-office/2011/03/28/remarks-president-address-nation-libya (accessed 3 February 

2012).

132. BBC, “Mali: Tuareg Rebellion Sparks Angry Protests in Bamako,” BBC News Africa Web 

site (London), http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16853692 (accessed 2 February 2012).

133. Peter Coleman, The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts,

1st ed. (New York: PublicAffairs, 2011), 138.

134. Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 

1980), 119–161.

135. Clausewitz, On War, 604.
65

Chapter 3 

Exploring Outside the Tropics of Clausewitz: Our Slavish Anchoring to an 

Archaic Metaphor 

by Christopher R. Paparone and William J. Davis, Jr.

We employ neo-institutional theory to investigate how Carl von Clausewitz’s physics metaphor “center of gravity” (from his book On War) has not only become a constraint to the 

individual and collective thinking and acting of the United States military as an organization; but, because of slavish adherence to using it as a central construct in the theoretical 

approach to operational warfare, it also has become detrimental to the further development of innovative concepts. We particularly subscribe to Walter W. Powell’s and Paul J. 

DiMaggio’s “iron cage” explanation of institutional isomorphism: how coercive, mimetic, 

and normative social pressures serve the Anglo-American analytic paradigm, reifying 

ways of theorizing about warfare. We conclude that: (1) Clausewitz’s center of gravity

metaphor has received too much attention inside the self-referencing, spiraling circle of 

military analysts who are determined to find or create operational definitions by displacing this dead metaphor;(2) Professional Military Education (PME) schools should design 

curricula more toward multi-perspective frames of reference, with accompanying seminarfacilitated critical inquiry, dialogue, spurred by multi-disciplinary readings; and, (3) PME 

should embrace the arguments and educational philosophy of “institutional reflexivity.” 

—Donald A. Schön 

When Carl von Clausewitz spoke to Center of Gravity he was using a metaphor 

available from the natural science of his day—namely physics. He used a wide array of other 

tropes throughout his text: friction, resistance, walking through water, suspended magnets, 

field of wheat, pruning trees, spheres, tributary streams and rivers, forces, boxing, levers, 

culmination, ends, means, to name a few. In his text, he was not attempting to scientificize 

his argument; rather, he was attempting to be imaginative in employing familiar terms 

to analogously describe otherwise inexplicable phenomena of war. Indeed, in Book Two, 

Chapter Two of On War, Clausewitz devoted a lot of attention to criticizing the idea of a 

positive science (a.k.a. doctrine) and he took pains to equivocate the meaning of war-intheory itself, resorting to Hegelian ideal types rather than to an objectivist epistemology 

Figure 1. COG Schooner.
66

and to the experimental methods of the physical sciences emerging in his day. Based in his 

obvious aversion to making war theory a Jominian mathematical science, his selection of 

the Center of Gravity metaphor seems not of isolatable value to the gestalt of his treatise. 

Using Center of Gravity, as with his many other metaphors, was a matter of his humanistic 

writing style and the literary imagery available to him in the contextual wake of the 

Napoleonic wars, not a precise use of terminology to prescribe an “objectively” definable 

phenomenon.

Many of today’s interpretations of Clausewitz’s figurative language in On War are 

biased by doctrinaires’ upbringing in (and subsequent predisposition to) a Western-style, 

modernist worldview that includes methods of targeteering, weaponeering, disambiguation, 

priorities of intelligence collection, and logics tied to assumptions of positive 

determinations of linear causality among clearly defined “operationalized” variables. 

Cognitive linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, refer to this underlying paradigm as 

the “Anglo-American analytic philosophy.”1

 Contrary to our interpretation of Clausewitz’s 

literary intent, modernist doctrinaires have attempted to define Center of Gravity as a 

“haro J” Jominian variable (e.g., the enemy’s Center of Gravity to be kinetically- and 

psychologically- targeted and one’s own to be protected).2

 In modernist military doctrine, 

the meaning of Center of Gravity has morphed to become the process of analyzing and 

operationalizing wartime objectives – one of the first analytic steps in synoptic planning.3

This concept morphology is indicative that today’s normative military science is anchored 

to positivistic philosophy and ignores potentially valuable alternative frames of reference.4

The growth and dominance of operations research, systems engineering sciences, and their 

scientific-management offspring, particularly in the tradition of British and US militaries, 

are primarily responsible for this unbridled, analytic approach to all aspects of military 

interventions.5

The Extensions, Displacements, and Limits of Metaphor

Lakoff and Johnson, as do others, contend that most human conceptualizations (i.e. 

theories for action) are “metaphorically structured:”6

We see metaphor as essential to human understanding and as a mechanism 

for creating new meaning and new realities in our lives. This puts us at 

odds with most of the Western philosophical tradition, which has seen 

metaphor as an agent of subjectivism and, therefore, as subversive of the 

quest for absolute truth.7

In other words, the concepts in our military knowledge community are rooted in 

borrowed meaning and those meanings are extended to better describe the otherwise 

perplexing phenomena at hand. This social-linguistic process may be referred to as concept 

extension and displacement – how words, over time, morph away from original meaning 

and are elaborated into new meaning(s).8

 There is generally a residual of analogical meaning 

between the old and extended meanings that may go unrecognized. 

Unless one becomes attuned to this morphological process, words can eventually 

become extended to the point the original meaning becomes removed from any connection 

to the now dead metaphor. Extensions continue, new constructions spin-off into other 
67

.

knowledge disciplines, and, all the while, those who share in extending these meanings 

may not recognize that the concept displacement process (that may take generations) is 

underway. 

Concept displacement theory demands that investigators trace meanings to root 

metaphors.9

 Assuming the translators’ accuracy, it is apparent that Carl von Clausewitz, in 

On War, derived his root metaphor from the physics of his day.10 To understand the root 

meaning, let us take a critical look at these physics models of Center of Gravity prepared 

by NASA , Figure 2:

These models reflect the important qualities as we explore what we refer to as the root 

meanings associated with Newtonian physics: (1) Center of Gravity is computed differently 

as we test the theory from uniform shapes to non-uniform shapes; (2) Center of Gravity 

involves measureable factors (location, mass, height, weight, radius, etc.) for analysis, 

uniquely characteristic to the object under consideration; (3) Specifically predicted by the 

calculus of force, mass, and acceleration, Center of Gravity implies objects can be made 

to tip over (i.e. there is a literal, single point of failure for an otherwise stable object). We 

imagine these qualities made the use of the physics metaphor very attractive to Clausewitz. 

In its correlation of meaning to Clausewitz’s intent (what we refer to as the true zone of 

analogy in Figure 2), the Center of Gravity metaphor likewise helped him to convey the Beginner’s Guide to Aerodynamics photo.

Figure 2. Various Computations of COG.
68

concepts of: (1) accounting for different kinds (shapes) of war; (2) incorporating analytic 

factors to deduce where the Center of Gravity is; and, (3) deducing that the strategy of 

war involves targeting the opponent’s Center of Gravity, for example, to topple its army, 

capitol, (indirect method) or regime (direct method).

As we attempt today to make sense of the meaning he extended from the root metaphor, 

we can easily fall into what we call a displaced zone of analogy through contemplating 

Clausewitz’s extended meanings (e.g., place of decisiveness, point of victory, possibility 

of having more than one, e.g., political with respect to military, Centers of Gravity) without 

expressly recognizing he was communicating figuratively, not scientifically.11 Today, 

discussions of the original meanings, tied to the Newtonian root metaphor, have seemed to 

all but disappear from the texts of the military community of theorists; Figure 3. 

We find little evidence in recent mainstream institutional dialogue that recognizes 

Clausewitz’s true zone of analogy; hence, we are now faced with an unending morass 

of further meaning displacement. In the arguments among institutional theorists, there is 

unawareness that Center of Gravity is a dead metaphor. 

Institutional Reflexivity

For those who remain unreflexive, displaced physics metaphors may leave the 

impression that one can create an objective view of reality in war – in the present case, the 

belief that Center of Gravity analysis is a tangible variable in war. However, recognizing that 

the displaced concepts become objectified by the institution, they may be better studied as 

reifications.12 As we seek to resurrect the origins of meaning and the ensuing morphology, 

this exposure and exploration of root meanings can help emancipate theorists away from 

habituated linguistic constraints; hence, leading to more reflexive research questions, such 

as: 13

1. Lack of Interdisciplinary Awareness. If this is an effective analytic tool, why 

haven’t other disciplines, such as civilian public- and business- administration 

Figure 3. Without Reflection-Metaphoric Displacement of Meanings.
69

.

fields mimicked the term center of gravity as a “benchmark” or “best practice” 

(as they did strategy)?

2. Operationalizing Jargon. Why did doctrinaires attempt to more deeply 

institutionalize the concept of center of gravity as a systems analysis tool in 

recent (2011) edition of Joint Publication 5-0, Joint Operation Planning, when 

the term was hardly a central concept in past and present capstone publications, 

such as the 2011 version of Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations?

3. Locus of Attention. Why was the root physics metaphor, center of gravity, 

selected from Clausewitz’s text as the principal trope for this book when there 

are hundreds of others?

4. Institutional Disenthrallment. What alternative sources of metaphor (other than 

the traditional physical sciences) may extend into new, imaginative theories of 

war?

We remain speculative as we address these.

Lack of Interdisciplinary Awareness 

Institutional theorists postulate that there are at least three ways isomorphism unfolds 

in-and across-disciplines of study (please pause to note that “isomorphism” is a metaphor 

borrowed from the science of biological mimicry in ecosystems!). 14 The first kind is 

normative isomorphism (how institutions become insular and spirally self-referential), for 

example, as the Army profession sought to re-legitimize their post-Vietnam War societal 

position by advocating “active defense” doctrine.15 The second, coercive isomorphism 

occurs when those at the top of a hierarchical organization decide and direct to adopt what 

they perceive to be legitimate theories for practice (often called “benchmarking” or searches 

for “best practices” in pop management literature). For example, when General Martin E. 

Dempsey commanded US Army Training and Doctrine Command, he reportedly became 

enamored with the teleology portrayed in book The Starfish and the Spider (note the use of 

metaphors!) that was then a popular seller. He directed its theories be adopted doctrinally 

by the US Army (e.g., the concept of “mission command”). Now, from his authoritative 

position as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dempsey is directing the adoption 

of the book’s extended logics-for-action into joint doctrine and futures concepts.16

The third type is mimetic isomorphism which attempts to account for institutional 

members who begin to search outside their otherwise normative paradigm for alterative 

frames of reference, especially when there is a perceived crisis of insider knowledge.17

In the case of the Center of Gravity, we queried the number of “hits” in Boolean searches 

using the online data base, EBSCO.18 Since 1994 this phrase was present in texts from of: 

Harvard Business Review (HBR, 21 hits), Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ, 3 hits) 

and California Management Review (CMR, 6), and Military Review (MR, 132 hits). We 

can compare these data with number of hits from the same journals that contained the key 

word strategy in the text (HBR – 2,891 hits; ASQ – 637 hits; CMR – 546 hits; and MR – 

1,371 hits). 
70

From eyeballing these data, Center of Gravity appears to have experienced relatively 

weak mimetic isomorphism insofar as other disciplines find little value in the concept; 

albeit, evidently it has become a shibboleth for military analysts. We speculate insider 

attribution to its importance to be more a mixture of the coercive- and normative- types of 

institutional isomorphism.19 The writings and professional debates reflect both compliance 

with an “authoritative” signing of the concept into official US joint doctrine and an 

institutionally-normalized affinity for positivist doctrine. In contrast, business- and publicadministration disciplines have for decades extended the metaphor of the otherwise military 

proprietary meaning of strategy of strategy and we now have interdisciplinary mimicry 

associated with top-management teams in a variety of organizational settings employing 

their versions of strategic management.

20 One of the present authors attempted to explain 

in a previous study:

...the idea of “strategy” began with a literal meaning–reflecting the rather 

romantic image of an ancient Greek general standing on a hill overlooking the field of battle, able to see and send orders to the sub-strata below 

in order to maneuver his forces to a positional advantage. Over the centuries, the physical idea has been extended and displaced conceptually to 

the point strategy has become, in an elaborated rationalist abstraction, a 

general theory of relative advantage to achieve a desired end. Indeed, the 

idea migrated across many nonmilitary realms, to include sports (ends: 

winning the season), management (ends: best use of resources), business 

(ends: high profits), leadership (ends: influenced behavior), politics (ends: 

winning power through elections and re-elections), and so forth.21

The concept of strategy has been elaborated into an apparent full-fledged theory of 

social action as those in the other fields perceive it to be worth mimicking in their own 

extensions. One conclusion is that strategy has romantic appeal to others who are enamored 

with the stories of heroic generalship that can be mimicked by CEOs, professional football 

coaches, etc.22 Center of Gravity, apparently, has not enough “sex appeal” or is perhaps 

too flawed a concept to attract such mimetic processes; in other words, Center of Gravity 

remains stilted, unidisciplinary, and relationally unattractive to the extra-disciplines of 

social science. 

Operationalizing Jargon

So why does the institution attempt to operationalize what is arguably a dead metaphor? 

Again, institutional theorists postulate this also occurs through normative processes of 

isomorphism. The more ambiguous and uncertain the environment seems to the profession 

of arms, the more likely that the institution will succumb to social-psychological pressures 

to prove their societal worth with revised esoteric knowledge or new goals, theories, 

technologies, doctrines, and so forth. The perceived failures of applied knowledge by a 

community of military theorists, for example, as those applied experiences in the wake 

of the US involvements in Vietnam and more recently in the weak results in Iraq and 

Afghanistan-Pakistan, lead to existential searches for technically reliable and externally 

valid logics-for-action that serve as social-psychological justification for institutional 
71

.

existence. Ultimately, the community is motivated by the prospect of renewed trust and 

autonomy and respect given by their service to a modern society that continues to perceive 

a “professional” institution apply its technical knowledge-in-action. Donald A. Schön 

interprets this as a tenacious although fallacious dedication to “technical rationality” which 

he characterizes as a “crisis of professions” and the loss of an often-undervalued aspect to 

professions—artistry.23

We speculate that Center of Gravity theorists have been motivated to pursue more 

definitional vigor in the ideological tradition of the Anglo-American analytic paradigm. 

This philosophy was particularly personified by Air Force planner, Colonel Jack Ward 

(mentioned in Kurt VanderSteen’s chapter of this book), and the highly-vaunted “successes” 

of the air campaigns of operations Desert Storm (against Iraq) and Allied Force (against 

Serbia). Also contributing may be the interest in “effects-based operations” (EBO) in the 

US Air Force community of targeteers, epitomized by authors such as Edward C. Mann, 

Gary Endersby, and Thomas R. Searle.24 Here, Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s General Systems 

Theory (GST is an offspring of the early twentieth century logical-positivist movement) 

serves as a key frame of reference.25 Similar GST frameworks for military operations 

have also sprung such theories as Operations Research and Systems Analysis (ORSA) and 

Systemic Operational Design (SOD), the latter developed more recently by Shimon Naveh 

and others.

26 GST, ORSA, and SOD are Western cultural manifestations of the AngloAmerican analytic paradigm.27

Locus of Attention

One explanation for why the other contributors to this book (and their forerunners 

indicated by all of the citations brought to bear) spend so much time extending the 

Clausewitzian trope is that they arguably reflect a culture that is biased toward the ontology 

of objectivism, the epistemology of progressivism, and the methods compliant with logical 

positivism.28 In other words, the compulsion for a viable, esoteric body of knowledge is 

an example of normative isomorphism, manifested as the ideology of Anglo-American 

analyses (i.e. that war can be broken down into analyzable variables or components). 

In a similar social constructionist argument, science historian Thomas S. Kuhn 

characterizes this normative process as evidence of a “paradigm,” which he describes as 

“the entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by members of a 

given community.”29 Kuhn furthermore characterizes objectivism as a mythology in that 

“theories [are] simply man-made interpretations of given data....”30 In other words, as we 

rely on language and other forms of human-created symbols, there can be no neutrality in 

their meanings; hence, ideology (arguably the lowest form of philosophy) is at work. Kuhn 

criticizes progressivism as “a persistent tendency to make history of science look linear and 

cumulative, a tendency that even affects scientists looking back at their own research.”31

In other words, a community (in some cases referred to as an institution or profession) 

becomes unreflexive or self-referencing. Insofar as positivistic methods of finding causal 

relationships, Kuhn argues there is no “external standard” of being positive in our methods 

as we are all limited by the distortions of human perception and technologically-extended 

sensors.
72

 We argue there can be measures of insularity, indicating a community of theorists can 

be stuck in a paradigm. We note that out of almost 600 citations in the other six chapters 

of this book, more than half were insular to the community of military theorists – field 

manuals, joint publications, or military papers (articles from Military Review, Defense 

Department-published monographs, etc). Another fifth of the citations were attributable 

to various interpretations of Clausewitz’s metaphoric extensions by others in the Defense 

community (such as studies by the RAND Corporation). An indeterminable number of 

others were written in political science and international relations communities by retired 

officers or those employed by national security think tanks. What these data suggest is 

that the community of military theorists sees Center of Gravity as an important locus of 

attention, yet the displacement goes unrecognized, suggesting blinkeredness and a lack of 

institutional reflexivity. 

Institutional Disenthrallment

Institutional reflexivity demands a wider attention to the richer availability (such as 

through today’s electronic media) and variety (multidisciplinary studies) of metaphors 

today, as compared to the early 1800s when Clausewitz wrote his treatise. Military theorists 

should not be anchored to Center of Gravity—a concept that should seem as archaic to 

today’s security environment professionals as Newton’s assertion of the law of gravity 

might be to physicists who subscribe to theories of quantum physics.32 Disenthrallment 

requires admission of the subjectivity of extending and displacing outdated metaphors 

as habituated grounds for theory. The military community should capitalize on the 

emancipatory prospects of employing multiple frames on war.33 In his seminal work, 

social-philosopher Karl Mannheim puts it this way:

...it is precisely the multiplicity of the conceptions of reality which produces the multiplicity of our modes of thought, and that every ontological 

judgment that we make leads inevitably to far-reaching consequences.... 

[W]e begin to suspect that each group seems to move in a separate and 

distinct world of ideas and that these different systems of thought, which 

are often in conflict with one another, may in the last analysis be reduced 

to different modes of experiencing the ‘same’ reality.34

Mannheim later demonstrates the value of metaphoric imagery in his “moving 

staircase” metaphor to describe the unreliability and invalidity of single points of view:

To use a simple analogy, what happens is that in our empirical investigations to become aware of the fact that we are observing the world from a 

moving staircase, from a dynamic platform, and, therefore, the image of 

the world changes with the changing frames of reference which various 

cultures create. On the other hand, [traditional] epistemology still only 

knows a static platform where one doesn’t become aware of the possibility 

of various perspectives and, from this angle, it tries to deny the existence 

and the right of such dynamic thinking.... Instead of perspectivism, the out 

of date epistemology must set up a veto against the emerging new insights, 

according to which man can only see the world in perspective, and there is 
73

.

no view which is absolute in the sense that it represents the thing in itself 

beyond perspective.35

For example, the “new sciences” of chaoplexity36 (chaos theory and complexity 

science) may provide a plethora of new root metaphors associated with more promising 

qualities, ripe for imaginative extensions into military frames of reference: 

1. Self-organizing networks/complex adaptive systems;

2. Spontaneous emergence/swarm theory;

3. Bifurcations/Butterfly effects; and,

4. Fractals/novel patterns.37

Antoine Bousquet projects how the chaoplexity metaphor is already affecting military 

theorists and concept writers who are not anchored to Newtonian metaphors such as Center 

of Gravity:

Drawing further from the writings of complexity theorists and deploying biological metaphors, military theorists appeal to the ‘swarm’, the 

networks of distributed intelligence that enable bees, ants and termites to 

evolve complex forms of collective behavior on the basis of the simple 

rules of interaction of their individual members. Of particular interest are 

the resilience and flexibility of these swarms as amorphous ensembles 

whose continued existence and successful operation is not critically dependent on any single individual. Military swarms promise not only more 

adaptable and survivable forces but also new offensive and defensive tactics better suited to the contemporary battlespace.38

Other sources of sensemaking about war and other sorts of military intervention 

may emanate from the humanities and fine arts including: dance, painting, sculpting, 

literature, poetry, theatrical comedy, science fiction movies, sports casting, war stories (to 

include the plethora war historiographies, novels and movies), and music. For example, 

the orchestra metaphor may be used to describe the military leader’s role as conductor 

of military operations where his subordinates play from the “same sheets of music” (the 

operations plan). One could compare this “theory of leadership” to one that describes it 

more as improvisational jazz, where each member may lead in-the-flow (suggesting an 

Auftragstaktik image where who takes initiative depends on the situation).39 There is also 

evidence of the appearance of postmodern influence in theories of the related discipline of 

international relations (IR), originating from the roots of critical- and interpretive- arts. For 

example, the following is an extract from an IR theorist who employs the postmodern logic 

of social construction theory:

Take first the [European Community] EC, in which the process of unbundling territoriality has gone further than anywhere else. Neorealism 

ascribes its origins to strategic bipolarity; microeconomic institutionalism 

examines how the national interests and policy preferences of the major 
74

European states are reflected in patterns of EC collaboration; and neofunctionalism anticipated the emergence of a supranational statism. Each 

contains a partial truth. From the vantage of the present analysis, however, 

a very different attribute of the EC comes into view: it may constitute the 

first “multiperspectival polity” to emerge since the advent of the modern 

era. That is to say, it is increasingly difficult to visualize the conduct of 

international politics among community members, and to a considerable 

measure even domestic politics, as though it took place from a starting 

point of twelve separate, single, fixed viewpoints. Nor can models of strategic interaction do justice to this particular feature of the EC, since the 

collectivity of members as a singularity, in addition to the central institutional apparatus of the EC, has become party to the strategic interaction 

game. To put it differently, the constitutive processes whereby each of the 

twelve defines its own identity-and identities are logically prior to preferences-increasingly endogenize the existence of the other eleven.40

Note the author does not reject other paradigms, but critiques them for their limitations 

and suggests a multiple perspective approach (as we have tried to advocate for the military 

science community in this chapter).

Conclusion–How Would Clausewitz Write Today?

It is our position that Clausewitz’s Center of Gravity metaphor has received too much 

attention inside the self-referencing, spiraling circle of military analysts who are determined 

to find or create operational definitions by displacing this dead metaphor. GST-wedded 

doctrinaires have become unreflective about institutional assumptions of objectivism, 

progressivism, and positivism that reflect the Anglo-American analytic models of warfare 

(that include ORSA, EBO and SOD). As a community of military theorists, it is time 

to disenthrall the institution from such singular and overextended metaphors and stay 

opportunistically tuned to alternative heuristics available, develop a multitude of theories 

for action from more than a single paradigm, and practice reflexively. 

This prospect should give us pause to consider the social-psychological entrapments 

that the analytic paradigm may entail and give rise to Professional Military Education 

(PME) to reorient on more liberating and artistic opportunities for theory development, 

to include: meta-paradigmatic philosophy;41 the sociology of knowledge and social 

construction theory;42 the Trivium of the liberal arts;43 linguistics and the study of tropes;44

postmodernism;45 and, interpretive inquiry,46 among others. PME schools should also 

design curricula away from doctrinal manuals tied strictly to the rational-analytic models 

and more toward multi-perspective frames of reference, with accompanying seminarfacilitated critical inquiry, dialogue, spurred by multi-disciplinary readings.47

Finally, to navigate away from the pursuit of technical rationality, PME institutions 

should embrace the arguments and educational philosophy of institutional reflexivity 

based in the works of Donald A. Schön. Schön calls for refocusing professional education 

toward artistry and a more open philosophical ideal of “reflective practice” – unmoored 

from institutional dogma or objectified knowledge structures. The community of military 
.

75

theoreticians should raise anchors and permit dead metaphors, such as Center of Gravity, 

to sink, while setting sail for the explorations ahead.
76

Notes

1. Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago 

Press, 1980), 196.

2. Clausewitz warned us that there can be no positive doctrine of war (like that pursued 

in the natural sciences), recognizing the paradoxes (e.g., once you think you find a rule, the 

“genius” breaks it and wins). He does surmise that a positive doctrine may be possible in 

tactics. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter 

Paret (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 140 and 152, respectively.

3. Another name for the Anglo-American analytic philosophy is the “Rational Actor 

Model,” explained as making “optimal choices in narrowly constrained, neatly defined 

situations”—one of three frames for exploring alternative meanings for US actions during 

the Cuban Missile Crisis. Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: 

Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (2d ed.) (New York: Longman, 1999), 17. See Nancy 

Roberts, “The Synoptic Model of Strategic Planning and the GPRA: Lacking a Good Fit 

with the Political Context,” Public Productivity and Management Review 23, No. 3 (2000): 

297-311. Synoptic planning is described by Roberts as “integrated comprehensiveness 

...a conscious effort launched by top management to integrate decisions that compose the 

overall strategy to ensure that plans are consciously developed, mutually reinforcing, and 

integrated into a whole” (299). 

4. Gibson Burrell and Gareth Morgan, Sociological Paradigms and Organisational 

Analysis: Element of the Sociology of Corporate Life (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1979). Also 

known as logical positivism, the latter a term coined by a multidisciplinary conference of 

scientists convened in the 1920s, nicknamed the Vienna Circle. Positivists “seek to explain 

and predict what happens in the social world by searching for regularities and causal 

relationships between its constituent elements. Positivist epistemology is in essence based 

upon the traditional approaches which dominate the natural sciences” (5). This worldview 

spawned theories of operationalism, microeconomics, and behaviorism that dominate 

military science today.

5. It is interesting to examine the history of operations research and systems analysis and 

its institutionalization in the US Army. For example, see Charles R. Shrader, The History 

of Operations Research in the United States Army, Volume I: 1942-62; Volume II: 1961-

1973; Volume III: 1973-1995 (Washington DC: Office of the Deputy Undersecretary of the 

Army for Operations Research, 2006, 2008, 2009). For a critique on the use of analytical 

models in conducting the US-Vietnam War, see Julian J. Ewell and Ira A. Hunt, Sharpening 

the Combat Edge: The Use of Analysis to Reinforce Military Judgment, (Washington DC: 

US Army Center for Military History, 1974). An artifact of Anglo-American analytic 

paradigm is modern military training–based in a geared to replication and mass production 

of standardized operant behaviors wherein the determination and approval of meanings 

for action (e.g., the pre-engineered tasks and standards for training) are to be left to those 

positioned in the upper-tiers of the bureaucracy (e.g., those occupying offices authorized 

sign official documents of doctrine, policy, or rules of departmental administration).

6. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 56. The list of others who have 

stressed the study of metaphor and concepts/theories is long. Here are a just few: Hayden 

White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 

1978); Gareth Morgan, Images of Organization (updated edition) (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 
.

77

2006); and, Antoine Bousquet, The Scientific Way of Warfare: Order and Chaos on the 

Battlefields of Modernity (New York: Columbia University, 2009).

7. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 196. 

8. This is the thesis of Donald A. Schön, Displacement of Concepts (London: Butler & 

Tanner, 1963).

9. Donald A. Schön and Martin Rein, Frame Reflection: Toward the Resolution of 

Intractable Policy Controversies (New York: Basic Books, 1994).

10. The original term in German is Schwerpunkt, literally “heavy point.” However, we 

yield to the more expert interpretation and translation of Clausewitz’s On War by Michael 

Howard and Peter Paret. 

11. Examples of extended meanings are found on pages 487, 596, 617 of Clausewitz, 

On War.

12. In the social sciences, there are several concepts and theories for this objectificationof-meaning process: reification, institutionalization, worldview, habituation, sedimentation, 

hypostatization, concretization, self-fulfilling prophecy, competency trap, enculturation, 

indoctrination, single-loop learning, ideology, and so forth. Rationality involves objectifying 

reality—we even call our goals “objectives!” See Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, 

The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: 

Anchor, 1967).

13. Mary Douglas, How Institutions Think (New York: Syracuse University, 1986), 3.

14. Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell, “The Iron cage Revisited, Institutional 

Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields,” pp. 41-62, in Paul 

J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell (Eds.), The New Institutionalism in Organizational 

Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1991), 67.

15. John L. Romjue, From Active Defense to AirLand Battle: The Development of Army 

Doctrine 1973-1982 (Fort Monroe: TRADOC, 1984). Outsiders, such as Colin S. Gray and 

US Senator Gary Hart, took notice, 13.

16. Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable 

Power of Leaderless Organizations (New York: Penguin Group, 2006). See Jena McGregor, 

“What Gen. Martin Dempsey, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Thinks about Leadership,” 

Washington Post Blog (21 Oct 11) accessed 27 Apr 12 at http://www.washingtonpost.

com/blogs/post-leadership/post/what-gen-martin-dempsey-joint-chiefs-of-staff-chairmanthinks-about-leadership/2011/04/01/gIQAFYyt3L_blog.html.

17. DiMaggio and Powell, “The Iron Cage Revisited,” 67. Normative- and mimetictype isomorphic processes arguably occurred after the United States pulled out of South 

Vietnam. For a historic case in the US Army, see Romjue, From Active Defense to AirLand 

Battle where he speaks to the search for new ideas began with the Israeli Defense Force 

successful practices in their 1973 war, 3.

18. EBSCO is an acronym from the founder of the Company, Elton B. Stephens. We 

chose these as exemplars of conceptual-based bodies of peer-reviewed literature that have 

been published consistently over a reasonably long period (HBR data were available from 

1922-present; ASQ data were available from 1956-present; CMR data were available from 

1958-present; MR data were available from 1994-present. Therefore, all data calls were 

from 1994-present).

19. We also searched The Journal of Military History where data were available since 

its inception in 1937. In more than 70 years, we found center of gravity in 46 hits in the 

EBSCO data base. Compare this to 4,293 hits for strategy. This may indicate COG is 

more of a “buzzword,” that is, and we speculate here, the rise in interest associated with 
78

“center of gravity” is influenced by when it became more of a coercive, doctrinal process 

of “joint preparation of the operational environment”—a process reminiscent of the Jack 

Warden-inspired systems analysis for targeting in Operation Desert Storm. It could well be 

that with the phrase center of gravity, the normative source of jargon (a.k.a. “groupthink,” 

“catchall” or the “bandwagon effect”) is at work in the military community. See C. Marlene 

Fiol and Edward J. O’Connor, “Waking up! Mindfulness in the Face of Bandwagons,” The 

Academy of Management Review, 28, No. 1 (2003), 54-70, where these authors conclude 

“that mindfulness [of the bandwagon effect] leads to expanded scanning, which, in turn, 

leads to more context-relevant interpretations and more discriminating decision behavior. 

The resulting success [of staying on the bandwagon], if left unchecked, will tend to lead to 

overconfidence and less subsequent mindfulness,” 68.

20. A business example would include H. Igor Ansoff, Corporate Strategy (New York: 

McGraw-Hill, 1965) and a public administration correlate would be John M. Bryson, 

Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 

1988), now in its fourth edition.

21. Chris Paparone, The Sociology of Strategy: Romancing the Image. Unpublished 

study, Feb 12, part of a “Consortium Research Fellows Program (CRFP) as part of work 

package 405 (Strategic Thinking for Command) in support of the Fort Leavenworth 

Research Unit of the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences 

(ARI). 

22. The number of popular business books on best seller lists that call upon heroic 

stories of military strategy and leadership are numerous. 

23. See his two part treatise: Donald A. Schön, The Reflective Practitioner: How 

Professionals Think in Action (New York: BasicBooks, 1983); and, Educating the Reflective 

Practitioner (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987).

24. Edward C. Mann, Gary Endersby, and Thomas R. Searle, Thinking Effects-Based 

Methodology for Joint Operations (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University, 2002).

25. Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General Systems Theory: Foundations, Development, 

and Applications (New York: Braziller, 1968). 

26. For example, Shimon Naveh, “Operational Art, Operational Command, Systemic 

Operational Design: Transforming the Triad, Extending the Potential.” slide presentation 

January 2007, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: School of Advanced Military Studies. 

27. This overarch in paradigm has also been referred to as functionalism in Burrell and 

Morgan, Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis.

28. In philosophy, critical examination of ontology would question the assumptions 

of “human being” and “being human,” along a subjective ßà objective continuum and is 

associated with the question what is real or appears to be real? Critiques of epistemology

would question truth-of-knowledge coherency (e.g., simplified ßà complexified) associated 

with grounds for communicating it to be real or appear to be real. Critical aspects of 

methodology would include deconstruction of research traditions and associated processes 

of investigation and assimilation that are assumed to legitimize knowledge as positive 

(nomothetic) ßà interpretable (humanistic). 

29. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (3rd ed.) (Chicago: 

University of Chicago, 1996), 175.

30. Kuhn, 126.

31. Kuhn, 139.

32. One of the present authors developed a framework to evaluate the many sources 

of metaphor in a previous essay: Christopher R. Paparone, “Reflections on Metaphors We 
.

79

are Led By,” Military Review (Nov-Dec 2008): 55-64. The three categorical sources of 

metaphor presented are: the humanities and fine arts; the Newtonian sciences (mentioned 

sufficiently above as the source of “COG”), and post-Newtonian sciences. The “mixing 

bowl” of imaginative theory-building, then, comes from the improvisational extension of 

meanings from all three of the sources (“sensemaking”). 

33. This is the principal thesis of Morgan’s Images of Organization and the postmodern 

resurgence of “design philosophy.”

34. Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction the Sociology of Knowledge, 

translated by Louis Wirth and Edward Shils (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1936), 

99. 

35. Karl Mannheim in his April 15, 1946 personal correspondence with Kurt H. Wolff 

published in an edited work: Wolff, Kurt H. (1959). “The Sociology of Knowledge and 

Sociological Theory” (567–602) in Llewellyn Gross (Ed.), Symposium on Sociological 

Theory. New York: Harper and Row, 1959). 

36. A neologism and portmanteau suggested by John Horgan, The End of Science: 

Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age (Reading: AddisonWesley, 1996), 191.

37. As mentioned in Bousquet, The Scientific Way of Warfare, 163-183.

38. Antoine Bousquet, “Chaoplexic Warfare or the Future of Military Organization,” 

International Affairs 84, No. 5 (2008), 928.

39. We got this idea from Karl E. Weick, “Improvisation as a Mindset for Organizational 

Analysis.” Organization Science 9 (1998): 543-555. 

40. John G. Ruggie, Territoriality and Beyond: “Problemetizing Modernity in 

International Relations,” International Organization 47, No. 1 (1993): 139-174.

41. For examples, see Nicholas Rescher, Philosophical Reasoning: A Study in the 

Methodology of Philosophizing (Malden: Blackwell, 2001) and Stephen C. Pepper, World 

Hypotheses: Prolegomena to Systematic Philosophy and a Complete Survey of Metaphysics

(Berkeley: University of California, 1966) (original published in 1942). In the latter, Pepper 

calls this idea “multiplicative collaboration” (p. 320) or “postrational eclecticism,” 333.

42. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia; Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; 

Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality; and so forth.

43. For example, Miriam Joseph, The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, 

and Rhetoric (Philadelphia: Paul Dry, 1937).

44. Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore: 

Johns Hopkins, 1978); Herbert Blumer, Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method

(Berkeley: University of California, 1969); and so forth.

45. Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, 

Translated by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of 

Minnesota, 1984); and so forth. 

46. Such as Paul Ricœur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning

(Fort Worth: Texas Christian University, 1976).

47. There are many authors that provide multiple frames for practice, for examples: 

Keith Grint, (Ed.), Leadership: Classical, Contemporary, and Critical Approaches 

(Oxford: Oxford Press, 1997); Mary Jo Hatch, Organization Theory: Modern, Symbolic, 

and Postmodern Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University, 1997); Henry Mintzberg, 

Mintzberg on Management: Inside Our Strange World of Organizations (New York: Free 

Press, 1989); and so forth. 
80

Figures 

Figure 2. “Center of Gravity - cg,” Beginner’s Guide to Aerodynamics, Benson, Tom; http://

www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/cg.html, CGSC Copyright Registration Number: 12-1072 

C/E.
81

Chapter 4 

Center of Gravity Analysis—the Black Hole of Army Doctrine 

by Stephen L. Melton

Twenty five years after the 1986 version of FM 100-5, Operations, introduced the 

term “center of gravity” into official Army parlance and made the concept the premier 

consideration in Army operational doctrine, debates still rage among commanders, staffs, 

doctrine writers, and military school faculty and students regarding the term’s meaning 

and practical significance. No other modern doctrinal concept has cramped as many brains, 

unleashed as many rivers of ink, knotted as many tongues, and evoked as many thousandyard stares as has the “center of gravity.” Complicating the conversation is the ever shifting 

definitions and explanations of center of gravity (COG) promulgated in the Army’s ever 

changing, yet authoritative, doctrinal manuals. Worse, as Antulio J. Echevarria II noted in 

2002, our doctrinal definition of COG as the “source” of power is based on Howard and 

Peret’s 1976 mistranslation of the German word “Schwerpunkt” in Clausewitz’ original 

text, making it awkward for modern American military practitioners to accurately link 

the doctrinal expression back to any philosophical basis or historical usage.1

 But in this 

short chapter I will not argue that we should abandon the COG concept merely to put 

an end to a quarter century of confusion. Rather, I will attempt to demonstrate that COG 

should be demoted from its current perch atop the doctrinal hierarchy and be made just one 

of many elective considerations in operational design—sometimes useful, but sometimes 

not. COG is a reductionist tool that simply cannot be used to accurately summarize all 

belligerent systems; nor is COG always a powerful construct for envisioning the ways and 

means of modern military contests. As a concept, COG becomes less relevant the further 

warfare evolves away from the monarchical warfare system that Clausewitz analyzed. 

Furthermore, COG is unlikely to be helpful in the military contests that will attend the 

geopolitical struggles of the 21st Century. 

In terms of organization, this essay will first explore the Clausewitzian world of 

monarchical warfare and why the Prussians, given their position in that system, solved their 

military problem by advocating decisive battles between COGs. Next we will discuss why 

our military leaders of the 1980s embraced Clausewitz’ long-forgotten COG hypothesis 

as the solution to their defensive conundrum in Europe’s Central Front and discuss the 

mutations of the COG concept in post-Cold War Army doctrine. We will then explore the 

validity of the Clausewitzian COG hypothesis in American military’s historical experience, 

to test how the reality conforms, or mainly fails to conform, with Clausewitz’ predictions. 

Then I will offer a systems description of warfare large enough to accommodate asymmetric 

struggle—something outside of Clausewitz’ relevant framework—and provide a list of 

considerations that could be more useful for assessing and planning modern struggles 

with military components. Penultimately, we will delve into Chinese perceptions of 21st 

Century warfare to determine whether COG is in any way a relevant consideration in our 

likely military contests with this emerging geopolitical rival. Finally, I will conclude with 

recommendations to improve joint and Army COG doctrine.
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Clausewitz’ COG-Theory and Practice

Clausewitz was fairly clear as he wrote about the COG (Schwerpunkt in the original 

German, literally “heavy point,” also commonly translated as “main point” or “focal point.”). 

Clausewitz consistently envisioned the COG in an astronomical sense, as the heaviest or 

weightiest part of a combatant force, through which the strength of the combatant force was 

connected and balanced gravitationally. Take away the COG and the enemy constellation 

of forces loses its cohesion and flies apart (indeed, Clausewitz developed his theory after 

listening to a series of physics lectures at the University of Berlin).2 To determine the true 

COG, Clausewitz advises that the “first principle is: To trace the full weight (Gewicht) of 

the enemy’s force (Macht) to as few centers of gravity [Schwerpunkte] as possible, when 

feasible, to one...”3

 Nor was Clausewitz shy in describing where the COG could be found 

throughout the gamut of geopolitical situations; 

Alexander the Great, Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII of Sweden, and 

Frederick the Great each had their centers of gravity in their respective 

armies. Had their armies been destroyed, these men would have been remembered as failures. In states with many factions vying for power, the 

center of gravity lies mainly in the capital; in small states supported by a 

more powerful one, it lies in the army of the stronger state; in alliances, it 

lies in the unity formed by common interests; in popular uprisings, it lies 

in the persons of the principal leaders and in public opinion.4

King, army, capital, alliance—these are the hubs and spokes of the theory. Not given 

to analytical disaggregation, Clausewitz declares that, the “center of gravity of France lies 

in the armed forces and in Paris” and offers no further explanation, apparently feeling the 

conclusion to be trivial and self evident.5

 Divining the COG was seemingly a formulaic, 

almost linear problem; defeating the enemy COG was the only true act of genius. 

Clausewitz advocated attacking the enemy COG with all available force at the earliest 

possible moment, seeking decision in the largest single battle or campaign that could be 

operationally arranged;

Just as the [physical] center of gravity is always found where the mass 

is most concentrated, and just as every blow directed against the body’s 

center of gravity yields the greatest effect, and—more to the point—the 

strongest blow is the one delivered by the center of gravity, the same is 

true in war.6

The Clausewitzian ideal is to attack the enemy COG directly with one’s own COG as soon 

as practicable.

The attack on these [enemy] sources [Schwerpunkte—COGs—in the original German text] must be compressed into the fewest possible actions—

again, ideally, into one. Finally all minor actions must be subordinated as 

much as possible. In short, the first principle is: act with utmost concentration. The second principle is: act with the utmost speed. No halt or detour 

must be permitted without good cause.7
83

Clausewitz strongly believed that only major battles were worth fighting:

Our conviction that only a great battle can produce a major decision is 

founded not on an abstract theory of warfare alone, but also on experience. 

Since time began, only great victories have paved the way for great results; certainly for the attacking side, and to some degree for the defense.8

The decision that is brought about by a battle partly depends on the battle 

itself—its scale, and the size of the forces involved—and partly on the 

magnitude of success.9

The centerpiece of Clausewitz’ theoretical construct, as the previous paragraph 

suggests, is not the COG, but the decision; battles between COGs are mere instruments 

through which militaries deliver decisions, the sought after political outcome, to their 

heads of state. However, in Clausewitz’ universe of monarchical warfare, however violent 

the climactic battle of the military COGs might become, the range of decisive outcomes 

their political masters would seek was generally be very limited indeed. The monarchs 

of Europe were, after all, intermarried, mutually supporting, and largely agreeable to 

playing the same game by the same rules. They understood that all warfare would seek 

only limited objectives—the capture of a border province, the restructuring of an alliance, 

the sanctioning or disapproval of a proposed royal marriage, or the seizure of colonies or 

spheres of influence. The monarchical geopolitical landscape that characterized Clausewitz’ 

time disallowed any thought that any of the royal houses would exterminate one of the 

others or that any of the major powers would militarily dismantle one of the other great 

powers. War, if brutal, was not yet total. The term “unconditional surrender” was not yet 

part of the human lexicon; monarchs would offer each other acceptable terms that would 

allow their continued reigns. In this context of monarchs seeking advantage, not finality, 

Clausewitz wrote his famous dictum:

War is simply a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of 

other means. We deliberately use the phrase ‘with the addition of other 

means’ because we also want to make clear that the war itself does not 

suspend political intercourse or change it into something entirely different. In essentials (sic) that intercourse continues, irrespective of the means 

it employs. The main lines along which military events progress, and to 

which they are restricted, are political lines that continue throughout the 

war into the subsequent peace. How could it be otherwise? Do political 

relations between peoples and their governments stop when diplomatic 

notes are no longer exchanged?10

Further, Clausewitz assumed that “in war the result is never final.”11 The defeated king 

would often agree to terms only as a “transitory evil” and find means to redress his losses 

by forming new alliances and raising new armies, preparing for yet another round in a 

never ending political and military contest among brother monarchs.

Though Clausewitz claimed his theory, derived as it was from scientific principles, 

applied to all the European wars he studied, his synthesis—offensive war, COG attacking 
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COG, quick decision—was a uniquely Prussian formulation that, Clausewitz believed, 

solved his county’s military-strategic problem. Prussia was, after all, a small and ambitious 

country, an aspiring and developing power surrounded by the far larger established powers 

of Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, namely Britain, France, Austria, and Russia. 

Prussia could not expand to achieve its imperial dreams of German unification on the 

defensive; offensive expansion was the only route forward. Neither could Prussia afford 

protracted wars nor attrition wars with her neighbors, all of which, given the fullness of 

time, could mobilize far more numerous and powerful armies than could Prussia, thereby 

bending the calculus of war to their favor. Moreover, Prussia’s central position worked 

to her disadvantage in long wars, since concentrating all strength against one foe on one 

frontier would only invite the adventures of the other great powers against her exposed and 

indefensible other fronts. Consequently, Prussian statecraft consisted mainly of preventing 

alliances between the surrounding great powers. Decisive offensive wars, quickly fought 

in single battles or short campaigns against the surrounding powers, one by one, were the 

best way that Prussia could capitalize on its operational excellence and superior reserve 

system to impose the political outcomes needed to achieve her expansionary strategic aims. 

In practice Clausewitz’ theory survived his death in 1831 and proved remarkably 

effective in unifying Germany under Prussian domination and temporarily settling scores 

with France. In the seven week Austro-Prussian War of 1866, the Prussian armies marched 

against the Austrian army assembled at Koniggratz and drove them from the field with 

severe losses in men and materiel. Koniggratz, the largest battle ever fought in Europe up 

to that time, served as the decisive battle of the war, a shock from which Austria could not 

recover. It must be noted that Moltke, the Prussian commander, chose not to pursue and 

destroy the Austrian army for political reasons; Germany would have future need for a 

Central European ally and therefore had to limit the bitter feelings that greater bloodshed 

would engender. Nevertheless, Habsburg Austria had no option after Koniggratz but to 

concede that Berlin, not Vienna, would be the nucleus of the growing Germanic federation, 

reversing the power relationship of the prior six decades. Four years later, the Prussianled North German Confederation attacked into France in 1870 and in a spectacular sixweek campaign trapped and destroyed the main French army at Sedan, inflicting stunning 

losses on the French defenders and capturing the French emperor, Napoleon III. Having 

won the decisive battle and capturing the monarch, the Prussians assumed that they could 

dictate suitable cease-fire terms to the French and were stunned when the French instead 

abandoned the monarchy, formed a republic, and raised new armies to stop the German 

invasion. 

Ultimately, Prussia would have to lay siege to and occupy Paris to secure the 1871 treaty 

that would deliver her immediate war aims—the Alsace-Lorraine and indemnities. But now 

the tide of history was flowing in directions Clausewitz had not imagined, undermining the 

logic of his theory. The age of monarchical warfare was crumbling under the democratic 

influences emanating from the west. And Prussia, having won dominance in Germanic 

Central Europe and having embarrassed highly regarded great powers in doing so, became 

the threat against which all the rest of Europe would unite. The Clausewitzian age of short 

and decisive monarchical wars was fading away, replaced by the mass mobilizations and 

attrition warfare of the new democratic industrial age. The Germans, slow on the uptake, 
85

nevertheless continued to seek the climactic battles that Clausewitz prescribed during the 

two world wars, and often operationally achieved spectacular initial successes, only to 

find themselves drawn into their worst strategic nightmare—protracted attrition warfare—

against the more powerful allied nations encircling them.

COG and the US Army

For 150 years, until the late 1970s, Clausewitz’s writing was virtually unknown in 

the United States. English translations were poor. And On War’s ponderous and obscure 

dialectical style, so characteristic of early 19th Century German philosophy, was sure 

to bore any but the most academic American reader to tears. The US Army, steeped in 

American pragmatism and enjoying the tremendous success of its own military traditions, 

had neither the inclination nor the need to contemplate Clausewitz’s deeper meanings. 

The appearance of a better English translation of On War in 1976, while America was 

struggling to understand its agonizing defeat in Vietnam, was the coincidence of events that 

propelled Clausewitz, against all odds, into the center of American military thought. The 

Michael Howard and Peter Paret translation of On War may have died an obscure death, 

like so many scholastic volumes gathering dust in so many libraries, had it been published 

at another time. The new Clausewitz translation was not an overnight bestseller. The library 

at the US Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 

bought just two copies, and set them on the shelf alongside their two copies of the 1950 

Infantry Journal Press translation and their four copies of the 1911 Graham translation.

The Army’s Clausewitz infatuation did not spread from within, but came to us from 

our joint brethren in the Navy and Air Force. The Howard and Paret translation became a 

primary textbook at the Naval War College in the year it was published and was similarly 

adopted by the Air War College in 1978. Only in 1981 did it become mandatory reading 

at the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.12 It was there that Colonel Harry 

Summers, at that time on the faculty, melded Clausewitz’s ideas with his reflections on 

his own experience in Vietnam, and wrote his bestselling book, On Strategy: a Critical 

Analysis of the Vietnam War, published in 1982.13 Clausewitz is the featured star of this 

acclaimed work, quoted dozens of times, almost on every page, much like a preacher 

would cite scripture. The analysis, in summary, is that the North Vietnamese Army, not 

the Viet Cong, was the enemy COG, against which the US military should have focused 

its strength. South Vietnam could have survived if only we had concentrated our effort 

against North Vietnam, perhaps, Summers suggests, by cordoning Indochina along the 

Demilitarized Zone.14 More than any other individual, Summers made Clausewitz, and 

especially COG analysis, the new craze in American military thought. Suddenly, everyone 

in the military science community was wading through On War and arguing about what, 

if anything, it meant. Overnight, Clausewitz became mandatory reading for the faculty 

and students at Fort Leavenworth’s CGSC and the War College. In 1984, the Princeton 

University Press had to reprint the Howard/Paret translation to meet the demand and the 

CGSC library upped its holdings to almost 200 volumes. CGSC recently bought over a 

thousand new volumes of the new 1989 edition, now having nearly as many copies of 

Clausewitz as it has students to read them.
86

Clausewitz simultaneously invaded the US Army’s capstone doctrinal publications. 

There is not a hint of Clausewitz in the 1968 or 1973 versions of Field Manual 100-5, 

Operations, or in earlier editions dating back to World War II. All of these field manuals 

preached the heavy firepower doctrines suitable for America’s industrialized attrition 

warfare. The 1982 edition of FM 100-5, the first of the Airland Battle series, was the first 

to quote Clausewitz, though only once. However On War did merit a featured mention 

in the manual’s brief bibliography. The 1986 version of Field Manual 100-5, however, 

gushed Clausewitzian theories, quoting him four times. (Only General Patton merited 

more quotations: five.) Here the US Army learned for the first time in its proud 211 

year history that there is an “operational art” and that identifying the enemy COG is its 

“essence.”15 Appendix B, Key Concepts of Operational Design, paraphrases Clausewitz 

in its explanations of COGs, lines of operation, and culminating points. In a mere ten 

years—150 years after his death—Clausewitz emerged from the dustbin of history and hit 

the big time as the new philosophical guru of the most powerful military in the history of 

mankind.

Perhaps we can understand the neo-Clauswitzian COG craze that began around 1980 

by considering the central problem the US Army in Europe, the strategic focus of American 

land power, faced in the closing decade or so of the Cold War. Similar to the predicament 

Clausewitz’s Prussians faced a century and a half before, the Army judged itself to be 

operationally excellent and well equipped, but facing a foe in the Red Army capable 

of launching and winning an attrition war of unprecedented scale if fully mobilized. 

Rather than accept war on those terms, the Army sought some method to disrupt the flow 

of Soviet forces from the Russian heartland and achieve a favorable political decision 

before the weight of the Russian hordes could overwhelm NATO’s thin veneer of hightech, professional troops. Placing the weight of the American military effort against the 

Soviet follow-on echelons, the alleged enemy COG, would be crucial in bringing rapid and 

decisive victory. Along with winning the battle against the Russian’s initially-committed 

forces with NATO divisions already in place, interdicting the Soviet second echelon with 

deep strikes would, we believed, cause the Soviet offensive to collapse without resorting to 

prolonged or escalating warfare. Never tested against its envisioned enemy, mercifully, the 

AirLand Battle concept drove the Army and Air Force modernization programs that, after 

the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, proved so effective against the hapless Iraqis and Serbians 

in the 1990s. Despite the implosion of the Soviet menace, the momentum that the neoClausewitzian COG gained in American doctrinal literature in the 1980s continued into 

the new millennium. The 2001 version of Operations, now renumbered Field Manual 3-0 

and the first of the Full Spectrum Operations series, included COG discussions in fourteen 

different paragraphs. 

The 2011 Field Manual 3-0, written with the Army’s failure to quickly win the wars 

in Afghanistan and Iraq squarely in mind, features a tortuous discussion of COG, which, 

despite these humbling experiences, remained the central idea in Army operational art and 

design. Rather than abandon the COG as unworkable in practice, the Army expanded its 

definition and challenged its staffs to try harder to discern it: 
87

7-30. A center of gravity is the source of power that provides moral or 

physical strength, freedom of action, or will to act (JP 3-0). This definition 

states in modern terms the classic description offered by Clausewitz: “the 

hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends.” The loss 

of a center of gravity ultimately results in defeat. The center of gravity is 

a vital analytical tool for planning operations. It provides a focal point, 

identifying sources of strength and weakness.

7-31. Understanding the center of gravity has evolved beyond the term’s 

preindustrial definition. Centers of gravity are now part of a more complex 

perspective of the operational environment. Today they are not limited 

to military forces and can be either physical or moral. Physical centers 

of gravity, such as a capital city or military force, are typically easier to 

identify, assess, and target. They can often be influenced solely by military 

means. In contrast, moral centers of gravity are intangible and complex. 

Dynamic and related to human factors, they can include a charismatic 

leader, powerful ruling elite, religious tradition, tribal influence, or strongwilled populace. Military means alone usually prove ineffective when targeting moral centers of gravity. Eliminating them requires the collective, 

integrated efforts of all instruments of national power.

7-32. Center of gravity analysis is thorough and detailed. Faulty conclusions drawn from hasty or abbreviated analyses can adversely affect operations, waste critical resources, and incur undue risk. Thoroughly understanding the operational environment helps commanders identify and 

target enemy centers of gravity. This understanding encompasses how 

enemies organize, fight, and make decisions. It also includes their physical and moral strengths and weaknesses. In addition, commanders should 

understand how military forces interact with other government and civilian agencies. This understanding helps planners identify centers of gravity, 

their associated decisive points, and the best approach for achieving the 

desired end state.16

The latest Army doctrinal manuals allow all echelons of command to employ the 

operational art, thereby implying that different COGs can exist at strategic, operational, 

and tactical levels of war.17 Though COG analysis is not a specified step of the Army’s 

military decision making process nor COG enumeration a required paragraph in the Army 

operations order format, Joint Publication 5-0, Joint Operation Planning, dictates that 

friendly and enemy COGs at both the strategic and operational level will be specified in 

joint orders.18 Remarkably, all of the US military COG definitions continue Howard and 

Paret’s mistranslation of Clausewitz’ Schwerpunkt as “source of strength.” The definitional 

clarity Clausewitz sought has been sacrificed to the point that the COG can be anything the 

commander might designate it to be. Gone, too, is any discussion regarding how the COG 

is linked to political “decision.” Decision is, after all, the goal; the COG battle was merely 
88

Clausewitz’ preferred instrumentality for achieving a political decision and, should the 

victory in battle be won, ending a war on favorable terms.

Unfortunately for the doctrine writers, the American experience in war does not support 

an assertion that defeating singular or multiple COGs is the path to decision. Indeed, the 

evidence suggests that COG-centric warfare is more a chimera than a reality, as this brief 

summary of American warfare demonstrates:

1. Revolutionary War: British forces could find no COG, even though 

they occupied all the principal cities in America at one time or another. Washington’s Fabian defensive strategy denied England a decisive 

battle. The Patriot’s protracted struggle drained the English treasury 

and, with no prospect for victory, the British abandoned the struggle 

and ceded American independence.

2. War of 1812: Mainly indecisive battles with the British, though not 

against the Indians. After Napoleon’s defeat, the British government 

declined the opportunity to deploy additional land armies to America, 

believing that they would experience the same frustrations as bedeviled their efforts in the Revolutionary War.

3. Indian Wars: Attacking and destroying Indian villages was the preferred Army and/or militia solution to either forcing the Indians to 

move further west or agree to resettle onto reservations. The village 

was the basic--often the only--political and economic institution of Indian society, and its destruction ended all hopes of Indian opposition. 

Though the village was not a COG in the Clausewitzian sense, attacking the village and its people, rather than chasing down and defeating 

Indian war parties, served to simplify the Army’s task. 

4. Mexican War: America’s most Clausewitzian war. Scott’s march to 

Mexico City, defeating the main Mexican army en route, is a textbook 

example of Clausewitz’ COG concept. The Mexican government had 

no option but to concede its northern border states to American sovereignty. The generals who fought the war, which began in 1846, were 

well schooled in Napoleon’s campaigns and fought the war accordingly. 

5. Civil War: Attrition war won by the side with the greater population 

and industry. No decisive battles. The Union targeted and destroyed 

the Southern economy over the course of the war. Both sides viewed 

their capitals as COGs, but Richmond fell only after the Confederate 

armies had been reduced to ineffectiveness by years of heavy casualties.
89

6. Spanish-American War: Won when the US Navy sank the bulk of the 

Spanish navy and severed lines of communication between Spain and 

her colonies. No decisive land battles. Capital cities not involved.

7. Philippine Insurrection: Three-year war without a COG or decisive 

battle. After the capture of Aguinaldo, the war becoming mostly a rural insurgency. Various measures—attraction, concentration, counterguerilla operations—eventually exhausted the insurgents and ended 

armed resistance to American rule.

8. World War I: Attempt by Germany to repeat her 1870 victory over 

France on a larger scale. Her initial offensive campaign did not bring 

decisive victory and the war became an attrition struggle, both militarily and economically, which Germany eventually lost. The German 

monarchy collapsed as a result. Similar results led to the collapse other major European monarchies.

9. World War II, Europe: German attempt to reverse her World War I loss 

with better tactical means and operational execution. Despite spectacular initial victories, the war once again became an attrition struggle 

that Germany lost. Despite the near total Allied destruction of the German economy, Berlin fell only after the German army collapsed from 

years of casualties. Forced into unconditional surrender in a total war, 

Germany suffered a defeat of staggering dimensions and, in the war’s 

aftermath, abandoned militarism as an instrument of policy.

10. World War II, Pacific: Japan’s hopes for decisive battles faded after 

1942 as the United States locked her in a merciless attrition campaign 

in the Pacific and China. Facing crushing material, food, and manpower shortages in 1945, Japan nevertheless held out hopes of “victory” 

until the United States detonated its new atomic bombs over Japanese 

cities. Surrendering unconditionally, Japan abandoned militarism as 

an instrument of policy.

11. Korea: No decisive battles. The war eventually became an attrition 

struggle between the United States and Communist China. General 

Macarthur was relieved of command for suggesting that the war effort be extended into China, which he believed to be the COG in the 

China-North Korea alliance. The war was ended when Stalin died and 

Mao elected not to sustain continued heavy casualties.

12. Vietnam: Rural insurgency that pitted US doctrine of attrition warfare 

against Vietnamese doctrine of protracted struggle and exhaustion. No 

decisive battles. Despite inflicting horrendous casualties on the Com-
90

munists, both France and the United States decided to forsake our efforts in Vietnam rather than endure the financial costs and military 

losses needed to continue the struggle.

13. Cold War (post-Vietnam): Having abandoned attrition warfare in the 

wake of Vietnam, the Army sought non-nuclear ways to avoid an attrition fight with the Soviet Union in Europe, should the Kremlin go 

on the offensive. The result was AirLand Battle doctrine, based on 

the notion that destroying the Red Army’s COG would bring NATO 

defensive victory with reasonable casualties and rapidity. The Army’s 

neo-Clauswitzian philosophies emerge at this time. The Cold War 

struggle, however, was decided by peacetime competition, and Russia, bankrupted by its economic inefficiencies and exorbitant military 

expenditures, retreated inward, jettisoning its empire and union in the 

early 1990s.

14. Iraq: Destroying the bulk of the Iraqi military in Desert Storm (1991), 

including the spectacular 100 hour ground campaign, did not bring 

about all the desired political outcomes. In OIF (2003), the US military again destroyed the Iraqi military, occupied Baghdad and the 

remainder of the country, and deposed the Ba’athist regime, only to 

unleash anarchy and sectarian civil warfare. The Surge (2007) was 

largely designed to stabilize Baghdad, the Iraqi GOG, and buy time 

for favorable political decisions. No doubt, the Surge succeeded in its 

mission of reducing Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence and sidelining extremist 

elements. However, the political outcome of the long American war in 

Iraq is still being decided at the time of this writing. Meanwhile, the 

American public has grown tired of the effort and its expense.

15. Afghanistan: A largely rural insurgency with strong religious and ethnic components aided by out-of-country supporters and sanctuaries. 

No identifiable COG or decisive battles. This war is now in its eleventh year, the longest in American history. As in Iraq, the American 

public has grown tired of the effort and its expense.

16. War on Terror: No identifiable COG in this Islamist attack on American global hegemony. Adopting a cellular structure and basing their 

operations in a host of developing countries and ungoverned spaces, 

the terrorists continue to recruit and plot. The United States conducts 

a global campaign against the terrorist leadership—using predator 

drone attacks, Special Forces raids, and other measures—to keep the 

terrorist cells off balance. Evidence suggests that the Islamic terrorist 

networks view their Islamic identity and anti-Western attitude as their 

COGs, but no evidence exists that the terrorists have a cogent formulation of American strategic and operational COGs.
91

The fullness of the American military experience suggests that the COG is much more 

an ideal than a concrete reality, an intellectual hypothesis not borne out by the evidence. 

War outcomes are decided far more often by attrition or exhaustion than they are by 

lightning strikes against COGs. Indeed, little in the record demonstrates that nations can 

reliably employ stratagems that would help them avoid paying the fullest price in the wars 

they contemplate. Rare is the victory that is bought as cheaply as the generals, quoting 

their doctrines, might suggest. Only by exception do we find a war that is “on schedule” 

and “under budget.” Rather than try to divine a COG in the enemy’s system that can be 

profitably attacked to produce a quick decision, in more cases than not we would be better 

advised to prepare for long and costly wars that will continue until one side or the other—

hopefully the other—loses the means or the will to continue the fight. Even our wars with 

minor powers or even tribes end up in frustrating and interminable wars. Why is this so?

A Systems View of War

War is a competition between two or more open systems in a given common 

environment. The outcome of the competition will be largely determined by which side acts 

more powerfully within that environment and against the opposing force. The following 

figure describes the essential elements of the two warring systems.19 (All complex systems 

are actually hierarchies or networks of smaller systems, however the simplified model 

works at the macro-or micro-level for all systems.) Each system receives messages from 

its environment and the enemy system through its sensory receptors. The receptors send 

the messages on to the control apparatus—a brain, headquarters, or government—that 

filters the messages through its worldview—internalized notions of identity, official truths, 

values, purposes, and goals—finally deciding what, if anything, to do. Once the control 

apparatus decides on an action it wishes to take, it sends a message to an effector—think 

of it as an instrument of power—to act on the environment and/or the enemy system, as it 

is designed and trained to do. The effector’s influence on the environment and the enemy 

may be immediate or delayed, but in either case the environmental and enemy change, 

if any, will be sensed by a receptor, providing feedback to the control apparatus. In this 

manner, effector outputs of one system will likely be sensor inputs to the other. Powerful 

effector outputs usually provide powerful sensor inputs to the opposing system and also 

create significant environmental change; weak outputs may have little effect on either the 

opponent or the environment and may be difficult for the other system to sense. It must 

be noted that in complex adaptive systems, the array of receptors and effectors the system 

deploys are based on the worldview and goals of the control apparatus. Systems do not 

waste energy creating receptors to gather information they believe is unimportant, nor do 

they expend resources building and deploying effectors they believe would be irrelevant 

in influencing their given environments and opponents. Because control apparatus are not 

omniscient, they will generally have gaping holes in their understanding of the realities of 

their environment and enemies, causing them to be unaware of important matters which 

affect their performance and survival. Because of the “unknown unknowns,” systems may 

employ receptors and effectors that are less effective than they would desire. The entire 

design and functioning of the system is worldview and goal-dependant. Consequently, 
92

understanding the worldview and goals of the adversary is the single most important aspect 

of war planning and operational design.

A systems view of war goes far to explain why strategic designs and operational 

approaches that succeed against one type of opponent may prove ineffective against 

another. The strategy, operations, and tactics a system employs are reflections of its 

worldview and goals; only in the rarest of circumstances will each side mirror the other. In 

Clausewitz’ world of monarchic warfare, all the players were from the same culture, fought 

with agreed upon rules, and shared similar geopolitical understandings. Unsurprisingly, 

given the symmetry of the opponents and the homogeneity of the environment, the 

kings of Europe’s major powers were willing to fight decisive COG battles to settle their 

differences. But away from Europe, in the much different cultures of the other continents, 

against opponents playing by different rules, the COG formula loses much of its power to 

force decision. In these asymmetric struggles, where the rules each side plays by are as 

different as their cultures and political goals, formulaic victory is elusive. So the United 

States, having largely defeated its major power (i.e., symmetric) adversaries during World 

War II with surprising ease, was nevertheless frustrated in its post-war conflicts with minor 

Third World nations for precisely this reason. The major powers competed in agreed 

fashions; the emerging nations, seeking liberation from major-power colonialism, did 

not. Indeed, our very notion of regular and irregular warfare is an anachronism. Regular 

warfare along European cultural lines is now part of an historical past that ended with the 

epochal American victories in World War II and the Cold War. For the foreseeable future, 

all the wars we will fight will be with populations in non-European cultures and, therefore, 

will be irregular and asymmetric, Figure 4.

Figure 4. Center of Gravity Systems Slide.
93

Consider the following list of war strategies:

1. Single decisive battle of annihilation (Clausewitz)

2. Attrition (US preference through Vietnam)

3. Exhaustion

4. Fabian defense

5. Attacking the civilian population

6. Deterrence

7. Ethnic cleansing

8. Terrorism

9. Leader focused-warfare—assassination or cooption

10. Insurgency

11. Population-centric counterinsurgency

12. Punitive raids

13. Divide and conquer

14. Proxy war

15. Hybrid war

16. Unrestricted warfare (in the modern Chinese sense)

17. High tech local war

18. Assassin’s mace (breakthrough technology that changes the game)

These strategies are vastly different from each other with respect to ends, ways, and 

means. Each has been used, is being used, or will be used again as an approach to solving a 

system’s competitive problem with another system. The selection of strategy is a reflection 

of the system’s situation, values, goals, and capabilities. Strategies that we might reject as 

inappropriate given our geopolitical position and worldview might be appealing to others 

given their quite different circumstances and culture-based perceptions. While we might 

deem some of these strategies illegal or repugnant, the competitive games that matter are 

never fair or without consequence. Any strategy that confers advantage over adversaries in 

a given competitive environment will be (and, many would argue, should be) employed.

Further, the systems view accounts for the ever evolving environment in which 

wars are fought, for combatant systems do not compete in a static arena, but rather in a 

dynamic setting in which the very sources of systemic power—most importantly energy, 

materials, and information—are ever changing. In this systems world, understanding 

one’s environment—its limitations and possibilities—is as important as understanding 

one’s opponent. Clausewitz could not have foretold how the exploitation of fossil fuels, 

industrialization, and democratization would forever change the nature of European 

warfare and make the United States and, for a time, Russia the world’s preeminent powers, 

all to Germany’s detriment. Nor did mid-20th Century Europeans appreciate that their 
94

Third World colonies would soon become the emerging great powers of the 21st Century 

while they themselves would fall into geopolitical decline. The ever quickening pace 

of globalized technological progress confers no permanent advantage to any national 

system or cultural grouping. Indeed, as the global environment changes—economically, 

technologically, politically, culturally, and in many other ways—so must we rethink the 

way we define victory and the means with which we seek it. The strategies that worked in 

one age are not necessarily those that will be productive in the next. Even if the decisive 

COG on COG land battle worked in the Clausewitzian era, the subsequent advent of 

vast nations on nearly continental scales, protracted industrialized warfare, weapons of 

mass destruction, precision weaponry, and persistent space-based intelligence—to name 

only a few evolutions in the environment of war—make the Clausewitzian formula often 

maladapted to the new realities. Consider how completely nuclear weapons changed the 

nature of major power warfare, making it too lethal and risky to contemplate for rational 

actors.

Further, because human systems are adaptive rather than brittle, wars tend to be 

protracted and costly, ending either when the defender can no longer withstand the attrition, 

and in some manner surrenders, or until an attacker, exhausted by the cost and effort of 

imposing his will, quits the war. Human systems often display tremendous resourcefulness 

and resilience, especially when forced to defend themselves. Rather than having a single 

source of strength, warring entities can draw on many. Defeating one adversary advantage 

generally causes him to switch strategy, operational approach, or tactical pattern to achieve 

a new advantage. Destroying one enemy asset more often than not leads to the creation of 

another, especially in asymmetric fights. The adaptive nature of combatants increases the 

cost of war for all involved. Rather than finding a single Clausewitzian COG in the enemy 

that, if targeted correctly, will cause the entirety of his force to lose balance, connectivity, 

and strength, we find instead that opposing forces at war heal, find work-arounds and 

alternative methods, or simply do without as they carry on the struggle. This holistic 

flexibility was true of all our major opponents in war—the Indians, the Confederacy, 

the Filipinos, Germany, Japan, the North Koreans and Red Chinese, and the Communist 

Vietnamese—and continues to be true of the anti-coalition Iraqis, the Taliban, and the 

Islamic terrorists today. Generally speaking, a combatant who realizes he must adapt to 

win seeks to prolong the struggle and postpone decision, thereby lengthening the war and 

increasing its cost to its adversary. A war of exhaustion is often the result. 

Lastly, human systems will generally resist change forced by an attacker. The greater 

the change the attacker seeks, the greater will be the resistance. Most systems espouse 

worldviews that can accommodate the occasional humiliations and setbacks required 

by their necessary interactions with other systems. Generally, small concessions to 

opponents’ ambitions are possible without threatening a system’s worldview, identity, 

values, and major goals. But as an attacker’s political aims escalate, often to the point of 

forcing systemic change upon the defender, the defender will escalate his resistance. If 

the demands of the attacker cannot be met within the prevailing worldview and political 

structure of the defending system, total and unconditional war will often result. The 

American experience from the Indian Wars, the Civil War, and World War II suggests 

that imposing transformational system change on a defender requires victory through 
95

attrition—meaning inflicting severe casualties and crippling economic destruction—so 

ardently will the defender resist fundamental changes to his accustomed system and way 

of life. Only the hardest of wars can predispose a society to fundamentally changing their 

world view, making them willing to trade in their old ways for the new ways of the attacker 

they can no longer avoid. 

Chinese Notions of War

By all accounts, America’s principal geopolitical adversary in this new century will be 

China. Economists are unanimous in their forecasts that China’s skyrocketing economy will 

surpass the American in terms of gross domestic product within the next twenty years and 

come the dominate global commerce by mid-century. Her increases in military expenditures 

and capability match her growing economic clout. Geopolitical realists predict that armed 

struggle of some sort—whether minor clashes, regional wars, global warfare, some long 

term virtual or deterrence contest, or some other form of warfare—must accompany the 

transition from a US-centric to a Sino-centric world. Consequently, the true test of COG 

doctrine is not how well it may or may not describe past wars, but rather how useful the 

construct is likely to be in preparing for and executing the crucial wars we may fight with 

China in the strategic near-future. Raised in a far different cultural tradition than we, and 

considering their possibilities in a new strategic environment, the Chinese are developing 

appropriate doctrinal solutions of their own, which, I will argue, demote COG to relative 

unimportance. We, too, should consider whether our joint doctrinal mandate to identify 

strategic and operational COGs, then designing our operational approaches based on those 

determinations, is the most powerful way we can parry the Chinese military challenge.

At the level of strategy, the Chinese are disinclined to view military struggles in terms 

of GOGs. Rather, they see their geopolitical struggles with other world powers in terms 

of holistic Comprehensive National Power (CNP), of which military power and military 

actions are a minor, albeit important, component. While the debate rages within China 

regarding how to qualitatively and quantitatively compute relative CNP, Chinese writers on 

the subject generally agree that CNP is some function of economic performance, military 

power, scientific and technological advancement, social progress, and cohesion, population 

and territorial size, natural resources, and diplomatic strength. The Chinese have invested 

tremendous effort developing their concepts of CNP and believe it is useful in determining: 

”the status hierarchy in world politics, the power of potential rivals and potential partners, 

which countries will best exploit the ongoing revolution in military affairs, and which side 

will win a war.”20 The current Chinese concern with measuring and comparing CNP sprang 

to life during the early 1980s, when Deng Xiaoping reversed Chairman Mao’s military 

doctrine that “world war was unavoidable,” by instead predicting that “world war probably 

can be avoided.”21 Deng and his successors, realizing that war with the United States 

would abort China’s necessary opening to the world and rapid economic development, 

and cognizant of the likely suicidal outcome of war between nuclear armed states, decided 

to pursue Chinese interests through a “peaceful rise” in a globalizing world. Lacking the 

CNP to directly challenge America at the time, the Chinese felt they had little choice but 

to continue their internal development in a unipolar world dominated by the United States. 

In the Chinese view of the world, all nations must defer to the strongest, as determined by 
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CNP. Now is America’s time of ascendancy. With continued development coupled with 

American decline, China’s time will come and the nations of the world will have no option 

but to conform their actions to her interests.

But if CNP doctrine deemphasizes the role of Chinese military action in the near term, 

the concept also allows for a continuation, even an escalation, of the geopolitical struggle 

with the United States through other means. The breakthrough idea became popularized as 

“Unrestricted Warfare,” the title two People’s Liberation Army colonels, Qiao Liang and 

Wang Xiangsui, selected for their 1999 book on the changing nature of war.22 The principle 

thesis in the book is that the age of deciding political issues through military means alone 

is over. In a globalizing world of complex and varied relationships, all the elements of CNP 

can be transformed into weapons in the larger geopolitical struggle. The authors lampoon 

the American military’s fixations on purely technological means and decisive GOG battles, 

noting that, in the new environment, great power struggles play out on a far vaster canvas—

in space, time, and method.23 Envisioned as a “cocktail mixture,” the 21st Century war 

is a combination of military, trans-military, and non-military means. The military means 

include all the usual suspects, like atomic and conventional warfare, but notably also 

include terrorist and ecological warfare. The trans-military category includes eight forms 

of warfare: diplomatic, network, intelligence, psychological, tactical, smuggling, drug, and 

virtual (deterrence). Non-military means include: financial, trade, resources, economic aid, 

regulatory, sanction, media, and ideological. 24 The authors claim that, “there is nothing in 

the world today that cannot become a weapon.”25 The very purpose of war changes from 

the Clausewitzian formula of “using armed forces to compel the enemy to submit to one’s 

will” to “using all means, including armed-force, military and non-military, and lethal and 

non-lethal means to compel the enemy to accept one’s interests.”26 (Of course, China’s 

position is that she has interests which are not adequately recognized in the America-led 

world.) The primary battlefield in the struggle may not be military.27 Any form of struggle 

that increases China’s CNP and reduces America’s creates a world more conducive to 

Chinese interests.

As the Chinese envision military struggles in the upcoming decades, the emergent 

school of thought known as “High-Tech Local War” seems to describe best the operationallevel contribution armed conflict will likely make in China’s on-going strategic struggle 

with the United States; 

War has always demanded that the military object conform to the political object. The particular content of this demand on high-tech local war 

is that the limitation of the political object has a more decisive bearing on 

the limitation of military objects...first, peace and development, the theme 

of this era, have laid the political foundation for the further restriction on 

the object of war. Secondly, the competition of comprehensive national 

power based on economy and led by science and technology is becoming more and more intense. The economic globalization is moving faster. 

The interdependence and mutual restraints among countries are also deepening...Thirdly, high-tech weapons and equipment provide low-risk and 
97

high-efficiency tools to accomplish limited political objects, and the skyrocketing war consumption [of contemporary military operations] reduces 

the sinews of a nation to afford the [long or widespred] war, so the necessity and possibility of war control are increasing simultaneously. Fourth 

and finally, modern information technology makes war more transparent, 

which helps public opinion impose more influence on war.28

Conforming to previous doctrinal developments, only very limited wars—clashes 

really—are seen as beneficial in the current environment. But even given the limited nature 

of combat, the authors recommend further limiting the bloodshed by targeting the key 

integrating mechanisms of the opponent force, not attacking it head on;

If we have paralyzed the enemy’s information system, its whole system 

loses the brain and nerve; if we have destroyed the enemy’s supply system, 

his other systems will lose material base and energy sources. Therefore, 

the future operational center of gravity should not be placed on the direct 

confrontation with the enemy’s assault system. We should persist in taking 

the information system and support system as the targets of first choice 

throughout.29

Reflecting the yin and yang of Chinese thinking, the authors view America’s superiority 

in information and logistics systems as critical American advantages and, therefore, 

vulnerabilities, should China find a means to attack those capabilities. 

The main direction of “High-Tech Local War” is to limit the scope of engagements 

and their casualties to an absolute minimum. Their only goal is to get Chinese interests 

recognized at the lowest risk-adjusted cost imaginable, not to invite a larger, more 

destructive war with America. In this vein, the Chinese are likely to resort to a transmilitary means, “virtual warfare,” a demonstration of capabilities short of war or actual 

offensive employment against living targets, to get their way. Given the assumptions behind 

CNP, the Chinese may believe that merely displaying their ability to disrupt American 

mission command, disrupt intelligence and information systems, destroy forward bases, or 

sink American ships in mid-Pacific with anti-ship ballistic missiles, among other means, 

could cause the United States over time to rethink its military commitments in the Far East 

and, consequently, accede to Chinese demands for regional hegemony. China may even 

arrange for proxies to operationally demonstrate the effectiveness of some of its weapons, 

innocently exported of course, against American targets. Notably, the Chinese believe that 

time is on their side and are in no hurry to press for immediate decisions that may lead to 

unwanted wars, as their policy toward Taiwan so clearly indicates. In the fullness of time, 

the Chinese believe, America will have little choice but to bow to Chinese power.

Modern Chinese notions of struggle represent a philosophical polar opposite from 

Clausewitz’ COG-centric formulations. Where Clausewitz sought to reduce the essence 

of his strategic foe to a single point of effort, the COG, the Chinese see their adversaries 

as organic holistic systems best thought of in terms of CNP. (Just as the Chinese would be 

hard pressed to condense America’s manifold power to a single COG, so too would we be 
98

simplistic in describing China’s multifaceted strengths in such an abbreviated manner.) 

Where Clausewitz sought the largest possible battle to impose a Prussian monarch’s 

will, the Chinese seek the smallest possible battle to demonstrate interest and resolve. 

Where Clausewitz sought rapid decision, the Chinese are patient. While Clausewitz would 

declare, “We are not interested in generals who win victories without bloodshed,” modern 

Chinese authors are given to quoting Sun Tzu’s famous dictum, “The highest excellence is 

to subdue the enemy’s army without fighting at all.”30 The difference in method between 

these two rising powers, separated by nearly two centuries, could hardly be greater. But, 

from a systems perspective, one could hardly expect that the two countries, operating in 

vastly different environments against different foes, imbued with different worldviews and 

cultural traditions, would arrive at anything other than disparate conclusions. 

Recommendations for US Doctrine

Over the past two years, several of my students at the Command and General Staff 

College have insisted that in our current wars “the people” are the COG, repeating the 

statements they have heard from their commanders overseas. Apparently unable to use 

the COG concept to reduce the enemy to one (or a few) key points, the Army in current 

practice is expanding the COG concept to include the entire human system in the conflict 

environment. Rather than provide clear focus and orientation, as Clausewitz intended, 

COG in its current incarnation has become increasingly expansive, and accordingly less 

powerful as an analytic tool. Were COG a generally useful concept around which we could 

design military operations, we could forgive the doctrinal sleight of hand. However, the 

paragraphs above provide ample historical evidence that disconcerning an enemy COG 

rarely produces the payoff the war planners desire. Nor is COG likely to be a powerful 

analytic tool in our current geopolitical struggles.

What to do? 

First, joint and Army doctrine must determine a single definition for COG. Clausewitz’ 

definition is the best, “the main concentration of enemy strength or power.” In practice, 

this concentration is often the enemy capital city and its defenses, as Clausewitz noted. 

US doctrine should abandon the notion that a COG is a “source” of power. Not only is it a 

mistranslation of Clausewitz, but, as the previous discussions of systems theory and Chinese 

CNP suggest, competitive and combatant systems have manifold sources of strength and 

have proven resourceful in adapting to the trials of war. Identifying a single “source of 

power” or even several “sources of power” often forces a conclusion that poorly reflects 

the reality. Ambiguous, intangible, or cultural extensions of the COG definition,—e.g., 

will of the people, religious beliefs, tribal political structures, etc—should be stricken from 

the Army’s COG definition. Though these are important considerations commanders must 

understand and address, they need to be discussed on their own merit, not be subsumed 

into a catchall COG definition, a formula so diffuse that it creates more confusion than 

clarity. The discussion of COG must include the statement that an enemy COG may not 

exist (e.g.Wellington’s conclusion regarding the United States during the War of 1812) 

or may not be immediately assailable by friendly forces. Looking for a COG that isn’t 

there is a fruitless endeavor. Our doctrine must acknowledge that there may be no rapid 

path to favorable decision. More wars are won through attrition and exhaustion than by 
99

assaults on declared COGs, and our operational design doctrine should overtly recognize 

this overarching reality.

Secondly, joint and Army operations orders at the strategic and operational level 

should adopt a systems view of enemy forces. Rather than start the Paragraph 1 discussion 

of the adversary with an enumeration of adversary COGs, we would be far better served 

by explaining the adversary’s worldview, the political decisions he seeks, and the courses 

of action he may employ to achieve his desired outcomes. In offensive wars or operations, 

we should be similarly clear about the decisions we seek to impose on our enemy and 

the means he might take to avoid those decisions. “Critical capabilities” should be 

described from the enemy perspective, i.e., the system effectors the adversary wishes to 

use to change the environment or friendly activities in ways contrary to our interests. The 

“critical vulnerabilities” paragraph should explain weaknesses and single points of failure 

in the adversary’s system that are targetable. Often these vulnerabilities stem from a lack 

of robustness in the way the enemy system gathers its necessary energy or materials from 

the environment, e.g., Japan’s complete dependence on imported oil during World War II. 

Other vulnerabilities are internal to the architecture of the enemy system, e.g., the Chinese 

believe that the US over-relies on digitized command and control systems and considers 

those systems a targetable US vulnerability. As both Clausewitz and current Army COG 

doctrine notes, a system’s control by key and unique leaders may make those individuals 

targetable systemic vulnerabilies. Presumably, successfully targeting enemy systemic 

vulnerabilities will reduce the enemy’s holistic efficiency and force a quicker or more 

favorable political decision. At worst, successful targeting of vulnerabilities will shift the 

tactical attrition and political exhaustion calculus more in our favor. 

Conclusion 

COG need not be the black hole from which no illumination comes. Getting our doctrinal 

definition of GOG succinct enough for normally intelligent officers to comprehend will be 

a giant step forward. Similarly, making our COG doctrine conform to the reality of warfare, 

rather than forcing our perceptions of war into an ill-conceived COG construct, will provide 

salutary results. However, COG cannot be reformed in place, as the centerpiece of Army 

and joint doctrine, rather it must be demoted to a secondary and optional consideration 

in operational design. Rather than reduce the enemy to a few key points,we should 

instead describe the enemy as the holistic system he actually is. Rather than focus on an 

instrument designed to force decision in a long-gone monarchical environment, we should 

instead consider how our current adversaries actually seek or avoid decision in the current 

environment. Only a systems view of warfare allows sufficient precision and clarity. 

Consequently, the upper echelon joint and Army planning processes, operational design 

doctrine, and orders formats must be restructured, in part, to focus on the critical questions: 

Who is the enemy? What is his world view? What political decision does he wish to seek 

or avoid in this conflict? How does he intend to achieve those political goals? What are his 

systemic strengths and weaknesses? And finally, how do we force a decision favorable to 

our interests? The answers to these questions will be as dissimilar as the adversaries we 

will face and the environments in which the conflicts will occur.
100

Notes

 1. Echevarria, Antulio J. II, “Clausewitz’s Center Of Gravity: Changing Our Warfighting 

Doctrine—Again!,” Strategic Studies Institute, 2002. Clausewitz, Carl von, On War, edited and 

translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1976).

 2. Echevarria, Antulio J. II, “Clausewitz’s Center Of Gravity: It’s Not What We Thought,” 

Naval War College Review (Winter 2003): 110.

 3. Echevarria, “Clausewitz’s Center Of Gravity: Changing Our Warfighting Doctrine—

Again!,” 7.

 4. Echevarria, Clausewitz’s Center Of Gravity: 114. Echevarria’s translation from Clausewitz’ 

original German text.

 5. Clausewitz, 633.

 6. Echevarria, Antulio J. II, “Clausewitz’s Center Of Gravity: Changing Our Warfighting 

Doctrine—Again!,” 11.

 7. Clausewitz, p 617. Original German from Echevarria, Antulio J. II, “Clausewitz’s Center Of 

Gravity: Changing Our Warfighting Doctrine—Again!,” 121.

 8. Clausewitz, 260.

 9. Clausewitz, 261.

10. Clausewitz, 605.

11. Clausewitz, 80.

12. Stuart Kinross, Clausewitz and America: Strategic Thought and Practice from Vietnam to 

Iraq, (New York, Routledge, 2008) 75-6.

13. Harry Summers, On Strategy: a Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, (Novato, CA: 

Presidio Press, 1982). In the bibliography Summers calls the Howard/Paret translation “masterful...

the language more readable...an understandable and usable guide to modern strategy.” 216.

14. Summers, 122-4.

15. FM 100-5, (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1986) 10.

16. FM 3-0, Operations, (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2011) 7-6.

17. ADP 3-0, Unified Land Operations, (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2011) 9-10.

18. Joint Publication 5-0, Joint Operation Planning, (Washington DC: Department of Defense, 

2011, A-3.

19. Portions of this figure from von Bertalanffy, Ludwig, General System Theory: Foundations, 

Development, Applications, Revised Edition, (George Braziller, Washington, DC, 1968) 43.

20. Pillsbury, Michael, China Debates the Future Security Environment, (National Defense 

University Press, 2000) 203-4.

21. Pillsbury, 210.

22. Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare, (Pan American Publishers, 20020.

23. Qiao Liang, 105, 168.

24. Qiao Liang, 123. 

25. Qiao Liang, 16.

26. Qiao Liang, pxxii.

27. Qiao Liang, 163.

28. Science of Military Strategy, edited by Peng Guangquin and Yao Youzhi, Military Science 

Publishing House, Beijing, 2005, 423.

29. Guangquin, 464-5

30. Clausewitz, 260. Sun-Tzu, The Art of Warfare, Roger T. Ames, (New York, Ballantine, 

1993) 111.
101

Chapter 5 

Thoughts on Clausewitz, Strategy, and Centers of Gravity: 

When Jargon Meets Reductionism 

by John T. Kuehn 

Again, unfortunately, we are dealing with jargon, which, as usual, bears only a 

faint resemblance to well defined, specific concepts. 

—Carl von Clausewitz 1

Introduction

Carl von Clausewitz’s concept of the center of gravity has been the focus of much 

discussion in both military and academic circles of late. Most of the discussion centers on 

how current United States military and joint doctrine uses, misuses, or misrepresents the 

concept of center of gravity. It is not the purpose of this paper to critique or to examine 

the semantics and logic of the various arguments in these communities about a proper 

definition of center of gravity.2

 Rather, this paper examines Clausewitz’s own use of the 

term within the context of his written work, principally in On War.

3

 It argues that use of 

the concept became convoluted for two primary reasons: confusion over Clausewitz’s use 

of the term strategy and his own different usages of the term “center of gravity” in the 

different books that compose On War—especially “Book Six Defense” and “Book Eight 

War Plans” from On War. This paper further argues that the concept was used differently 

in the two books. However, in the sense that he meant center of gravity to be used as a 

planning tool at all, and there is some doubt about this, the evidence reviewed here suggests 

that at best he intended it be used as a metaphor or illustration useful in planning in or 

at the operational level of war. In other words, its use at the highest levels of strategy and 

grand strategy is inappropriate.4

 This essay offers something of a case study on how sloppy 

usage of military terminology and jargon can lead to confusion—something that war is 

already well supplied with.

“Strategical” Confusion

Before dealing with the confusion about center of gravity, the contextual issue of 

confusion over the concept of strategy—including how Clausewitz used the term—must be 

addressed.5

 This is because center of gravity is often used within the context of Clausewitz’s 

use of the term strategy. Therefore, it is imperative that we understand his use of this word 

first. Sloppy [imprecise? negligent?] use of terminology and jargon, long recognized but 

still tormenting us today, has often had to do with misusing the word strategy to describe 

actions at the operational level of war. After World War I, for example, General Hugo von 

Freytag-Loringhoven captured the essence of the problem succinctly:

All that pertains to operations as such takes place, on the whole, independently of actual combat, whereas in the term ‘strategisch’ (strategical) 

things become easily confused, as has been proved by the example of our 

enemies who are wont to speak of strategical conditions when it is merely 
102

a question of purely local matters. At any rate, the term ‘strategy’ ought to 

be confined to the most important measures of high command.6

Freytag-Loringhoven refers here to “enemies,” and one presumes among these 

adversaries he meant the Americans as well as the British and the French. In any case, as 

we shall see, Clausewitz, too, acknowledges that this topic area presents difficulties.

The problem today further traces to use of definitions and then how we link those 

definitions to their use in the past—again the problem of context. Let’s first look at how 

Clausewitz used the term. In Clausewitz’s day only two levels of war existed for the 

professional officer, the tactical and the strategic, although he does acknowledge, in his 

book on defense, another higher level: “At the next stage, the war as a whole replaces the 

campaign, and the whole country the theater of operations.”7

 This level he consigned to 

policy, or in his day the leader of the state, often a prince. In our own day, and at least since 

the early 1980s as far as US doctrine is concerned, there are three levels of war—tactical, 

operational, and strategic.8

Readers of On War as translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret first collide with 

Clausewitz’s use of the term strategy in Peter Paret’s translation of Clausewitz’s unfinished 

note at the beginning of the book: “The theory of major operations (strategy, as it is 

called)....”9

 Clearly strategy here correlates to the operational level of war as defined in the 

1982 version of FM 100-5 Operations: “The operational level of war uses available military 

resources to attain strategic goals within a theater of war. Most simply, it is the theory of 

larger unit operations. It also involves planning and conducting campaigns.”10 Clausewitz, 

continuing in his note, broaches the topic of the difficulty of use of the term because it “...

presents extraordinary difficulties and it is fair to say that very few people have clear ideas 

about its details—that is, ideas which logically derive from basic necessities.” Clausewitz 

himself is cautioning future readers about the topic and its tendency to cause problems. 

The issue is further muddied by conflict about when this particular note was written, 

if it indeed was written in 1830 (that is within a year of Clausewitz’s own death). The 

note earlier claims that Clausewitz only considered Book One “On the Nature of War” as 

finished. If the major books dealing with strategy and war planning are unfinished, how 

can On War be trusted for its definitions of strategy, tactics and center of gravity that are in 

them? Doesn’t using them present “extraordinary difficulties”? Fortunately this conundrum 

about the date of the note casting doubt on the maturity of Clausewitz’s concepts can be 

resolved if one accepts that it was most probably written at an earlier date (prior to 1827) 

as persuasively claimed by Jon T. Sumida.11

Even if Sumida is incorrect we need only examine the definitions for consistency to see 

if we can trust them. In the case of strategy our approach yields happy results, both as to 

the definition and its residing in a modern sense at the operational level of war. In On War

Clausewitz devotes the entirety of Book Three to a discussion of strategy and first defines 

it as: 

Strategy is the use of the engagement for the purpose of the war. The strategist must therefore define an aim for the entire operational side of the war

that will be in accordance with its purpose. ...he will draft the plan of the 
103

war, and the aim of the war will determine the series of actions intended 

to achieve it: he will, in fact, shape the individual campaigns and, within 

these, decide on the individual engagements.12 [emphasis mine] 

Compare this with the Army definition found in FM 3.0:

The strategic level of war is the level of war at which a nation, often as 

one of a group of nations, determines national or multinational (alliance 

or coalition) strategic security objectives and guidance and develops and 

uses national resources to achieve these objectives. ...Strategy is a prudent 

idea or set of ideas for employing the instruments of national power in a 

synchronized and integrated fashion to achieve theater, national, and/or 

multinational objectives (JP 3-0). The President translates national interest 

and policy into a national strategic end state.13 [emphases original]

Clearly Clausewitz’s definition is at a lower level of war when compared to this 

definition. In particular, the current definition focuses especially on the national and 

international level and resources, not just military. Here, too, the context of Clausewitz’s 

times, the Napoleonic Wars, is betrayed by where he locates the strategist in the activity 

of war—not back in the capital but, “...it follows that the strategist must go on campaign 

himself.”14 The strategist is a campaigner in the early 19th Century, but not so in the 20th 

and 21st. As one proceeds through the book on strategy one finds just how congruent 

Clausewitz’s view of strategy in action was with that of his contemporary Baron Antoine 

Jomini. In fact, the chapters in Book Three sound like a Jominian recitation—“Surprise...

Cunning, Economy of Force...The Geometrical Factor.”15 Clausewitz’s book on strategy is 

clearly about what we in the 21st Century refer to as the operational level of war—although 

he does cloud the issue slightly in linking war aims to the campaign (which really is a 

function of strategy).

Center of Gravity as Analogy

Clausewitz’s use of the term strategy, as shown above, frames how modern readers 

should interpret his usage in On War. If he normally uses “strategy” to refer to the operational 

level, then when he discusses strategy in concert with the term center of gravity, we should 

regard the latter term also as an operational concept. However, viewing his usage of center 

of gravity is not the only tool one must use to understand how he used this term. 

Center of Gravity first appears in a rather odd place, Book Six on defense. In fact, Book 

Six is the longest of the books in On War at 166 pages and this too should suggest how the 

term, as first used, should be treated by the modern student of Clausewitz. Jon Sumida’s 

Decoding Clausewitz brings proper attention to the book on defense’s primacy of place 

among On War’s eight books due to length and persuasively argues that Clausewitz’s claim 

that “defense is the stronger form of war” constitutes one of the few universal principles in 

On War.

16 In other words, the book on defense is a key to understanding what Clausewitz 

thought most important in his treatise on war. As one might expect, center of gravity makes 

its first appearance in this most important book. As mentioned earlier, and again as one 

would expect, Clausewitz clearly defines what he means by strategy on the second page 
104

of the very first chapter of Defense—“At the strategic level the campaign replaces the 

engagement and theater operations takes the place of the position.” This makes perfect 

sense since he defines his usage consistently so the reader will be clear as to the level of 

war he is at—the operational in modern usage.

Clausewitz’s initial goal for Book Six involves a lengthy treatment of the nature, ease, 

and strength of defense. However, after almost 80 pages during an operational discussion, 

in the chapter “Defense of a Theater of Operations,” the reader first comes across the 

text, almost in passing, that mentions center of gravity. The discussion reads very much 

like a physical science discussion about the influence of the “scale of a victory” and how 

it depends on the size or mass of the “defeated force.” Alan Beyerchen, a historian of 

science, has demonstrated that Clausewitz used scientific language in On War as a means 

to demonstrate his complex concepts using the latest cutting edge scientific concepts like 

magnetism and friction and to emphasize war’s complex and non-linear nature.17 The 

wording preceding the usage is extremely important because Clausewitz then clearly tells 

his reader that: 

...the larger the force with which the blow is struck, the surer its effect will 

be [against the greatest concentration of enemy troops]. This rather obvious sequence leads us to an analogy that will illustrate it more clearly—

that is, the nature and effect of a center of gravity. [emphasis mine]18

First, the discussion is clearly operational and involves numbers of troops attacking 

at an operational or even tactical level. Second, Clausewitz clearly states he is using an 

analogy to “illustrate” more clearly what he is talking about. He follows his introduction of 

the analogy with even less compromising language about center of gravity’s usage in this 

instance: “A center of gravity is always found [in nature] where the mass is concentrated 

most densely. It presents the most effective target for a blow; furthermore, the heaviest 

blow is that struck by the center of gravity.” 

However, he follows the analogy with a problematic linkage: “The same holds true 

in war. The fighting forces of each belligerent—whether a single state or an alliance of 

states—have a certain unity and therefore some cohesion. Where there is cohesion the 

analogy of the center of gravity can be applied.”19 This illustration of alliances opens the 

door for the misuse of his more general use of the analogy for operational purposes to that 

of the higher strategic and political levels of war and has led to unending confusion ever 

since by cherry-picking thinkers and doctrine writers. The analogy of center of gravity 

helps to illustrate the principle that cohesion of mass, in whatever level of war, offers 

opportunity, but the discussion that gave rise to this idea was clearly operational. This 

may seem like semantics; however, the principle that Clausewitz really wishes to expose 

here is the one of cohesion—and it is clear from this short discussion or a re-reading of 

the passage that he clearly allows for situations without cohesion and therefore without a 

center of gravity.

In the same chapter, when Clausewitz again returns to the usage he is clearly at the 

operational level or lower again with the utility of the analogy within the context of the 

defense. Clearly Clausewitz refers here to the operational level of war: 
105

Our reflections are intended to demonstrate the general reasons for dividing ones forces. Basically, there are two fighting forces; one the possession of the country [or countryside], tends to disperse the fighting forces; 

the other, a stroke at the center of gravity of the enemy’s forces, tends, in 

some degree, to keep them concentrated. [new paragraph] This is how operational theaters, or individual armies’ zones of operations are created.20

[emphasis mine]

In summary, center of gravity, when first used in the all-important Book Six, is an 

operational term borrowed from science as an analogy to illustrate the handling of military 

forces in a theater of operations.

War Planning as Opposed to the Conduct of War

The most famous of Clausewitz’s discourses on center of gravity, and the one often 

used to illustrate the concept for war college students, does not come from the book on 

defense, but rather from Clausewitz’s eighth and final book entitled War Plans. Before 

examining the key passages in chapter 4 of Book Eight we would do well to return to 

arguments about the structure of On War. Returning to Jon Sumida, this author aligns with 

his proposals in Decoding Clausewitz that sees Book Eight on war plans as fundamentally 

different than the other seven books. In war plans Clausewitz is not looking at war as it is, 

but rather as how one plans for its conduct—one moves from the present tense to the future 

tense. Because of this, Sumida argues, many inconsistencies in the book can be resolved. In 

fact, use of center of gravity in On War is one of the inconsistencies that Sumida resolves, 

there is evidence to suggest that using this approach can help clarify problems with how 

Clausewitz used center of gravity in Book Six versus a different usage and emphasis in 

Book Eight.21

Historians Beatrice Heuser and Jon Sumida are agreed that Clausewitz used the term 

center of gravity in two senses, a narrow (operational) sense as well as in a more intangible 

and conceptual way in Book Eight.22 The following passage from On War—which follows 

an operational and strategic (modern usage) discussion of the factors one must consider for 

“The Defeat of the Enemy”—applies to their discussions:

What the theorist has to say here is this: one must keep the dominant characteristics of both belligerents in mind. Out of these characteristics a certain center of gravity develops, the hub of all power and movement, on 

which everything depends. That is the point against which all our energies 

should be directed.23

This discussion can certainly apply to just about any level of war, certainly the 

operational and even tactical levels—indeed both Sumida and Heuser think it does. Then 

Clausewitz discusses directing one’s force, principally against the enemy’s force—he uses 

the singular—again we are essentially at the lower operational level. However, he continues 

and identifies “acts we consider most important for the defeat of the enemy...Destruction 

of his army...Seizure of his capital...Delivery of an effective blow against his principal 

ally....”24 Clearly these are strategic (modern sense) objectives—especially the last two. 
106

Although the term “center of gravity” is not used specifically for these three uses, he uses 

it again shortly thereafter and leaves no doubt that these uses are examples of centers of 

gravity: “There are very few cases where this conception is not applicable—where it would 

not be realistic to reduce several centers of gravity to one. Where this is not so, there is 

admittedly no alternative but to act as if there were two wars or even more, each with its 

own object.”25[emphasis mine] 

Even Clausewitz’s intangible usage of the term in these passages brings him back 

to what I will call its “normal”(“narrow”) usage. He emphasizes a reductionist approach 

that admits one must reduce and simplify to make the term helpful, which accords with 

Sumida’s claims that Book Eight is the only consistently reductionist book in On War. In 

fact, Sumida resolves the issue by claiming that Clausewitz’s discussions of” guerilla” or 

“insurrectionary” war forced him to acknowledge the “intangible” form of center of gravity 

as “the personalities of leaders and public opinion.”26

It is interesting to note that these characterizations appear prior to Clausewitz’s 

reductionist discussion mentioned above where he recommends that one identify multiple 

centers of gravity should circumstances dictate. This makes even more sense when one 

considers that Clausewitz had real experience of just both these factor in what he probably 

regarded as the most important two campaigns that he participated in—the 1812 Russian 

campaign and the 1813 campaign in Germany. In the first Clausewitz saw most clearly, 

as an officer in the service of the Tsar, the importance of both the popular feeling of the 

Russians against the invading French as well as the key intransigence of the Russian Tsar 

himself to Napoleon’s operations. In the second case it was less a case of personalities as 

of unity in the alliance and the popular feeling of revolt against the Napoleonic system by 

the various German states.27 In some sense Clausewitz was accounting for the failure of 

Napoleon’s identification of normal, that is operational level, centers of gravity in these 

campaigns by coming up with an explanation at the higher levels of war.

As we can see from this review, Clausewitz was not as careful as he might have been 

in how he used the concept, relying on context to help his readers understand his usage. 

Or maybe he underestimated how lazy his military readership was or might become. In 

summation, the discussion suggests that, as far as Book Eight is concerned, there are two 

types of center of gravity—one that is a reductionist planning concept for operations, and 

another that is more intangible and seems to be associated with complicated and messy 

wars, peoples’ wars or insurgencies. It has been suggested, and implied by Sumida, that 

in fact for these wars the term “center of gravity” has little utility at the operational level 

beyond identifying the difficulty of operationalizing a defeat mechanism. Finally, because 

war planning lends itself to reductionism, the result of planning, of center of gravity analysis 

as military professionals call it today, must always be held to some sort of skepticism. Once 

the plan collides with reality (and the enemy) a different process of calculation and recalculation using the initial framework must take place. The mass no longer is stationary 

but shifts or even disperses so as to make identification of key points or centers of gravity 

themselves difficult (and thus the need for genius) or even counterproductive and useless.
107

Two Letters on Strategy—A case of missing evidence?

Clausewitz’s “Two letters on strategy” seem to be a case of missing evidence. These 

letters were translated during the renaissance in the United States Army following Vietnam 

that included great interest in the writing and work of Clausewitz. The letters themselves, 

written in 1827 as noted above, were in response to specific war planning problems 

generated by the German General Staff, whose chief at the time was Lieutenant General 

von Müffling. Müffling and Clausewitz had both been students and planners under General 

Gerhard von Scharnhorst. These problems involved a defense of Prussia on the southern or 

central front (presumably against the Austrians). Clausewitz was one of five officers who 

held other assignments but attached to the General Staff for consultation.28 Given that the 

letters involved strategy (operations) and war planning one would expect to find some sort 

of center of gravity (COG) analysis taking place. However, the term is mentioned nowhere 

in the back and forth of these letters, neither in the communications from Major von Roeder 

(who offered one solution), from ‘M’ (presumably Müffling), nor by Clausewitz in his 

lengthy responses.

One explanation may be that these two letters preceded Clausewitz’s use of the term in 

books Six and Eight. This is highly unlikely; if Sumida and Paret agree on anything it is that 

Clausewitz had completed major elements of these books by 1827, although revision had 

not yet occurred. Even if we go with the Paret’s interpretation that On War was unfinished 

except for Book One, the first of the letters on strategy comes after his 27 July 1827 note 

that discusses the essential soundness of the ideas in the first six books as well as in Book 

Eight. That is to say, it is highly unlikely that Clausewitz came up with the term in 1828 or 

after since both books where center of gravity appear already existed.29

A second explanation offers itself. In his letters Clausewitz’s first words put to paper 

castigate the authors of the solutions for removing the political context from these problems, 

thus limiting their utility as war planning exercises. In his first response to Roeder he writes:

War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics 

by different means. Consequently, the main lines of every major strategic 

plan are largely political in nature, and their political character increases 

the more the plan encompasses the entire war and the entire state....How 

then is it possible to plan a campaign, whether for one theater of war or 

several, without indicating the political condition of the belligerents, and 

the politics of their relationship to each other?30

Then, in his response to ‘M’ he writes about the issue of terminology exacerbating the 

lack of political context:

I hate the sort of technical language that leads us to believe we can reduce 

the individual case to a universal, to the inevitable. Strategists manipulate 

these terminologies as if they were algebraic formulae, whose accuracy 

has long been established...that may be used as substitutes for the original 

reality. But these phrases do not even represent clear and definite principles.31
108

Ouch. Perhaps it is not an accident that we find center of gravity nowhere in these 

two letters. What we do find, in Clausewitz’s initial outburst to Roeder, something that 

approaches what we often call center of gravity, or a center of gravity type discussion in 

very clear language: “The political purpose and the means available to achieve it give rise 

to the military objective.”32 This is COG analysis without the COG. In fact, the course of 

the discussion that follows the quotation above reminds one of the similar discussion that 

in On War gave rise to the allusion to a center of gravity in the first place. But “center of 

gravity” itself is not used—should this surprise anyone given his outburst above, especially 

to ‘M’?

Perhaps the explanation for the missing COG has more to do with the relationship of 

political purpose to the operational level of war. Without political objectives and context 

stated clearly then the identification of operational objectives that he might label centers of 

gravity cannot exist. This seems as reasonable as his firm intent to avoid any inappropriate 

usage (i.e. center of gravity) that might confuse things further absent political context. In 

other words, absent political considerations center of gravity has no place in operational 

war planning.

Concluding Thoughts

This author is not convinced that Clausewitz intended center of gravity for use in any 

other than a primarily operational sense and perhaps tactical sense. Tactical refers to the 

“narrow” sense as discussed by both Sumida and Heuser and of schwerpunkt as used by 

several generations of German officers and discussed by them in a contextually correct 

tactical manner.33 Certainly it has value as an allusion or as a metaphor for higher strategic 

level discussion, but that value is limited and must employ clear language that matches 

ends, ways, and means in a coherent, reality-based manner. Students wishing to practice 

this sort of method might better refer to Arthur Lykke’s key essay for the Army War College 

on strategy or employ the clear definitions promulgated by Professor Joe Strange. These 

are preferable than to try and freelance based on an incomplete reading of Clausewitz.34

Operational usage has most value as emphasized in On War for the future, for campaign 

planning. Use of the term in any sort of way for the development of grand strategy or 

strategy in a reductionist way seems inconsistent with what Clausewitz intended and how 

he used the term most often in his own writing—when he used it at all.35 Again, it has utility 

in the present for tactical operations and for the future as a campaign planning concept. It 

seems his intent was not for it to become something other than a military concept for the 

use at the operational level of war (campaigns) and possibly lower. 

Finally, much of this confusion results from ignorance of On War or due to an incomplete 

reading (few war college students ever read the whole book); a lack of familiarity with the 

modern definitions of the levels of war; an American inattention to the concept of grand 

strategy by military and civilian leaders; and, finally, a failure to enforce consistent usage 

in modern doctrine. Perhaps we must simply accept the reality that “center of gravity” has 

become precisely the sort of term that irritated Clausewitz most. Military professionals 

would be better off thinking about war aims, objectives, and ways to defeat the enemy, 

thinking about what really goes on in the minds of the adversaries’ leaders or the people, 
109

rather than wasting time puzzling over a physics analogy. Maybe Clausewitz’s comment 

captures best the problem with trying to be too reductionist: 

“Again, unfortunately, we are dealing with jargon, which, as usual, bears 

only a faint resemblance to well defined, specific concepts.”36
110

Notes

1. Carl Von Clausewitz, Two Letters on Strategy, edited and translated by Peter Paret and 

Daniel Moran (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 1984), 37.

2. Perhaps the best place to start for those interested in the debate is Dale C. Eikmeier, 

“Center of Gravity Analysis,” in Military Review (July-August 2004): 2-5; for another perspective 

see Antulio J. Echevarria II, “Clausewitz’s Center of Gravity: Changing Our Warfighting Doctrine—Again!” (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2002).

3. For this essay all citations and reference involving On War come from Carl von 

Clausewitz, On War, trans. by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton 

University Press, 1984).

4. For a discussion of the issue of grand strategy versus strategy and the definitional 

problems related to it see John T. Kuehn, “Talking Grand Strategy” in Military Review

(September-October 2010): 74-75.

5. See again the discussion in Kuehn, for the current definitional problems regarding 

strategy and grand strategy.

6. Cited in the introduction to Carl Von Clausewitz, Two Letters on Strategy, by Wallace 

P. Franz, xiii, n2.

7. Clausewitz, On War, 358.

8. Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations (Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 

1982), 2-3, defines the three levels of war.

9. Clausewitz, On War, 70.

10. FM 100-5, 2-3.

11.Jon T. Sumida, Decoding Clausewitz: A New Approach to On War (Lawrence, KS: 

University of Kansas Press, 2008), xiii-xv. Sumida follows the arguments of Azar Gat about the 

actual date of the undated note being earlier and additionally uses the information in the first dated 

note of 1927 to argue persuasively that the first six books were essentially complete enough for an 

intelligent reader to “discover” his “basic” ideas about war.

12. Clausewitz, On War, 177.

13. FM 3-0, Operations (Washington, DC: Department of the Army, February 2008), 7-2.

14. Clausewitz, On War, 177.

15. Clausewitz, On War, vi. 

16. Sumida, 2: see also On War, 358-359.

17. See Alan Beyerchen, “Clausewitz, Non-Linearity, and the Unpredictability of War,” 

http://www.clausewitz.com/readings/Beyerchen/CWZandNonlinearity.htm (accessed 01/15/2012). 

Center of gravity is one of the scientific terms Beyerchen spends considerable time on.

18. Clausewitz, On War, 485; the German word here is Schwerpunkt.

19. Clausewitz, On War, 485-486.

20. Clausewitz, On War.
111

21. Sumida writes in the new preface to the second edition of Decoding Clausewitz , 

“Clausewitz admits the prescriptive use of general propositions with respect the consideration of 

the yet undetermined future, but denies their prescriptive utility when considering the actual events 

of the past.” 2-4. This pagination comes from a copy of the preface provided in an email from 

Professor Sumida to the author (hereafter Sumida Preface). 

22. Sumida Preface,1-2: Beatrice Heuser “Clausewitz’s Ideas of Strategy,” in Clausewitz 

in the Twenty First Century, eds. Hew Strachan and Andreas Herberg-Rothe (Oxford, UK: Oxford 

University Press, 2007), 148-150.

23. Clausewitz, On War, 595-596.

24. Clausewitz, On War, 596.

25. Clausewitz, On War, 597.

26. Sumida Preface, 1-2; Clausewitz, On War, 596. 

27. For a full discussion of these two campaigns see the author’s, “The Reasons for the 

Success of the Sixth Coalition Against Napoleon in 1813” (MMAS Thesis, US Army Command 

and General Staff College, 1997), chapters 3 (which deals with Russia in 1812), 4 and 5 passim.

28. Clausewitz, “Two Letters on Strategy,” 1-2.

29. Clausewitz, On War, 69-70; see also Clausewitz “Two Letters,” 2-4.

30. “Two Letters,” 21-22.

31. ”Two Letters,” 38.

32. Two Letters, 24.

33. For example see F.W. von Mellenthin, Panzer Battles, trans. H. Betzler (New York: 

Ballantine Books, 1956), 280.

34. Arthur F. Lykke, “Toward and Understanding of Military Strategy,” in Military 

Strategy: Theory and Application (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989): 

for Dr. Strange’s method using his own definitions for centers of gravity at tactical, operational 

and strategic levels using critical capabilities and vulnerabilities see Joe Strange, Perspectives 

on Warfighting: Centers of Gravity & Critical Vulnerabilities, Building on the Clausewitzian 

Foundation So That We Can All Speak the Same Language 2nd ed.(Quantico, VA: Marine Corps 

University Foundation, 1996).

35. Here it may be helpful to employ Beyerchen’s discussion and posit that Clausewitz 

was simply searching for a cutting edge term from physics to make his point, rather than creating 

another concept for an enduring taxonomy, at least for the way the term was first referenced in 

Book 6.

36. “Two Letters,” 37.

113

Chapter 6 

Center of Gravity: Right Idea, Wrong Direction 

by Phillip G. Pattee

“For every human problem there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong.”

—H.L. Mencken1

Many have written with the purpose of aiding would-be students of military strategy 

in their understanding of Clausewitz’s ideas, in fact so many that one wonders if there 

is anything left to say on the topic. But because there remains a strong debate over the 

applicability and usefulness of Clausewitz’s definitions and ideas, I have undertaken the 

writing of yet one more paper discussing the Center of Gravity (COG). Just as Clausewitz 

observed that “wars can have all degrees of importance and intensity, ranging from a war of 

extermination down to simple armed observation,” discussions of controversial topics from 

his work, such as the COG, can have all forms of utility ranging from brilliantly useful to 

mystic twaddle.2

 In a recent article, columnist Virginia Postrel argued that education did 

not have to be for a specific field to be economically useful. Within the article she quotes 

one of her friend’s reflections on his college education. He remembered that his “professors 

stressed that they weren’t there to teach us a soon-to-be obsolete skill or two... but rather 

the foundations of the field.”3

 Similarly, Clausewitz wrote with the idea of educating future 

commanders, intending to provide them with a guide for their self-education.4

 He sought 

the durable over the perishable. My goal here is like that, to impart something to a military 

officer’s education for the long term rather than specific training in a rapidly obsolete 

skill. If I stick to my goal, my hope is that this article will rise above mystic twaddle. The 

subsequent paragraphs begin with a critique of COG as it is used in the critical factor 

method currently favored by joint doctrine. By forcing the COG concept to fit the vagaries 

of ever-changing joint doctrine, the concept has been reduced to an unnecessary adjunct in 

planning. The article then discusses the role of theory in campaign planning and how COG 

fits at the strategic level. The COG concept retains its value as an idea that should guide 

strategic assessment and decision-making in an ambiguous and uncertain environment. 

A way to begin is to sort out doctrine from theory. Theory is not a recipe for action; 

it is a model for understanding. This article addresses theory later. Here is what doctrine 

says about itself; “Doctrine provides a military organization with a common philosophy, a 

common language, a common purpose, and a unity of effort.”5

 “Morcourt Joint Doctrine 

presents fundamental principles that guide the employment of US military forces in 

coordinated and integrated action toward a common objective. It promotes a common 

perspective from which to plan, train, and conduct military operations. It represents what 

is taught, believed, and advocated as what is right (i.e., what works best).”6

Joint doctrine standardizes terminology, training, relationships, responsibilities, and 

processes among all US forces to free Joint Force Commanders and their staffs to focus 

efforts on solving the strategic, operational and tactical problems confronting them.7

To accomplish this, doctrine writers naturally break the processes they describe into 

component parts: definitions, steps, functions, etc. By doing so, doctrine presents ideas 
114

and tasks in a manner straightforward enough that others can use it to train personnel in 

a variety of military tasks. The analytical reductionist approach is particularly useful for 

planning and plans production. It is, however, not without its shortcomings as well. As 

this article looks at the COG concept, its defects will begin to show. What follows is how 

COG is currently used in doctrine, and how other analysts have attempted to both modify 

or clarify its function in doctrine to surmount problems each has encountered in planning,.

Currently, joint doctrine defines the COG as “the source of power that provides moral 

or physical strength, freedom of action, or will to act.”8

 This working definition stems from 

one of Clausewitz’s passages on the topic: “One must keep the dominant characteristics of 

both belligerents in mind. Out of these characteristics a certain center of gravity develops, 

the hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends. That is the point 

against which all our energies should be directed.”9

 Doctrine pulls from this passage to 

attribute several characteristics to COGs: that they are linked to objectives, and that they 

proceed from an adversarial relationship (the relationship between friend and adversary is 

important, COG is context dependent, and COGs exist for both friend and adversary). A 

problem presents itself here in that a more literal reading of Clausewitz implies a unitary 

COG that emerges from the characteristics of both belligerents whereas doctrine stipulates 

a minimum of two, one friendly and one enemy. Doctrine also claims that COGs exist at 

each level of war; and because COGs are linked to objectives, a COG may be transitory. 

When objectives change—as they do with phases of a campaign, and because of actions 

taken by friend and enemy alike over the course of a campaign—COGs will change as 

well. Because of all the above, in the end, planners following doctrine must deal with more 

than two COGs within a single campaign or major operation. 

The definition joint doctrine uses today has been greatly influenced by previous 

critiques of COG and how it was treated by doctrine. The issues that various analysts had 

with doctrine tended to align with confusion over the abstract nature of COG as a concept 

and the debate that ensued because of that confusion. The article “Center of Gravity; What 

Clausewitz Really Meant,” by Dr. Joseph L. Strange and Colonel Richard Iron, British 

Army, has arguably had the most influence on current doctrine. This article takes COG 

from an abstract idea to something concrete that planners can easily use. This article also 

introduced critical factor analysis by defining terms and a method to arrive at critical 

capabilities (CC), critical requirements (CR), and critical vulnerabilities (CV), all related 

to the COG. 

Strange and Iron argued that the NATO definition was confusing and that the definition 

was the root of disagreement on centers of gravity. Because of this confusion, planners 

wasted hours in “fruitless argument that could be better spent on planning.”10 At the time 

doctrine postulated that a COG could be an enemy vulnerability, lines of communications, 

and a host of other physical or abstract things. Their reading of Clausewitz left no doubt 

that COG meant the main strength of an enemy.11

Another important point made by the pair was the importance of the COG’s adversarial 

nature. Using J.J. Graham’s previous translation of On War, Strange and Iron stated, 

“Clausewitz described centers emerging from the ‘overruling relations (Verhaeltnisse) of 

both parties’; that is, a center of gravity is relevant only in relation to an enemy. It is not 
115

an isolated concept.”12 When one compares that to Howard and Paret’s more recent, “One 

must keep the dominant characteristics of both belligerents in mind,” Strange and Iron 

conclude that the adversarial element in the concept of COG is largely missing from the 

newer translation. The term dominant characteristic, introduced by Paret and Howard, is the 

origin of the confusion originally present in the NATO definition. Dominant characteristic 

“implies that a COG can exist in its own right and is a function of ‘nation, alliance, military 

force, or other grouping’ taken in isolation. This assumption,” contend Strange and Iron, 

“is obviously wrong. Nothing in war is vital except in the context of the balance between 

combatants.”13

The adversarial nature of COG is appealing, but as Strange and Iron use the COG 

concept it also does not appear to be essential. If one insists that a COG is a strength, which 

they do, how is it that this is only relative to another party? Is it possible that a COG only 

need to be capable, or strong enough, to accomplish its objective? In a conflict, the issues 

and the enemy create a context that one uses to decide on objectives, but there are contexts 

for military operations in which one might be unopposed. Strange and Iron are correct, 

context absolutely matters. Would Strange and Iron argue that COG does not apply to 

humanitarian assistance? Maybe so, but their ideas about CC, CR certainly do apply. When 

they elaborated on this idea, they said, “A center of gravity exists because of its effect on 

an enemy or situation (for instance, striking a heavy blow), not because of its inherent 

capabilities. A center needs certain capabilities as well as characteristics and locations to 

achieve the effect, but that effect is the starting point, not the capability.”14 Here we see the 

necessary modification to adversarial relationship introduced: the enemy or situation. Are 

situations adversarial? A military response following a hurricane is a situation. The unit’s 

CCs do matter, as do the CRs. The authors also use this idea for a transition to their discussion 

of moral centers of gravity. Someone has to will the application of a capability, and for a 

reason. But this creates another problem too. Do moral COGs have capabilities? Does a 

moral center produce an effect on an enemy or situation? It seems to me that Strange, Iron, 

and we will see later other authors (Eikmeier, Rueschhoff, and Dunne) acknowledge what 

Clausewitz had to say about moral COG, but choose to treat moral aspects as a requirement 

for a COG rather than a potential COG outright.

This quote from Strange and Iron highlights their difficulty discussing moral COG: “A 

strong-willed population is a source of moral strength and, conversely, a weak-willed one 

is a critical vulnerability.”15 Now, we know that they are adamant that COGs are strengths, 

not vulnerabilities and that their opinion was that COGs were adversarial. Yet as they 

discuss moral COG here, the public will appears that it could be both the strength (i.e. a 

COG) and a CV depending on the issues. But keep in mind will is a source of strength, it 

is not the strength. It is probably better to think of will as a CR which may or may not be 

vulnerable. But it isn’t clear that this is how Strange and Iron think of will. At one point, 

the COG is, as Strange and Iron put it, the one, or ones, with the will—which is a person or 

the people, i.e. “Saddam Hussein, a strategic moral center, remained undefeated.”16 Later 

the authors said, “The information operation undermined popular will (another potential 

strategic center) to fight on his behalf.”17 And again, “How does one identify moral centers 

of gravity? The process begins and ends with people, for only they can create and sustain 

moral resistance.”18 Is the COG the people, or popular will? What are the CC and CR of 
116

this COG? The moral COG remains a bit murky. To sum up the Strange and Iron position, 

they state: 

By appealing to the original concept of centers of gravity, one can determine 

that they are dynamic, positive, active agents (people in formations and 

groups or individuals), obvious (more for physical than moral centers, 

depending on the quality of intelligence gathered on an enemy), and 

powerful and strike effective blows. Physical centers of gravity can be 

visualized more easily as armies or units, those things that resist an enemy. 

By contrast, moral centers of gravity are less obvious. Yet it is essential to 

understand them since they are likely to be more important on the strategic 

level.19

In the end, Strange and Iron recognize the greater importance of strategic center of 

gravity, but offer no obvious shortcut to identifying them. How do we avoid useless debate 

then? They concede that “there is no alternative, short cut, or analytical model to make 

up for inaccurate assessment of the enemy when deciding on centers of gravity.”20 This is 

why, in my assessment, that Strange and Iron avoid the strategic level of war to focus on 

operations. They want to plan and need someone else to accept the risk of identifying the 

context, central issues, and the grand strategic objectives.

What Strange and Iron propose is a model of nested COGs, something like a zipper. 

Once you grasp the pull and tug, it comes apart. “The decisive operation, the act that causes 

the culmination of the enemy, is normally that which brings about the defeat of an enemy’s 

operational or tactical center of gravity in a given campaign or military operation.21 To 

bring about a nation’s defeat, these lower level, i.e. tactical and operational, COGs must 

link to other higher operational and strategic COGs. This is not a surprising assertion, 

planners and strategists have believed in such a causal chain for a long time, the question is 

what to attack that will bring this about. Their answer is the COG, but identifying the COG 

became the problem. Strange and Iron postulated that errors in identifying COG came from 

poor and confusing definitions. They proposed that Clausewitz really meant that a COG 

was a strength—one must think of it this way to properly weed out other potential targets 

that would not ultimately effect the COG: 

Whether the defeat of a given center of gravity leads to the quick or inevitable culmination of national resistance depends on the existence of remaining centers of gravity and the potential emergence or creation of new 

ones—physical or moral. More often, the culmination of national resistance occurs only after the cumulative physical and moral effect produced 

by defeating or neutralizing a series of physical or moral centers of gravity 

in multiple campaigns at various levels of wars.

Centers of gravity can exist at all levels of war—tactical, operational, and 

strategic. But it is misleading to think of a single center of gravity existing 

at a particular level of war, as if each level is a discrete component rather 

than a continuum from small unit actions up to grand strategy. Indeed a 
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center of gravity—both friendly and enemy—will exist for every level of 

command that’s got a combat mission, regardless of whereabouts within 

the levels of warfare that unit and mission sit.22

This sounds reasonable, but similar to the Aleph-null (the smallest infinite cardinal set) 

this thinking eliminates a host of possibilities only to leave the planner with an impossibly 

large set of COGs—multiple COGs exist for every level of command. A better mental 

picture of what they propose might look something like a mountain in the distance. As one 

gets closer, rock formations are discernible. Closer still the picture becomes increasingly 

granular and one can make out what looks like boulders, still closer one begins to see that it 

is actually piles of gravel. The only way to move it is to start shoveling. It no longer matters 

where one begins. One location is as good as any other. 

The idea that a confusing or inadequate definition is the key issue involving the COG 

has fascinated military thinkers for some years. Dale Eikmeier has engaged in this debate 

from as early as 1998 when he wrote, “The Center of Gravity Debate Resolved.”23 In that 

monograph, he argued that because;

the debate is the result of a misunderstanding of the concepts, military 

graduate schools can provide the solution. ... The schools also need to 

separate the modern definition of center of gravity from Clausewitz. While 

Clausewitz deserves credit for originating the concept, instruction should 

stress the current systems-based definition, not Clausewitz’s obsolete linear concept. The best way to do this is to change the name of the concept from center of gravity to essential systems. This would create a clean 

break from Clausewitz’s obsolete concept and establish the concept in systems theory. Therefore people looking for understanding of the concept 

would correctly look to systems theory and not be confused or [misled] by 

Clausewitz’s nineteenth century concept.24

Eikmeier’s analysis led him to conclude that debate existed because some military 

intellectuals viewed the center of gravity and systems theory as incompatible. He concluded 

that incompatibility appeared valid when one used Clausewitz’s definition of COG, but 

by using a modern definition the two concepts, COG and systems theory, were entirely 

compatible.25 With the problem pin-pointed as an outdated linear-based definition by a 

long dead Prussian military thinker, the solution naturally followed; stop using his concept 

in campaign design, replace it with a modern systems-based concept, debate will cease.26

Six years later, the Eikmeier’s conception of the problem had morphed somewhat. 

Joint doctrine still contained the COG concept; it had not been dropped for an analysis of 

essential systems. Military students apparently used their own experience-based definitions 

of COG, and like blind men describing an elephant, they consistently arrived at the wrong 

answer: the will of the people. Eikmeier lamented that “the center of gravity is too important 

a concept to guess at.” To rectify this intolerable problem, students needed a method, which 

was something that could be created by a simple definition and framework. Eikmeier’s 

advice, “Ignore the joint definition; it only leads to confusion and debate,” the ideas of 

Strange and Iron provided a framework suitable for determining COG.27
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Strange and Iron defined a COG as the “primary sources of moral or physical strength, power, and resistance.” A COG is the source of power that 

creates a force or a critical capability that allows an entity to act or accomplish a task or purpose.28

Eikmeier reminded his readers what the Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz had 

to say about the concept and noted that army and joint doctrine diverged from the original 

intent. He also argued that the definition must be simplified. Among his recommendations 

was to combine several redundant and confusing terms, such as freedom of action, physical 

strength, and will to fight—because the latter are prerequisites for freedom of action. He 

correctly notes that “without ‘will’ or ‘strength,’ one cannot act, and the ability to act is 

a definition of power.” Eikmeier’s simplified definition of COG then became a “system’s 

source of power to act.”29 This definition therefore included both physical and moral 

aspects in the COG but obscured this distinction as well. This act was deliberate because his 

method attacks only capabilities. Moreover, in Eikmeier’s 2008 article, “Center of Gravity 

Analysis,” the author argued that there are only two forms of power at the strategic level: 

military and economic.30 In a subsequent conversation with Eikmeier, he indicated that he 

would delete the modification limiting this discussion of power to the strategic level, and 

he holds that his statement is true at all levels of planning and operations.31 He went on 

to say, “We must not be misled by the other so-called elements of power: diplomacy and 

information (the oft-cited ‘will of the people’).”32 He argued that information, by itself, is 

simply information, therefore it is not power. Moreover, his argument equates diplomacy 

with foreign policy.33 This essay deals with each of these points next. 

Eikmeier judged that diplomacy and information are not elements of power. We know 

that he believes information has capacity to change behavior because he wrote articles 

that attempted to persuade the joint force to think and act differently. Do articles provide 

incentive for behaviors via punishments and rewards? People and nations have reasons for 

choosing their objectives and methods based on interests and values. Debate is intended 

to inform. Informed people make choices that differ from those made by misinformed 

or uniformed people. Eikmeier writes to persuade his readers that his ideas merit their 

consideration more than other ideas, and that if his methods are adopted efficiency will 

result. He does not wield the capability to coerce or entice. His capability resides in 

crafting and delivering an argument. It ends there. The argument, when delivered, allows 

the readers to modify their behavior to produce a result that both they and Eikmeier want. 

Eikmeier explains this by stating that the power lies with the individual making the choice, 

while the information in the article is a tool used to make a choice. Power, as defined by 

Eikmeier, is the “ability to get someone to behave in a way they otherwise would not 

do.” He amplifies the definition with an example, “If someone freely accepts an idea after 

studying it, no power was involved. On the other hand, if someone complies with the idea 

under some incentive or threat, then power was involved.”34 From the foregoing, one can 

understand that Eikmeier’s model uses diplomacy more as a capability and information as 

a requirement rather than considering diplomatic and informational power as soft power in 

the manner proposed by scholars such as Joseph Nye.35
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Clausewitz writes that power of resistance “can be expressed as the product of two 

inseparable factors, viz. the total means at his disposal and the strength of his will.”36

means and will—are inseparable. In another passage, Clausewitz wrote, “Military activity 

is never directed against material force alone; it is always aimed simultaneously at the 

moral forces which give it life, and the two cannot be separated.”37 Or, put another way, 

material resources and will combine to create capabilities. One directs information more 

at the will than the resources. Soft power manifests itself by combining the wielder’s will 

with a target’s will and the targets resources. What is clear is that when Eikmeier chose to 

focus on capabilities (or capacity to act), he was concerned mainly with material resources 

and not will. He preferred hard power to the exclusion of soft power. He sees moral factors 

and will as at best a critical requirement for theCOG. That is why he rejects a moral COG. 

He attempted to explain this view with several examples:

What about “will of the people” or great leaders? Why is Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, or the will of the people not a 

center of gravity? The answer is simple if one recalls critical capability 

versus critical requirement. Although these leaders were requirements 

who enabled the center of gravity to be created or function, none by himself had the inherent ability to defeat Germany and Japan; therefore, none 

was a center of gravity.38

And: 

Consider Chinese resistance to Japanese occupation during WWII. Chinese will was against Japanese occupation. If will to resist was a center of 

gravity, it should have had, by itself, the inherent ability to drive out Japan, 

but it could not because it did not have that ability. It was not a center of 

gravity.39

Notice that while Eikmeier accepted aspects of the Strange and Iron definition, he 

simultaneously rejected their notion of what constituted a moral COG. His examples here 

were fair enough as far as they went: the will alone is not sufficient. When discussing war 

making capability, however, as Clausewitz observed, the will does not exist by itself. A 

capability is the will combined with resources—inseparable. An armed force is animate. It 

is part material and part moral. Both are necessary in some measure, neither by themselves 

suffices. Neither can resources by themselves have the inherent ability to achieve objectives. 

I agree with Eikmeier that a system is at work here—both physical and moral aspects of 

the system are in play. Eikmeier’s aim here was to expunge the moral COG and maximize 

physical COG so he could make a case that to attack capabilities one goes after the physical 

resources.40 I don’t dispute that there is a strong case for attacking capabilities this way. The 

destruction of a capability by destroying critical resources temporarily prevents the enemy 

from acting to achieve a presumed objective, but he adapts, reconstitutes, etc. How do you 

get an enemy to concede, to change his mind, to bend to your will? In a short passage, 

Eikmeier argued that the Allies won during WWII because the alliance COG (economic/

industrial capability) was too strong for the Axis and produced more stuff.41 You don’t 
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win simply because you have more stuff. Will is what translates stuff into capability. The 

allies had more stuff before WWII started. So why would Germany and Japan attack? Is it 

because they misidentified the COG? Is it because they were math-impaired and couldn’t 

assess all the stuff? Or is it perhaps that they misjudged the will of the allies? Will ebbs and 

wanes in war, its dynamic. This has to be considered. 

A few years later, Eikmeier wrote another article addressing COGs. His issue this 

time was that the COG determination process lacked “clear rules and structure that 

might rationalize, discipline, and therefore improve campaign planning.” Because of the 

inherent value of the COG as a conceptual tool, he determined this time to rectify the 

unfortunate situation with a “better process for determining a center of gravity than the 

current guess-and-debate method.” Once again, he identified the definitions as a root of 

the problem. He proposed, “clear terminology, accepted definitions, and by linking COG 

analysis to the strategic framework,” with these one could then “create rules and structure 

that permit the creation of art from chaos.”42 Instead of starting with the COG and using 

critical factor analysis as in the Strange and Iron process, Eikmeier proposed starting first 

with the ends, ways, and means analysis. Once these had been decided, only then could 

“critical capabilities (ways), critical requirements (means) be determined. It is the critical 

capability contained in the ways, and the means that the critical capability requires, that 

identify a center of gravity.”43 I concede that at the operational level and lower this can 

work, but at the strategic level there still needs to be debate to determine the ends; the 

COG identification helps determine the feasible and sound ends that become the basis for 

operational planning.44 At the highest levels of strategy, I just do not agree that there is a 

way to back into the COG determination. Below the strategic level, as this chapter will 

later argue, it appears that the COG is not essential to the planning effort. One starts with 

ends-ways-means analysis and concludes with critical capabilities, critical requirements, 

and critical vulnerabilities. Why bother with COG determination after that?

Even more recently, Eikmeier proposed again the need to redefine the COG. He mused, 

“It does not matter what Carl von Clausewitz said about the Center of Gravity (COG) in the 

19th century. What matters is how we want to use the COG concept in the 21st century.”45

He went on to state that joint doctrine was a problem because it relied on confusing 

and outdated definitions—doctrine needed to break from Clausewitz and develop new 

definitions that could be validated with clarity, logic, precision, and testability. He trashed 

the joint definition based on his criteria. Following that, he quite successfully tested his 

latest definition against his criteria. The definition he used is, “the center of gravity is the 

primary entity that possesses the inherent capability to achieve the objective.”46 I note that 

in 2004 his definition was, “a systems source of power to act.”47 He did not discuss a test 

of his old definition, one presumes he did and discarded it because it failed his criteria—

hence the need for a new definition. Either that or the nature of war changes so quickly that 

concepts require new definitions after a few years rather than a century and an half. We 

also know that Eikmeier’s goal has not changed; since the current joint doctrine definition 

of COG fails his testing criteria, it must be replaced with one that does not. “Only then will 

the endless debate cease and will planners be able to focus on campaign planning assisted 

by the COG concept rather than being distracted by it.”48
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When discussing validating a COG using his criteria of logic, Eikmeier told the planner 

to ask, what is my objective? Rather than conducting a rigorous debate to determine suitable 

and feasible objectives, I suspect Eikmeier’s method presumed that one simply looked the 

objectives up in commander’s guidance or a higher authority’s previously written order. 

This would be the case because his recurring theme was to devise a means of avoiding 

time-wasting debate. This is a recurring meme in all of these COG articles, not just his. If 

one had any doubt, Eikmeier says so one more time: 

What this method provides is a simple and clear process for the identification and selection of a COG and the ability to differentiate between a 

true COG and other candidates that are actually critical requirements. This 

method with its objective rationale contributes to the intent of JP 5-0 by 

avoiding wasteful and pointless debates.49

Sometimes it may be the case, especially at the operational level of war and below 

that a planner’s objectives are clear and provided—once Eikmeier knows the objectives he 

can readily identify a COG. At the strategic level, where one grapples with the volatility, 

ambiguity, uncertainty, and complexity of the environment, objectives are not so easily 

discerned. Hard choices have to be made by leaders with incomplete, often erroneous 

information [Clausewitz has much to say about this under the topic friction]. Judgment 

and perspective are called for. Often one of the best ways to derive appropriate objectives 

is through hours, or days and weeks, of debate. Objectives are important. General George 

Marshall once said, “If you get the objectives right, a lieutenant can write the strategy.”50

George Marshall did not believe lieutenants needed help writing strategy; they needed help 

determining the right objectives. What we have in the ongoing debate over the definition 

of COG is Strange, Iron, and Eikmeier all engaged in providing lieutenants with a specific 

skill set.

Nevertheless planners still shy away from debate, looking for processes that yield not 

only the “right” answer, but also produce it quickly. Jan L. Rueschhoff and Jonathan P. 

Dunne took up this banner again noting that guidance provided by doctrine did not dictate 

a process whereby one could unambiguously decide on a COG: “Planning teams can take 

hours—if not days—arguing over what is and is not the enemy’s COG. The contest of wills 

is often decided by whoever is the strongest personality on the planning team, not through 

any established analytical process.”51 They warn their readers that “without an objective 

approach to determine a COG, planners are vulnerable to faulty COG analysis.” The 

question the Rueschhoff and Dunne started with then was what process planners should 

use to select the correct COG?52

Their discussion concocted a hypothetical case as the basis for highlighting the 

flaws with doctrine. At the time of their writing, joint doctrine stipulated that each level 

of war had only one COG. In the staff’s attempt to determine the singular COG, The 

personnel identified ten CCs believed vital for the enemy to accomplish its mission. When 

they attempted to find a singular source of power for the CCs they were stymied. After 

determined analysis, their best candidate COG could only satisfy seven CCs, while another 

source provided the last three. They asked, “Are there therefore two COGs?” 
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They concluded, “The answer my very well be yes.” Strange, Iron, Eikmeier, and 

even Carl von Clausewitz would likely agree. Clausewitz deals with just such a problem 

explicitly in On War.53 The problem as they saw it was that service doctrine permitted 

multiple COGs while joint doctrine did not. They questioned whether planners should 

discard the three CCs that could not be linked to the proposed COG as were the remaining 

seven. The issue was not with the critical factor method, but with a doctrinal highlander 

clause—there can be only one.

The doctrinal need to identify a single COG only held up plans generation. Consider 

this, if these ten hypothetical CCs were truly critical, then the destruction of even one 

would then mean that the enemy could not achieve its objective. It the enemy could still 

achieve the objective then the capability in question was not actually critical. Their main 

point was this: 

The objective of COG analysis is not to provide a magic name of a COG 

by which the commander may speak and slay his foe. The objective is to 

identify weaknesses the commander may exploit that will uncover and 

eliminate the foe’s ability to resist.54

Rueschhoff and Dunne argued that if the staff could identify critical factors leading to 

CVs, devise an operational plan to exploit them, which then denied an enemy its necessary 

CRs, thereby debilitating a CC, then the force still attacked an ‘unspecified’ COG. The time 

spent looking for the perfect description of an enemy COG was fruitless and better used on 

the critical factors.55 What they have eloquently argued is that knowledge of the objectives 

will get you to CCs then CRs and CVs—one need not even identify a COG and it makes 

no difference in the planning effort.

Several times, these two authors point out joint doctrine’s claim that attacking the 

right COG is the essence of operational art.56 Based on their article and those previously 

discussed, however, the COG is not of great importance. Objectives are the key and the 

capabilities required to achieve those objects are important. From these one gets CC, CR, 

and CV—there is no need for the concept of COG to govern this process. “Regardless of 

whatever is named the COG—or even if one is specified at all—with the identified CC, the 

analyst may begin identifying CRs and CVs.”57

Rueschhoff and Dunne, like Strange, Iron, and Eikmeier, had done considerable thinking 

about their topic, and struggled to avoid contradictions. They concluded that just because 

one might do away with the COG and rely on objectives for critical factor analysis that the 

need for continued planning and revision did not diminish. With an adversary defeated, 

as in the end of phase three operations, one could fall into the error of dismissing critical 

factor analysis in phase four. Nevertheless, as planners used phases to denote a change in 

objectives, they must keep in mind that a defeated adversary’s objectives could also have 

changed. Moreover, other previously dormant groups might see that enemy’s defeat as 

their time for action.58 Here is the proverbial Alice-in-Wonderland rabbit hole, as the joint 

force’s objectives changed, its COG potentially changed—by phase, by key operation, by 

level of war, etc. So the adversary’s objectives could also change. And because objectives 

are often force oriented on an enemy, the COG could change again. In this critical factor 
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method, not only are there COGs for every level of command, but there are also COGs for 

every objective at every level of command. 

There is a meme that runs through each of these articles: If one could just get the 

definition of COG correct, then identifying the COG becomes simple, analysis becomes 

straightforward, and the actual “campaign should be a step-by-step process that directly 

or indirectly attacks these operational centers of gravity.”59 The flaw in this line of effort 

is that it is overly reductionist, treating war as a mathematical certainty. If one could only 

reliably identify the correct COG—based on a new definition that uses criteria of clarity, 

logic, precision, and testability—then one could also rapidly design a plan to attack that 

COG. Once a COG’s critical capabilities are neutralized, the enemy must give up on his 

war aim and the war is nearly won. It works except when the war continues rather than 

ending. That is not a problem of the method. It is, however, attributable to the shifting 

nature of the COG. By allowing that the enemy will likely adapt to the new situation, this 

method avoids complete failure. As war progresses, objectives change, and therefore the 

COG will shift. Moreover, each author admits that there are COGs at every level of war. 

As a result, planners are put in a position of finding a correct enemy and friendly COG for 

possibly several temporary objectives. Moreover, this situation exists for planners at each 

level of war, thought of as a continuum from the individual foot soldier all the way up to 

grand strategy. Given that objectives change by campaign phase, friendly COGs will also 

change. 

To summarize, these articles, taken as a whole, the authors agree on several points in 

what they tell us about COG and its importance to critical factor analysis. The authors also 

disagree on a few fundamental points. First, each author agrees that COG is important and 

key to planning. Therefore one must know how to identify what is a COG and determine 

what is not. Second, because of the systems and objectives involved, multiple COGs exist 

at every level of war, nested along a continuum. Third, COGs change with time because of 

changed objective and phasing. The various authors disagree, however, on the method for 

identifying the COG and its relationship to critical factor analysis. 

Strange and Iron postulated that one begins with a mission, or task and uses that to 

determine a COG. With the COG identified, one analyzes the COG for its CC, then analyzes 

the CC for CR, and analyzes CR for possible CV. The logic trail looks like this: Mission/

COG/CC/CR/CV. The method by which they identified the COG, however, is shrouded 

with haze. Strange and Iron defined the COG as the “primary components of physical or 

moral strength, power and resistance.”60 Yet, this definition is void of context. The mission 

and presumed enemy mission provide the context necessary to make a COG determination. 

One finds within the Strange and Iron definition of a CC that one determines the CCs by 

looking for “what the COG can do that puts fear (or concern) into your heart in the context 

of your mission and level of war.”61 Hence it appears that the key to identifying a COG is 

that one actually looks first at friendly and enemy missions and then capabilities to achieve, 

or thwart the given mission, i.e. looks to CC to identify a COG. This produces a true logic 

trail that flow Mission/CC/COG then back to CC/CR/CV. The COG identification happens 

in passing, and is unnecessary for the process of analyzing CR and CV. 
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Eikmeier recognized that Strange and Iron had produced a method of critical factor 

analysis that lacked a clear method of COG identification. To rectify the deficiency 

within the Strange and Iron critical factor methodology, Eikmeier proposed modifying 

the logic trail to Objective/CC/COG/CR/CV. Using the definitions for CC, CR, and CV 

originated by Strange and Iron, Eikmeier begins with the identified objective (or ends) 

then determines what ways are necessary to achieve the ends. The most elemental way 

becomes the CC. The next step is to “list the means required to enable and execute the 

way or critical capability.”62 This sounds like listing the CR, but Eikmeier does not use that 

term. The Strange and Iron definition of a CR used by Eikmeier is, “essential conditions, 

resources, and means for a critical capability to be fully operative.”63 The final step to COG 

identification is to “select the entity from the list of means that possesses the way or critical 

capability to achieve the end.”64 The process does in fact facilitate COG identification that 

is also clear, precise, logical and testable. My conclusion is that Eikmeier instructs going 

through critical factor analysis from objective/CC/CR then use the analysis that produced 

CC/CR to identify the COG. What remains for critical factor analysis is to return to the 

CR and decide upon potential CVs. Just as was the case with Strange and Iron, the COG 

becomes an unnecessary adjunct to critical factor analysis. This is precisely the point made 

by Rueschhoff and Dunne. The COG (as defined and conceived in doctrine) exists, but will 

become targeted simply by following the path objective/CC/CR/CV.

 What this means is that the objectives matter most in determining CC, CR, and CV so 

the COG can remain indeterminate. The COG is nonessential to critical factor analysis. As 

a practical matter, the definition used for a center of gravity makes no difference because 

planners can safely skip identifying a COG to no ill effect in critical factor analysis—what 

the planner finds essential are the objectives, the capabilities, and the requirements (or the 

ends, ways, and the means). The COGs themselves are many, ranging from the great to the 

small, are unimportant, and ultimately non-essential. Of what value is the COG concept to 

operational art if planners identify a score or more (possibly infinite) COGs and even with 

omitting the step they could arrive at the same operational plan? 

An objection to this conclusion is that it represents flawed reasoning. Planners, by 

omitting COG identification, could also arrive at a different plan. It’s as if concluding 

that a shooter can still pull the trigger with his eyes shut and potentially hit the target, 

so why bother aiming.65 The criticism implies that planning is aimless without the COG. 

This is not the case. A potentially correct plan does not become a random act by omitting 

COG identification from critical factor analysis. The objectives provide the aim point for 

the planners, just as they ultimately provide the context that determines COG. Moreover, 

planners will in many cases propose multiple and distinct plans (known as alternate courses 

of action) that are each capable of achieving the desired objectives. If the plans relied on 

different capabilities and resources, in all likelihood the distinct courses of action would 

involve different COGs. 

We have Strange, Iron, Eikmeier, Rueschhofff and Dunne all postulating that planners 

waste time fruitlessly debating over a definition of COG and how to determine it when 

planners should be debating what is the COG within the specific context of the problem. 

That is why they have spent effort to define COG and develop methods to identify them. 
125

They all propose the remedy in fixing the doctrinal definition of COG. Yet, they propose 

different definitions in their articles—even the same author in subsequent articles proposes 

a different definition. So, one can safely concluded that they aren’t ending debate. By 

looking for COG at all levels of war, the planner is distracted by mucking about in the 

always changing, volatile and temporary aspects of planning at the operational and tactical 

levels instead of focusing on one big and more nearly constant thing. This emphasis on 

operations and tactical actions dilutes effort rather than provides focus needed to direct 

the campaign. COG is not necessary for operation and tactical levels of planning, it can be 

safely skipped to no adverse effect. That is not to say that any of these author’s insights are 

without merit. The critical factor process works. I do, however, contend that a definition 

of center of gravity is not central to what they are attempting to address. They began with 

a premise that COG was central to planning and this article demonstrates that it is not. I 

say this in spite of the fact that their views can all be traced back to passages from On War. 

There is ample evidence in that tome to support their views. Clausewitz devotes book six, 

“Defense,” and book seven, “Attack,” to the operational level of war. Without doubt he has 

much to say about center of gravity in his book on defense. There is still a sense that COG 

is useful, so prematurely tossing the COG concept from doctrine is not the right approach. 

Instead, I propose that we look again at theory, as it applies to COG, and several other 

passages from On War—particularly those found in book eight, “War Plans”—to see what 

light they shed on the concept.

Milan Vego, a professor at the Naval War College and another frequent contributor to 

strategic discussions, observed that too often military officers are familiar with doctrine while 

ignorant of theory. He instructed that while sound military theory constituted a significant 

input to doctrine. “At the same time, a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of 

military theory should help an officer to appreciate strengths and weakness of military 

doctrine.”66 What I observe is that few military professionals question the validity of 

doctrine and instead use doctrine to interpret the validity of military theory, turning theory 

into a simple recipe for action rather than a basis for understanding. Clausewitz’s idea 

was that “theory should be study, not doctrine.”67 Theory guides officers’ education rather 

than accompanies them to the field of battle. An educated mind is one that can see patterns 

in politics, war, and campaigns; one which views the phenomenon of war holistically. 

With that perspective, the idea of theory is to develop concepts and principles rather than 

definitions and processes. 

First, let’s start with the passage that seems central to doctrine’s definitions of COG:

Es kommt darauf an, die vorherrschenden Verhältnisse beider Staaten 

im Auge zu haben. Aus ihnen wird sich ein gewisser Schwerpunkt, ein 

Zentrum der Kraft und Bewegung bilden, von welchem das Ganze abhängt, und auf diesen Schwerpunkt des Gegners muß der gesammelte Stoß 

aller Kräfte gerichtet sein.68

How can one translate this? A kind of literal translation might look like this: It comes 

out of this, that one must have the prevailing conditions of both states in sight. From these 

emerge some heavy point, a center of strength and motion, on which the whole depends, 
126

and against this heavy point of the opponent must the collected shock of all forces be 

directed. 

A translator exercises some latitude in the choice of words. Here is a list of some key 

German words with some possible English counterparts:

1. Schwer: difficult, hard, heavy, grave, serious 

2. Schweren: heavy

3. Punkt: point, dot, spot, item, period, mark

4. Punkte: points, spots, items, etc.

5. Possibilities for Schwerpunkt: center of gravity, focal point, main focus, main 

emphasis, serious item

6. Stoß: push, shove, thrust, poke, punch, stab

7. Zentrum: center, heart, hub

8. Staaten: states, countries

Paret and Graham have given their translations. Here is my option for a plain English 

translation: Therefore, one must consider the prevailing conditions of both States. From 

[consideration of] these [conditions], a main focus will emerge, a nexus of strength and 

motion, on which everything depends. The accumulated thrust of all our power must be 

directed against this, the opponent’s focal point.

This translation deliberately avoided the term center of gravity simply to de-emphasize 

that as an issue. The main point (Schwerpunkt if you will allow), it that the focus is on 

the ‘whatever it is’ on which everything depends. Figuring this out will and should entail 

considerable debate. Another important point (Schwerpunkt) is that this consideration 

involves a strategic assessment; it is about the conditions that exist in and among states. In 

Paret’s and Graham’s translations of that passage from On War, each used the much more 

general terms belligerents and parties respectively for the German Staaten. The closest 

German words that I could find for the terms Paret and Graham selected were Parteien for 

parties, and Kriegführenden for belligerents. They dropped states from their translation. 

Staaten is a political entity, it translates to nation, state, perhaps province. Their choices for 

belligerent and parties are understandable when one is attempting to convey the gist of the 

idea. Nevertheless, this more generic translation—which, with Paret’s “hub of power and 

movement” phrase, is the foundation for past and current doctrinal use of the term COG—

has not been challenged. It has led to myriad discussion of COG at operational and tactical 

levels of war when the passage in dispute is actually dealing with a strategic question.

The goal of a strategic assessment is to determine which conditions prevail among the 

contending states. Analysis will yield understanding of their important issues, their relative 

strengths and weaknesses, and important relationships with other states. Others may object 

that such a process is too vague to guide planners, but I contend that the purpose is not 

to produce a doctrinal process that facilitates planning. Clausewitz pushed for education 

and honing a commanders judgment. Clausewitz observed, “Small things always depend 

on great ones, unimportant on important, accidents on essentials. This must guide our 
127

approach.”69 Within an environment beset with uncertainty and ambiguity, a strategist’s 

search is for the great, the important, the essential. To that end, the Prussian theorist did 

provide some guidance: 

The first principle is that the ultimate substance of enemy strength must be traced back 

to the fewest possible sources, and ideally to one alone. The attack on these sources must 

be compressed into the fewest possible actions—again, ideally, into one. ... The task of 

reducing the sources of enemy strength to a single center of gravity will depend on....70

This idea was important enough that Clausewitz reiterated it:

The first task, then, in planning for a war is to identify the enemy’s centers 

of gravity, and if possible trace them back to a single one. The second task 

is to ensure that the forces to be used against that point are concentrated 

for a main offensive.71

Note that there is nothing in these passages that contradict the idea the enemy strength 

is the substance of COG. Neither is there any phrase here that excludes the possibility of 

multiple COGs at levels below strategic. The emphasis of these passages is, however, to 

move past tactics and operations to get to the strategic issues. The well-known historian and 

thinker, Colin Gray articulates this well observing that by determining a COG “a candidate 

theory of victory in war is identified. Center of gravity is key to strategic thinking because 

its translation for a particular case...organizes the bridge between means and ends that 

truly is the realm of strategy.”72 The point of such analysis is to understand the nature of the 

motives for war as well as the situations that give rise to them. The reason for this analysis 

is to enable the statesman and commander to exercise their judgment on their first and most 

comprehensive strategic question, namely the kind of war on which they are embarking.73

If after having done some strategic analysis, the staff finds that it cannot trace the 

situation back to a single COG, it will still have bounded the problem set. The staff’s next 

question is, why is it that one cannot get to a single COG? Clausewitz anticipated this issue 

as well and provided some guidance:

I would, therefore, state it as a principle that if you can vanquish all your 

enemies by defeating one of them, that defeat must be the main objective 

in the war. In this one enemy we strike at the center of gravity of the entire 

conflict.

There are very few cases where this conception is not applicable—where 

it would not be realistic to reduce several centers of gravity to one. Where 

this is not so, there is admittedly no alternative but to act as if there were 

two wars or even more, each with its own object.74

Choose a COG based on your dominant characteristics, the enemy’s dominant 

characteristics, and the context in which you find yourself. This will admittedly sometimes 

imply a choice in the face of legitimate alternatives (ambiguity) where doubt and uncertainty 

will haunt your decision. Colin Grey stipulates that “application to particular cases is rarely 
128

easy, but this simple idea of a centre of gravity is essential, helping a defense community 

avoid the error of merely being active in war, rather than purposefully active.”75

Nevertheless, when you have made your choice, you will have a “candidate theory 

of victory” from which to derive overarching objectives that subordinate planners will 

use. This outcome is what doctrine now generally conceives as the output of the design 

process, the conceptual source for guidance used by planners. An example from history 

is the Allies decision in WWII for Germany first. Defeat of Germany would lead to the 

defeat of all Axis powers on the European continent. It would not, however, lead to Japan’s 

surrender. Similarly, the defeat of Japan would not produce a victory in Europe. This 

dilemma did present legitimate alternatives. America essentially treated the situation as if 

it were involved in two separate wars. The prevailing conditions within the Allied camp led 

to the decision to go on a strategic offensive against the German foe while remaining on a 

strategic defensive against Japan.76

Debate will help you determine a COG at the strategic level. This in turn is what helps 

define the objectives of your grand strategy and then the guidance that planners crave so 

they can get on with their business of filling out Power Point slides. The right place for 

the COG concept is at the strategic level. By keeping the COG concept at this level one 

can avoid the pitfalls associated with becoming overly reductionist, relegating theory to 

routine doctrinal planning process. If COG is to remain in doctrine, it belongs in design. 

The design process should ideally produce one [and only one] COG that then determines 

the overall aims of the conflict. One uses this to develop guidance for the campaign and 

subordinate objectives that will be met by major operations. Objectives change all the time 

and planners deal with this—why give them additional steps that have no value? Where 

the COG can truly help is at the most ambiguous, complex, and uncertain area of war—the 

strategic level. To the extent that this is possible, this COG remains fixed until the strategic 

situation is altered in some remarkable way, such as your enemy gaining a new, powerful 

ally. With the COG relatively inflexible, the ambiguity, complexity and uncertainty are 

reduced for subordinates and they can focus their efforts on dealing with the volatility that 

accompanies the operational and tactical aspects of the conflict. 
129

Notes

1. H. L. Mencken, quoted in Donald Rumsfeld, “Rumsfeld’s Rules,” http://www.rumsfeldsrules.

com, (accessed 24 January 2012). 

2. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret 

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 81; “Center of Gravity Analysis” http://blog.usni.

org/2009/01/09/center-of-gravity-analysis/ accessed 13 December 2010.

3. Virginia Postrel, “How Art History Majors Power the U.S. Economy,” Bloomberg online at

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-01-06/postrel-how-art-history-major-power-the-u-s-.

html accessed 6 January 2012.

4. Clausewitz, On War, 141.

5. Gen George H. Decker in, Joint Publication 1 (JP 1), Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the 

United States, (Washington DC, The Joint Staff, 2 May 2007, Incorporating Change 1, 20 March 

2009), I-1.

6. Joint Staff , Joint Publication 1, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States 

(Washington DC, The Joint Staff, 2 May 2007, Incorporating Change 1 20 March 2009), I-1.

7. JP 1, A-1.

8. Joint Staff, Joint Publication 5-0 (JP 5-0), Joint Operation Planning (Washington DC: Joint 

Staff, August 11, 2011), III-22.

9. The passage is from Clausewitz, On War, 595-96; the passage is explicitly referred to in JP 

5-0, III-22.

10. Joseph L. Strange and Richard Iron, “Center of Gravity; What Clausewitz Really Meant,” 

Joint Forces Quarterly (2004):24.

11. Strange, “What Clausewitz Really Meant,” pg. 24.

12. Strange.

13. Strange, 25.

14. Strange.

15. Strange, 26.

16. Strange.

17. Strange.

18. Strange.

19. Strange, 27.

20. Strange.

21. Joseph L. Strange and Richard Iron, “Understanding Centers of Gravity and Critical 

Vulnerabilities; Part 2: The CG-CC-CR-CV Construct; A Useful Tool to Understand and Analyze 

the Relationship between Centers of Gravity and their Critical Vulnerabilities,” 2, www.au.af.mil/

au/awc/awcgate/usmc/COG2.pdf, (accessed 13 December 2011).

22. Strange, “The CG-CC-CR-CV Construct,” 3.

23. Dale Eikmeier, “The Center of Gravity Debate Resolved,” (Monograph, School of Advanced 

Military Studies, 16 December 1998), 40.

24. Eikmeier, “The Center of Gravity Debate Resolved,” 40.

25. Eikmeier, 2.

26. Eikmeier, 3.

27. Dale Eikmeier, “Center of Gravity Analysis,” Military Review (July-August 2004), 2.

28. Eikmeier, “Center of Gravity Analysis,” 2.

29. Eikmeier.

30. Eikmeier, 4.
130

31. Dale Eikmeier to Phillip G. Pattee, conversation 2 May 2012.

32. Eikmeier, “Center of Gravity Analysis,” 4.

33. Eikmeier.

34. Eikmeier to Pattee, 2 May 2012.

35. Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public 

Affairs, 2004), x.

36.Clausewitz, On War, 77.

37. Clausewitz, On War, 137.

38. Eikmeier, “Center of Gravity Analysis,” 4. 

39. Eikmeier.

40. Eikmeier to Pattee, 2 May 2012.

41. Eikmeier to Pattee.

42. Dale Eikmeier, “A Logical Method for Center-of-Gravity Analysis,” Military Review 

(September-October 2007), 62.

43. Eikmeier, “A Logical Method for Center-of-Gravity Analysis,” 66.

44. Clausewitz, On War, 597.

45. Dale Eikmeier, “Redefining the Center of Gravity,” Joint Forces Quarterly 59 (2010): 156.

46. Eikmeier, “Redefining the Center of Gravity,” 157.

47. Eikmeier, “Center of Gravity Analysis,” 2.

48. Eikmeier, “Redefining the Center of Gravity,” 157.

49. Eikmeier., 158.

50. George Marshall, quoted in Donald Rumsfeld, “Rumsfeld’s Rules,” http://www.

rumsfeldsrules.com, (accessed January 24, 2012). 

51. Jan L. Rueschhoff and Jonathan P. Dunne, “Centers of Gravity from the ‘Inside Out,’” Joint 

Forces Quarterly 60 (1st qtr 2011): 120-121.

52. Rueschhoff, “Centers of Gravity from the ‘Inside Out,’” 120-121.

53. Clausewitz, On War, 623.

54. Rueschhoff, “Centers of Gravity from the ‘Inside Out,’” 122.

55. Rueschhoff, 122.

56. Rueschhoff, 122 and 124.

57. Rueschhoff, 122.

58. Rueschhoff, 123

59. Eikmeier, “Center of Gravity Analysis,” 4.

60. Strange, “The CG-CC-CR-CV Construct,” 7.

61. Strange.

62. Eikmeier, “A Logical Method for Center-of-Gravity Analysis,” 64.

63. Eikmeier, 63.

64. Eikmeier, 64.

65. Eikmeier to Pattee, 2 May 2012.

66. Milan Vego, “On Military Theory,” Joint Forces Quarterly 62 (3rd Qtr 2011): 61.

67. Clausewitz, On War, 141.

68. Carl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege (Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1963, 15th 

reprint 2006), 211.

69. Clausewitz, On War, 596.

70. Clausewitz, On War, 617.

71. Clausewitz, On War, 619.

72. Colin Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 96.

73. Clausewitz, On War, 88-89.
131

74. Clausewitz, On War, 597.

75. Grey, Modern Strategy, 96. 

76. Clausewitz offers a discussion along these lines for similar decisions taken during his day 

in On War, 597-98. 

133

Chapter 7 

Modernizing the Center of Gravity Concept—So It Works 

by Colonel (Ret) Dale C. Eikmeier

“Ambiguity, artificial restrictions and contradictions regarding centers of gravity 

still exist, despite recent progress” 

—Dr. Joe Strange and Col Richard Iron1

The center of gravity (COG) concept has failed to meet joint doctrine’s intent. Much 

has been written about this failure and this monograph joins the lengthening critique. 

However, it also offers a practical solution to fix to the center of gravity’s “ambiguity, 

artificial restrictions and contradictions.” The problem isn’t the concept. It is doctrine’s 

reliance on a 19th century Clausewitzian foundation which Dr. Alex Ryan, a former School 

of Advanced Military Studies instructor, claims is “so abstract to be meaningless.”2

 This 

foundation is now crumbling under the weight of modern warfare and systems theory 

and no amount of scholarly repairs or patches can save it. Therefore it is time to discard 

Clausewitz’s explanation and rebuild the center of gravity concept on a new foundation 

based on modern military and systems theories. This monograph proposes a modernization 

that recognizes the realities of 21st century warfare and makes the center of gravity the 

powerful analytical tool doctrine intends it to be. This chapter will explain both the problem 

and solution in four parts.

Part one outlines the current and modernized center of gravity concepts. It includes a 

discussion of the current Clausewitzian based concept and its three main flaws: the issues 

contained in On War written by Carl Von Clausewitz,3

 doctrine’s ever changing definitions 

that have not satisfied the military community, and the concept’s lack of clarity, logic, 

precision and testability which renders it useless. The discussion continues with a proposed 

replacement—the modernized concept. This concept addresses and corrects the flaws by 

providing new definitions based on logic, not metaphors. The discussion also includes an 

objective identification method and a validation test that makes the center of gravity the 

useful tool doctrine describes. The discussion concludes with a recommendation to adopt 

the modernized concept. 

Part two answers questions about the modernized concept. These questions are often 

generated by the Clausewitzian concept; however, they are answered or solved using the 

modernized concept. Questions include: Is it useful? Does it exist at all levels of war? Is it 

compatible with modern systems theory? And can there be multiple centers of gravity? The 

answers will demonstrate the utility of the modernized concept.

Part three highlights the use of the modernized center of gravity and its key role in 

operational planning. It explains how the modernized concept fits into and complements 

current doctrine on operational art and the operational planning process, including 

discussions on operational design, decisive points and lines of effort. 

Part four compares the modernized methodology with center of gravity analysis and 

identification methods advocated by joint doctrine, and Dr. Strange, Dr. Vego, and Dr. 
134

Echevarria. The comparison shows that, with the exception of Echevarria’s three-step 

method, the modernized method is compatible with joint doctrine and is a logical extension 

of Dr. Strange’s and Dr. Vego’s methods.

Part One: The Current and Modernized Center of Gravity Concepts

Joint doctrine intends for the center of gravity concept to be a useful “analytical tool to 

help JFCs [joint force commanders] and staffs analyze friendly and adversary sources of 

strength as well as weaknesses and vulnerabilities”.4

 To achieve this intent, doctrine relied 

on ideas in Carl von Clausewitz’s On War.5 However, since the center of gravity’s modern 

reincarnation in 1986 some military theorists attacked it as nonexistent, unworkable and 

a myth.6

 Some with justification claim, “The COG is theory and opinion, and it is undertheorized and insufficiently buttressed.”7 Their criticisms are valid and the most common 

solution proposed by the critics is to discard the center of gravity concept entirely. However, 

there is another option; modernize the concept so it not only meets doctrine’s intent but is 

applicable in the 21st century.

The Intent of the Center of Gravity Concept

In simple terms the center of gravity concept is about efficiency and suggests there is 

some entity that if attacked, either directly or indirectly, will bring down an adversary. The 

idea is to attack this ‘center of gravity’ and avoid wasteful peripheral efforts. It is all about 

focusing effort to increase the likelihood of success at reasonable cost. Military doctrine, 

specifically Joint Publication 5-0 Joint Operation Planning, is clear on the concept’s 

purpose and utility: 

One of the most important tasks confronting the JFC’s [joint force commander] staff in the operational design process is the identification of 

friendly and adversary COGs [centers of gravity].

The COG construct is useful as an analytical tool to help JFCs and staffs 

analyze friendly and adversary sources of strength as well as weaknesses 

and vulnerabilities. This process cannot be taken lightly, since a faulty 

conclusion resulting from a poor or hasty analysis can have very serious 

consequences, such as the inability to achieve strategic and operational 

objectives at an acceptable cost.8

If doctrine is to meet this intent it must break with Clausewitz and modernize the center 

of gravity so that it is useful. Only then will the center of gravity become a cornerstone of 

operational art that doctrine intends.

The Clausewitzian Foundation 

Doctrine writers recognizing the potential utility of the center of gravity concept 

understandably turned to the concept’s originator Carl von Clausewitz to provide the 

intellectual and theoretical base. This established the Clausewitzian foundation. However, 

over time the shortcoming in this course of action became more apparent and reached 

the point where some advocated removing the concept from doctrine.9

 The Clausewitzian 

foundation’s problem is that it contains three flaws: a reliance on 19th century military 
135

theory, definitions that do not satisfy, and the concept’s lack of clarity, logic, precision and 

testability. Together these three ‘strikes’ argue for a break from Clausewitz and support the 

need for modernized concept. 

Strike One: Clausewitz and the Center of Confusion

When a concept or theory doesn’t work as it should, we often conclude that a flawed 

understanding or application is at fault. We believe if only we could be more diligent or 

sophisticated in our understanding and application of the concept, we could successfully 

apply it. The problem is many of us are so intimidated by the presumed wisdom Clausewitz 

that we dismiss our own misgivings as fantasies until experts legitimizes them.10

The center of gravity has been the mainstay of the US military thought on “operational 

art” since 1986.11 However it has never fully met doctrine’s intent because of a reliance 

on 19th century military theory, weighed down by archaic German, flawed translations 

and imprecise metaphors.12 But Clausewitz is not the problem; doctrine is the problem. 

Doctrine has treated Clausewitz’s On War as if it were divinely inspired, handed down 

from Mt. Sinai and the definitive authority on the center of gravity concept. Some suggest 

the confusion surrounding the center of gravity results from an incorrect understanding 

of On War and the solution is more study. The fact is decades of study and countless 

articles on the subject have not produced better understanding. More study will only pass 

the confusion and debates to another generation of military planners. Doctrine needs to 

discontinue the reliance on Clausewitz’s On War as the authority on the center of gravity 

for four reasons that collectively discredit any conclusion based on it.

First, Clausewitz did not write On War. His widow, assisted by military colleagues 

collected his notes and manuscripts after his death and compiled them. They eventually 

produced 10 volumes of which the first three became On War.13 On War is not Clausewitz’s 

magnum opus. It is a third party’s interpretation of his notes, manuscripts, and incomplete 

drafts without the benefit of Clausewitz having reviewed or edited it. At best On War is an 

incomplete first draft forever waiting revision by the author.

Second, prior to his death Clausewitz wrote a note saying his manuscripts were nothing 

more than “a mass of conceptions not brought into form...open to endless misconceptions.”14

His note was a warning that his ideas and theories were incomplete and any attempt to 

comprehend or draw conclusions from them would be full of errors. It is clear he hadn’t 

finished forming his theories and was not ready to stand behind them as authoritative. If 

Clausewitz was not willing to stand behind the work credited to him, why should doctrine? 

Third, Clausewitz was trying to explain 19th century European social-political theory 

and the phenomena of war–the ultimate social-political contest to military officers whose 

formal education was generally in engineering, not the social sciences. So he resorted to 

mechanical metaphors that successfully conveyed the social-political concepts to Prussian 

officers grounded in engineering.15 The metaphors worked for 19th century military 

officers. The problem today is many military officers now have soft sciences backgrounds 

and mechanical metaphors confuse rather than clarify as they did in Clausewitz’s time.16 If 

a metaphor has to be explained then the use of a metaphor is inappropriate to begin with. 
136

Another problem with the center of gravity metaphor is that Clausewitz never used the 

term “center of gravity,” or, in German, “Gravitationpunkt”, he used the word schwerpunkt, 

which means weight of focus or point of effort, which is different from center of gravity, 

hubs or sources of power.17 But it is easy to understand how an engineer when picturing this 

point of effort could think of a center of gravity. Milan Vigo in Joint Operational Warfare 

Theory and Practice provides a detailed analysis of the evolution of schwerpunkt from 

focus of effort to center of gravity which is summarized below:18

1. Schwerpunkt – main weight or focus or one’s efforts.

2. Mid 19th century, Schwerpunkt is associated with an enemy’s capital 

as the point of focus. Germans and Austrians used the word Schwerpunktlinie to mean line of main weight or effort that links one’s base 

of operations to the enemy’s capital. This is the Schwerpunkt as ‘the 

target’ understanding.

3. Late 19th century it comes to mean a section of the front where the 

bulk of one’s forces would be employed to reach a decision. Schwerpunkt is no longer the target, is the ‘arrow’. This is a subtle shift from 

the point of focus at the target, to what is being focused, the arrow. 

This ‘arrow’ understanding is reflected in plans of Count Alfred von 

Schlieffen and the German military theory and practice up to WW II. 

4. Schwerpunkt is mistranslated into English as “center of gravity” in 

Colonel J.J. Graham’s 1874 English language translation of On War.19

5. Post World War I Schwerpunkt is progressively used to mean the focus of planning efforts. This is a natural evolution of the late 19th 

century hybrid of ‘the arrow’, and the ‘target’ understandings. 

6. The Bundeswehr (German Army) now uses the English term “center 

of gravity” while the Austrian Army uses the German term “Gravitationspunkt” which translates to “center of gravity”. Hence, Clausewitz’s use of the term “Schwerpunkt” or focus of effort, ‘the target’, 

was mistranslated into center of gravity, ‘the arrow’ which became a 

source of power, but not focus of effort.

The concept of the center of gravity or Schwerpunkt evolved from focus of effort 

which became the enemy’s capital, to a location on the battle field where the forces were 

most concentrated, to a planning effort focus, to a hub or source of power. This continuing 

evolution is clear evidence of a “conception not brought into form.” The fact that the 

concept has changed several times since the publication of On War and has been adapted to 

fit different environments is sufficient reason challenge On War’s authority on the subject.

Fourth, Clauswitzian scholar Dr. Christopher Bassford describes the problems 

associated with any translation, especially those dealing with theoretical concepts:
137

Any translation from one language to another necessarily involves interpretation not only of the language but of the conceptual content. Even the 

most honest and competent translation inevitably includes both technical 

errors and arguable or controversial—if not flatly wrong—conceptual interpretations. And not all translators are honest and/or competent. Further, 

even editors working in the original language have been known to take 

liberties with the writer’s original words, sometimes because the writer 

(like most authors) genuinely needed editorial assistance. Other editorial 

interventions are prompted by political fear or ambition, conceptual confusion, or contrary conviction (of either a technical or ideological nature). 

Changes in the native version obviously can be reflected in translations. 

All of these factors have certainly had an impact on the translation of 

Clausewitz, so which edition you get can be important.20

To illustrate Dr. Bassford’s point the phrase “the hub of all power and movement” 

that is closely associated with the current definition is actually the invention of translators 

Michael Howard and Peter Paret, not Clausewitz.21 There are many other instances in 

their translation On War where grievous errors were made and were never corrected; e.g. 

Meldungen are translated as intelligence instead of “reports;” Kriegschauplatz is translated 

as theater of operations (a term Clausewitz never used but Jomini did) instead of the correct 

translation, “theater of war.”22 Another example of how translations change context and 

meaning is when Colonel J.J. Graham’s 1874 English translation is compared to Michael 

Howard and Peter Paret’s 1976 translation. Graham says, “...this center generally lies in 

the capital.” While Howard and Paret say, “the center of gravity is generally the capital....” 

‘Lies in’ and ‘is generally the capital’ have very different meanings.23

In addition to translating and editing problems there is the simple problem of correctly 

understanding 200-year-old context and usage. Understanding Clausewitz’s German is 

challenging even for modern native-speaking German scholars such as Dennis Prange 

of the Munich Foundation, who explained even correct literal translations contain errors 

in meaning and context.24 For example early 19th century German officers would have 

understood Schwerpunkt as the target while early 20th century German officers saw it as 

the arrow because usage, not meaning, evolved over time. 

Because of these factors the meaning of the center of gravity has become confused. 

If this were a trial there would be sufficient evidence to create reasonable doubt as to On 

War’s authority on the center of gravity concept. A jury would have to find On War not 

credible, ‘strike one’. Rather than continuing a ‘holy grail’ quest for understanding in On 

War, we should build our own grail based on the imperatives of the 21st century warfare. 

Strike Two: Changing COG Definitions

The US Army introduced the concept of the center of gravity in its 1986 version 

of FM 100-5 Operations which marked the rebirth of operational art. FM 100-5 stated, 

“The center of gravity of an armed force refers to those sources of strength or balance. 

It is that characteristic, capability, or locality from which the force derives its freedom of 
138

action, physical strength, or will to fight. Clausewitz defined it as ‘the hub of all power and 

movement, on which everything depends.’”25

Note that the definition assumes the adversary system is an armed force which is not the 

COG itself. However, the force’s sources of strength or balance can be COGs. This source 

could be a characteristic (adverb or adjective), a capability (verb), or a location (noun), but 

the definition does not explain what kind of characteristics. A reasonable conclusion is that 

anything an armed force requires is a potential source of strength. Planners could declare 

any requirement the center of gravity. The question then became which requirement or 

‘source’ was the center of gravity. This question and the inability to distinguish a COG 

from other sources of power did nothing to focus planning efforts and contributed to 

lengthy discussions and debates. The only positive effect of this definition was to suggest 

attacking a force through its requirements or vulnerabilities. 

In 1993 the Army revised the definition and declared, “The center of gravity is the 

hub of all power and movement upon which everything depends. It is that characteristic, 

capability, or location from which enemy and friendly forces derive their freedom of action, 

physical strength, or will to fight.”26 The definition’s use of the phrase “hub of all power 

and movement upon which everything depends” closely links it to Howard-Paret’s version 

of Clausewitz’s On War. The change was significant; planners were no longer just looking 

for sources of strength. They were looking for the ‘hub’, usually single, upon which the 

force depended on. The COG was no longer just an important requirement or source of 

power, the COG was some central hub and critically important source on which everything 

depended. Planners would actually debate whether or not you could have multiple hubs 

which illustrate the danger in using metaphors. Planners were justly criticized for looking 

for “hubs” that in many cases did not exist due to dispersed networked systems. In later 

definitions the ‘hub’ metaphor was removed although it remained in expanded discussions.

In 1996, Dr. Joe Strange of the US Marine War College offered his own definition: 

“Primary sources of moral or physical strength, power and resistance.”27 This shorter, 

simpler definition was a step in the right direction in that it addressed the two issues with 

the previous Army definitions. It limited the sources of strength to the ‘primary’, although 

the definition of primary was left open. Nevertheless it did constrain the COG candidate list 

which enabled greater focus. He also left out the ‘hub’ metaphor, which system theorists 

argued overly constrained the list.28

When joint doctrine adopted the concept in 1994, JP 1-02 defined it as, “Those 

characteristics, capabilities, or localities from which a military force derives its freedom 

of action, physical strength, or will to fight.”29 A slight change in 2002, defined the COG 

as, “...those characteristics, capabilities, or sources of power from which a military force 

derives its freedom of action, physical strength, or will to fight.”30 These definitions still 

limited the system to military forces. Using sound reasoning, planners were able to expand 

the definition to other entities. Since both definitions were based on the Army’s 1986 

definition they suffered the same flaws. Basically the COG could be anything as long as 

one deemed it important to ‘freedom of action.’ Planners would pick their favored sources 

and proceed to argue why theirs was the better COG. It they could not agree on a single 

COG often they would list all the candidates as COGs which did little to focus efforts.
139

In 2006 joint doctrine changed the definition to “The source of power that provides 

moral or physical strength, freedom of action, or will to act.”31 This definition was retained 

in 2011. The definition’s ‘source of power’ implies one COG rather than multiple. It 

does recognize that systems other than military forces can have or be COGs, which is an 

improvement. It leaves out hubs, characteristics, capabilities, and locations which simplifies 

the definition. But the definition does not significantly contribute to greater understanding 

or the ability to focus planning efforts. 

NATO adopted the center of gravity concept, and following US doctrine defined it 

in Allied Joint Doctrine AJP-01(D) as, “Characteristics, capabilities, or localities from 

which a nation, an alliance, a military force or other grouping derives its freedom of action, 

physical strength, or will to fight.”32

The conclusion is that while joint doctrine is clear on the role of the COG in operational 

art and planning we just don’t know exactly what it is or how to determine it. Fortunately 

we can fix this. Since we understand doctrine’s intent and purpose, we can redesign and 

redefine the center of gravity so it becomes the useful analytical tool doctrine intended it 

to be. 

Strike Three: A Lack of Clarity, Logic, Precision and Testability

While some question the existence or relevance of the center of gravity concept, the 

fact that it is a doctrinal mainstay in many militaries is sufficient evidence of acceptance 

and relevance of the concept’s intent, if not the definition.33 Therefore few people debate 

JP 5-0’s description of the COG’s value to operational art and planning processes, so the 

concept itself is not the issue. The issue is the definition. No other term in military circles 

generates so much debate.34 This debate alone is sufficient evidence that doctrine puts 

planners in the position of not understanding a concept or how to use it, but agreeing that it 

is has tremendous value. Doctrine can remedy this situation by changing the definition of 

the center of gravity and its related critical factors. 

Because the current COG definition lacks precision, it generates debate and confusion 

and leads some, such as Dr. Ryan, to claim the COG concept is “...so abstract to be 

meaningless”.35 This abstraction leads to unnecessary debates and distractions from critical 

planning tasks. A useful center of gravity definition must be clear, based on logic, precise, 

and lead to answers that can be objectively validated and does not rely on metaphors. 

Because the current definition lacks these qualities, doctrine should replace it. Otherwise 

the lack of clarity, precision, logic and testability and a reliance on metaphors will continue 

to prevent the concept from meeting its intent. 

The solution is a definition that meets the intent of JP 5-0 and not a slavish devotion 

to Clausewitz’s On War. To fulfill doctrine’s intent I propose that any revised definition 

should meet the following criteria:

1. Clarity–It explicitly states what the center of gravity is in simple terms.

2. Based on Logic–Contains rules that allow for a valid inference.
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3. Precision–Is narrowly focused to exclude the extraneous. 

4. Testable–It can be objectively tested using rules and logic.

Below is a test of the current JP 5-0 definition, (“The source of power that provides

moral or physical strength, freedom of action, or will to act.”) against the criteria of clarity, 

logic, precision and testability .

36

Clarity. Does the definition tell us if the COG is only the source of power or is it the 

power? Is each source of power a center of gravity and if so can there be multiples? If 

there are multiples, which center of gravity should planners focus on? What characteristics 

distinguish a COG from any other source of strength? Does something with the will to act 

but not the freedom or strength have a center of gravity? If the definition raises questions 

rather than answering them it isn’t clear. If you have to debate the answers, the definition 

isn’t clear. If you lack certainty as to what is and isn’t a center of gravity, it is not clear. The 

joint definition fails the clarity test. 

Logic. Definitional clarity is impossible to achieve without logic. A good definition 

provides principles and criteria on which a valid inference can be made. For example, a cat 

is a mammal because it meets the criteria in the definition of a mammal. Because the joint 

definition lacks logic and criteria it uses vague examples and a set of nebulous characteristics 

that obfuscate rather than clarify. For example, JP 5-0 lists 12 characteristics, but they are 

neither required nor exclusive characteristics. So these characteristics are suggestions rather 

than rules and therefore have marginal utility for making a logical inference. According to 

the definition a COG has the capability to provide morale or physical strength, freedom of 

action, or will to act. Must the COG provide all four? Are any of the four superior to the 

others? What is the difference between moral strength and will to act? Are they the same? 

Is freedom of action just an effect of morale and physical strength? There is simply no logic 

here, just words. 

Precision. Clarity and logic allow for precision which is necessary for identifying a 

COG and turning it into the analytical tool doctrine intended. However, because there is no 

clarity or logic, precision is impossible to achieve. So in place of precision joint doctrine 

offers examples:

At the strategic level, a COG could be a military force, an alliance, political or military leaders, a set of critical capabilities or functions, or national 

will. At the operational level a COG often is associated with the adversary’s military capabilities—such as a powerful element of the armed forces—but could include other capabilities in the operational environment.37

 These examples suggest the COG is a set of capabilities, which some argue are verbs. 

However, the definition says it’s a source of power, which some argue would be a noun. 

Between the definition and the example there is potential for confusion. The example also 

suggests that the strategic level COG can be just about anything but the operational level 

COG is usually a military capability, but still could be anything which is not very precise. To 

achieve precision one must include and exclude things based on logical criteria. However, 
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the joint definition attempts to achieve precision by providing examples to illustrate what 

is neither clear or logical. Not being able to logically exclude the extraneous, the examples 

attempt to cover all of the bases just in case something might be left out. These examples 

even include the catch-all phrases such as, “...a set of critical capabilities or functions” and

“...but could include other capabilities in the operational environment.”38 In other words, 

just about anything can be a COG. This attempt to include rather than exclude obscures the 

COG and handicaps planners’ ability to focus their plans. In lieu of criteria, JP 5-0 lists the 

following 12 characteristics that can be associated with a COG:

1. Exists at each level of war. 

2. Mostly physical at operational and tactical levels.

3. Is a source of leverage. 

4. Allows or enhances freedom of action. 

5. May be where the enemy’s force is most densely concentrated.

6. Can endanger one’s own COGs. 

7. May be transitory in nature. 

8. Linked to the objective(s). 

9. Often intangible in limited contingency operations. 

10. Can shift over time or between Phases. 

11. Often depends on factors of time and space. 

12. Contains many intangible elements at strategic level.39

Notice the use of the qualifying words: may, can, often, and mostly. These are not 

definitive and leave latitude, which contributes a lack of precision in the definition. This 

is not to say the ‘art of war’ requires precision; it does not. However, when dealing with 

terminology and definitions precision is desired.

Testable. Since the current definition lacks clarity, logic and precision it is impossible 

to validate or test a COG selection. Doctrine says to test a COG selection by postulating 

that if a COG candidate is neutralized the adversary will have to change his course of 

action or objective.40 This test only determines if something is critical, not if it is the COG. 

If everything that is critical can be validated as a COG, the concept loses meaning and its 

ability to focus planners. This is why planners eventually grow frustrated with what JP 5-0 

says is a useful analytical tool.41

Since the current definition fails the clarity, logic, precision and testable criteria, 

military planners lack the necessary understanding needed to identify centers of gravity 

and meet doctrine’s intent. Doctrine should replace the definition with one that does. Only 

then will planners be able to focus on operational planning assisted by the center of gravity 

concept rather than being distracted by it. 
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Proposed Modernization 

By addressing the flaws in the Clausewitzian foundation the proposal modernizes the 

center of gravity concept making it relevant for 21st century conflict while meeting the 

doctrinal intent. The proposal has three parts. First is a new set of definitions that draw 

on systems theory rather than Clausewitz. The second is an easy to use center of gravity 

identification method based on objectivity and logic. Last is an identification validation 

method. This modernization, if adopted, will finally make the center of gravity concept the 

useful analytical tool doctrine first envisioned it to be. 

Redefining the Center of Gravity

Joint doctrine is clear on the concept’s purpose and utility. What doctrine needs are 

new definitions of the center of gravity and its critical factors. The criteria of clarity, logic, 

precision and testability will guide the definitions. Additionally the definitions should not 

only stand up to modern military theory but be based on them. New definitions would then 

allow for improved center of gravity identification and validation methods based on logic 

and objectivity. The modernized definition is: The Center of Gravity is the primary entity 

that inherently possesses the critical capabilities to achieve the objective.

42

Clarity. This definition is a simple declarative statement of what a COG is. It is the 

primary entity that achieves the objective. Unlike the joint definition, it is not a list of 

characteristics or descriptions separated by commas. The words used in the proposed 

definition have limited meaning, unlike the phrase “a source of power” which can have 

several meanings. Clarity is achieved which then allows for logic. 

Logic. This definition has two criteria when met lead to a valid inference. First, the 

COG is the primary entity, the key word being primary. Secondly it has the capability to 

achieve the specified objective or purpose. The logic is: A(primary entity)+B(capability to 

achieve the objective)=COG. Using these simple criteria one can infer what is and what is 

not a COG. Note that the capability must be directly linked to attaining the objective. This 

linkage provides purpose to action and supports doctrine which correctly states that, “An 

objective is always linked to a COG.”43 The COG is the primary possessor of the capability 

that achieves the objective. It isn’t a source of power; it is the possessor and wielder of that 

power.

The logic is further illustrated by asking three questions. What is the objective? How 

can it be achieved (the required capability)? What has the capability to do it? The answer to 

the last question is the center of gravity. This logic then excludes other contenders allowing 

for greater precision.

Precision. Clarity and logic provide precision. Use of the word “primary” excludes 

the secondary, supporting or extraneous. If something is secondary or supporting, even 

if essential, it is a requirement, not a COG. This distinction allows planners to focus on 

the COG and its relationships with other elements. The COG is the primary doer, it has 

the inherent capability required to achieve the objective. If an entity does not have that 

capability, it is not a COG and the system needs to find or create a COG with the requisite 

capability.
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Testable. The logic in the definition provides for the Supported and Supporting 

validation test. The real COG is supported, it is the doer. Other candidates are supporting. 

The COG is inherently capable of achieving the purpose or objective and executes the 

primary action(s) that achieves it. It uses or consumes supporting resources to accomplish 

it. If something is used or consumed to execute the primary action it is a requirement. If it 

contributes to, but does not actually perform the action, it serves a supporting function and 

is a requirement. It is not a center of gravity. 

In this definition there are no ‘moral’ COGs, only physical COGs. Removing moral 

COGs contributes to clarity by reducing abstractness. Intangibles, such as moral strength, 

public opinion, or a righteous cause are not COGs because they have no inherent capability 

for action. They can be requirements. A tangible physical agent must perform the action. 

This is an important distinction and highlights a key difference between the proposed and 

current definitions. The intent of the proposed definition is to limit COGs to tangible agents 

that have a physical existence. The reason is simple; we can more easily target things 

for defense or attack that physically exist. For example, an idea is intangible; however 

it resides in tangibles such as a mind, a book, or other type of physical media that is 

targetable. Morale resides in individuals and organizations; it does not exist in a targetable 

sense on its own. However, an individual or organization can be a target of attacks designed 

to affect morale. Here is another way of looking at this issue. Police do not target speeding, 

although they say they do, because speeding is intangible. They target speeders –people 

exceeding the speed limit. You may think you are promoting or attacking moral power but 

in reality you are targeting individuals or organizations motivated by that moral power. 

This brings us to critical factors.

So how are intangibles such as ‘moral COGs’ accounted for? They can be critical 

factors—targets for indirect attacks. Critical factors are critical capabilities, requirements 

and vulnerabilities of a COG.44 An intangible such as popular support is at best a critical 

requirement for some physical entity such as a government or an army to perform some 

action that achieves a goal. However, like the COG definition, doctrine needs to revise 

the definitions of, critical capabilities, critical requirements and critical vulnerabilities 

associated with the center of gravity concept.

Joint Operation Planning 5-0 says that planners should analyze COGs within a 

framework of three critical factors–critical capabilities, critical requirements, and critical 

vulnerabilities.

45 In 1996 Dr Joe Strange created and defined the idea of critical factors:

1. “Critical Capability: Primary abilities which merits a Center of Gravity to be identified as such in the context of a given scenario, situation 

or mission.

2. Critical Requirements: Essential conditions, resources and means for 

a critical capability to be fully operative.

3. Critical Vulnerabilities: Critical requirements or components thereof 

which are deficient or vulnerable to neutralization, interdiction or attack in a manner achieving decisive results.”46
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These factors and their definitions were a tremendous step forward in COG analysis 

because they created a logical hierarchy that helped separate the true COG, the doer, from 

other contenders which may only be requirements. Critical factors also linked systems 

theory to the COG concept. The COG was no longer a single mass or point. It was part 

of a system with connections to capabilities and requirements. Additionally these factors 

provided planners insights on how to attack or defend a COG by showing what a COG 

does, what is needed and what is vulnerable. However, for reasons unknown, joint doctrine 

significantly changed Dr. Strange’s definition of critical capability. Below are two versions 

of the joint definition of critical capabilities, from JP 5-0 Aug 2011:

1. “Critical Capability - a means that is considered a crucial enabler for 

a COG to function as such, and is essential to the accomplishment of 

the specified or assumed objective(s).”

2. “Critical Capabilities are those that are considered crucial enablers for 

a COG to function as such, and are essential to the accomplishment of 

the adversary’s assumed objective.”47

Dr. Strange, in his definition, refers to abilities which are verbs. The first joint 

definition refers to means and enablers which can be thought of as verbs or nouns. The 

second definition replaces “means” with “those” which refers back to capabilities which 

are generally expressed as verbs. This ambiguity between abilities or things confuses rather 

that clarifies. If one believes that means and enablers are things (nouns), then the first 

joint definition could be synonymous with Dr. Strange’s definition of critical requirements. 

One solution is to accept Dr. Strange’s wording for critical capability which emphasizes 

Primary Abilities which cannot be confused with nouns and returns the focus to actions 

that accomplish the objective. However, an advantage of the joint definition is the phrase, 

“essential to the accomplishment of the adversary’s assumed objective.” This clearly links 

the COG’s purpose and capability to achieving the objective and supports the proposed 

center of gravity definition. If we combine elements from Dr. Strange and the joint definition 

clarity and logic can replace ambiguity and confusion. The proposed definition of critical 

capabilities is, “primary abilities essential to the accomplishment of the objective which 

merits a Center of Gravity to be identified as such.” This revised definition of critical 

capabilities reinforces the idea that the COG is the primary agent or “doer” that possesses 

the ability to achieve the objective. It also links the critical capabilities to a purpose– 

achieving the objective. This contributes to logic and precision. 

Both Dr. Strange’s and the joint definition of critical requirements (“Essential conditions, 

resources and means for a critical capability to be fully operative”) are acceptable.48

However, one can improve them by shifting the focus to the COG rather than the capability. 

Both definitions link critical requirements to capabilities which are verbs. However, since 

the COG possesses the critical capability, it is clearer to directly link the requirement to 

the COG. For example the capability of running does not require shoes, but a runner does. 

The question should be what does the COG require to perform the critical capability, not 

what does the capability require. This may seem like a small point but it keeps the focus 

on the tangible agent, the COG, which is targetable and the focus of planning efforts. The 
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proposed definition of critical requirements is, “essential conditions, resources and means 

the COG requires to perform the critical capability.”

Flawed definitions of the COG and critical factors result in flawed COG identification 

and analysis. Figure five from JP 5-0 illustrates poor reasoning and flawed center of 

gravity analysis that results from the current doctrinal definitions of center of gravity, and 

critical capabilities. No adversary objective or end state is given so one has to assume the 

identification of the adversary armored corps as the COG is correct. The critical capability, 

integrated air defense system, is not a capability at all; it is a thing which is perhaps a 

requirement. Provide air defense is a capability. Since one does not know the mission of the 

armored corps there is no way of knowing if air defense is a capability critical to achieving 

the objective. The critical requirements listed are requirements of an air defense system, 

not the COG. The radars may be vulnerable but the relationship to the COG is not clear 

so their relevance to the COG is unknown. The example contains no logic, because the 

definitions lack logic. The result is an illustration in a doctrinal publication that contributes 

nothing positive and reinforces poor reasoning. 

The modernized definitions resolve many of the valid criticisms currently associated 

with the doctrinal concept and definitions. Criticisms include: incompatibility with modern 

systems theory, a failure to account for dynamic environments, imprecise metaphors, and 

that COGs non-existence in the modern environment. The proposal is not only compatible 

with systems theory; it relies on it to provide understanding of the system. Since the 

proposed definition links the COG to objectives, capabilities and available means, it allows 

for changing COGs in dynamic environments where ends, ways and means constantly 

change. It does not rely on confusing and inaccurate metaphors that produce endless DoD photo.

Figure 5. Center of Gravity Analysis Examples.
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discussions on what is a source of power or a hub. Lastly, in the revised definition the 

COG is a tangible and targetable agent that performs an action and can be shown to exist. 

These characteristics are the new foundation for a modernized center of gravity concept. 

Fixing the definitions of the center of gravity, critical capabilities and critical requirements 

is the first step towards achieving the intent of JP 5-0. The second is a practical center of 

gravity identification method. Figure six illustrates an improved COG analysis based on 

the modernized definitions. 

Identification of the Center of Gravity

Doctrine offers no practical method to identify the COG. It does suggest using a 

‘Systems of Systems’ (SyoSy) approach combined with a nodal analysis to determine 

where the adversary derives its freedom of action or strength.49 This analysis then allows 

analysts to “visualize each COG’s role/function relative to each of the various systems 

and subsystems.”50 In simple terms joint doctrine’s COG identification process is: first 

understand the system through SyoSy analysis then “visualize” where the system derives 

its strength. Given the doctrinal COG definition’s lack of precision and logic, “visualizing” 

isn’t far from guessing but it may be the best doctrine can offer. 

Figure 6. Revised Center of Gravity Analysis.
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The SyoSy method is a tremendous tool to understand the environment and the 

adversary. It is also a necessary component for COG identification because it provides the 

data on a system’s actors (nodes), relationships (links), functions, and tendencies/tensions 

required to identify a COG. However, as a stand-alone method for COG identification, 

it comes up short. 51 What is needed is a practical and easy to use method that builds 

on the understanding provided by SyoSy analysis but replaces the highly subjective 

“visualization” method. 

Recognize that the best way to determine a center of gravity involves a systems 

perspective because without it, COG identification is just guesswork. However, the SyoSy 

covers a lot of ground, and it is easy to get lost in a system’s networked forest of nodes 

and links and lose sight of what the target is. Arthur F. Lykke’s strategic framework of 

ends, ways and means applied to a system offers a simple solution.52 The framework’s 

three simple questions: what is the system’s desired end-state, how can it be achieved, and 

what resources are required—are the essential elements of systems thinking in support of 

COG identification and analysis. This is how it works. There are six steps, four to identify 

the COG and two for critical and vulnerable requirements. Using the environmental and 

situational information provided by the Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational 

Environment’s (JIPOE) or other SyoSy analysis, do the following:

1. Identify the organization’s desired ends or objectives. 

2. Identify possible ‘ways’ or actions that can achieve the desired ends. 

Select the way(s) that analysis suggests the organization is most likely to use. Remember ’ways’ are actions and should be expressed as 

verbs. Then select the most elemental or essential action(s)—that selection is/are the critical capability (ies). Ways=critical capabilities. 

3. List the organization’s means or resources available or needed to 

execute the critical capability. (In systems theory these are actors or 

nodes.) 

4. Select the entity (tangible agent) from the list of means that inherently 

possess the critical capability. This is the center of gravity. It is the 

doer of the action that achieves the ends. (In systems theory this is the 

key actor or node.)

5. From the remaining means select those that are critical for execution 

of the critical capability. These are the critical requirements. (In systems theory these show links between the actors or nodes.)

6. Complete the process by identifying those critical requirements that 

are vulnerable to adversary actions. 
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Figure seven illustrates the steps of the Ends, Way and Means method of Center 

of Gravity identification. This method provides a simple and clear process for COG 

identification and the ability to differentiate between a COG and other candidates that are 

actually critical requirements. This method with its objective rationale contributes to the 

intent of JP 5-0 by providing planners a focus point whose selection they can logically 

justify.

Validity Test: Supported/Supporting

Due to handicaps with the doctrinal definitions and identification methodology, 

validating a COG selection is very imprecise. To test a COG, joint doctrine recommends 

using a war game to determine if the defeat, destruction or weakening of the COG candidate 

causes the adversary to change courses of action or objectives.53 If it changes, according to 

doctrine one has validated the COG selection. However, what this actually validates is that 

the candidate is merely a critical node in the system. Logically if everything considered 

critical can be a COG there will be a plethora of COGs which brings into question the 

utility of the concept. Doctrine needs to replace the current war game validation system 

with one that not only tells us what is critical but what the COG is. The ‘supported and 

supporting’ test meets this criterion. 

The ‘supported and supporting’ test verifies the center of gravity selection and 

distinguishes it from critical requirements and vulnerabilities by asking two questions. 

First, does the candidate perform the primary action (critical capability) that achieves the 

objective? Or is it supporting, used or consumed in the execution of the action? If the 

Figure 7. Center of Gravity Identification and Analysis.
149

candidate is the ‘doer’ or supported and performs the primary action it is the COG. If it 

is used or consumed by another entity to execute the primary action it is a ‘supporting’ 

requirement. Entities that contribute to, but do not actually perform, the critical capability 

are requirements, not centers of gravity, no matter how critical their contribution. For 

example Winston Churchill, regardless of how critical and inspirational to the British 

people during World War II, was not the center of gravity because he could not defeat 

Nazi Germany. He was not the ‘doer’ or supported entity. The Allied military force was 

the ‘doer’ or supported entity that possessed the critical capability to defeat Nazi Germany. 

Winston Churchill was needed to create, lead and motivate an Allied force thus he was a 

‘supporting’ critical requirement. 

Here is an example of center of gravity identification, analysis and validation using 

SyoSy and the Ends, Way and Means method. Our subject system is a railroad. Intelligence 

analysts using a systems perspective and analysis reveals that the railroad company’s 

objective is to make a profit (step1). They also provide a systems analysis of the railroad 

complete with a network analysis diagram that shows the actor/node relationship linkages 

and functions.

Analysts determine that the way to make a profit is to move freight from point A to 

point B (step 2). To move is the verb or critical capability. The list of means and resources 

(nodes) required include: tracks, fuel, freight, cars, operators, a support staff, locomotives, 

command and control systems and a financial management system (step 3). From the list of 

means analysts determine which has the inherent capability to move freight. They conclude 

that the locomotive had the inherent capability ‘to move’ and identify it as the COG. They 

then validate their selection (step 4) using the supported and supporting test.

The subjects of the ‘supported and supporting’ questions are derived from the systems 

analysis diagram or they contribute to building the diagram. Means or resources become 

the actors/nodes which have a function and relationship with other nodes in the system. The 

idea is to determine which nodes do the work and which nodes contribute. The working 

nodes posses the critical capability and the contributing nodes are the critical requirements. 

The fundamental questions to ask are who or what performs the critical capability (to 

move) and who or what contributes to that capability? For example:

Tracks do nothing by themselves other than support and guide the train. 

They are used by the train. Fuel does not move anything it is used or 

consumed by the locomotive. Cars are used by the locomotive to move 

freight. The cars only hold freight. Operators and staff are critical but do 

not have the inherent capability to move freight. Clients pay freight charges and are a motivating force but they don’t move their own freight. The 

locomotive is the doer and is supported; it has the inherent capability to 

move. However, it cannot do so without the other means. Therefore the 

other means are identified as ‘supporting’ critical requirements that the 

center of gravity requires to function.

Some will argue that the locomotive isn’t the COG because in fact the railroad has 

several locomotives and they are dispersed in a network. Since there is no single locomotive 
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or hub of locomotive power there is no center of gravity. Their argument is that COGs do 

not exist in networked systems. This argument is the result of Clausewitzian based center of 

gravity definitions and is a reason to redefine the center of gravity. The proposed definition 

allows COGs to exist dispersed across networked systems. The COG does not have to 

be concentrated or be a ‘hub’ and can exist dispersed across a system. The modernized 

COG concept allows planners to see and understand a system, determine what actions and 

agents accomplish the objectives and the critical relationships between the primary agent 

and other actors/nodes in the system. The concept does not say attack a COG directly; an 

indirect attack through critical vulnerabilities is an option. The concept does allow planners 

to analyze a system, identify key nodes, understand the relationships and identify critical 

points that they can attack or defend.

Having validated a COG selection, analysts determine critical requirements and what 

components of those are vulnerable (steps 5&6). Based on their ability to affect the critical 

vulnerabilities and the COG, planners determine which is more efficient, attacking the 

COG directly or attacking indirectly through critical vulnerabilities. Having identified a 

center of gravity and its relationship to other elements, campaign planners have a better 

understanding of how the system works and what and how to attack or protect. 

Joint doctrine is clear on the concept’s purpose and utility. The proposed set of 

definitions based on clarity, logic, precision and testability, combined with the logical ends, 

ways and means identification method and the validation test provides campaign planners 

Figure 8. Systems Analysis, Network Analysis Diagram.
151

a real analytical tool that fulfills doctrine’s intent and works in the 21st century operating 

environment. The recommendation is, adopt the modernized concept. 

Modernized Concept

The center of gravity concept has always generated questions for discussion and debate. 

Is it useful? Is it compatible with systems theory? Can there be multiple centers of gravity? 

Do they exist at each level of war? Can the center of gravity change and if so how? Many 

theorists have attempted to answer these and other questions, but the Clausewitzian based 

answers never seemed to satisfy. The following is a discussion of these questions based on 

the modernized concept and hopefully provides more satisfying answers.

Is the Center of Gravity Useful?

Some argue that the Center of Gravity concept is only an academic construct that 

has little practical utility in the ‘real planning world’. Joint doctrine disagrees and clearly 

states it. “This process cannot be taken lightly, since a faulty conclusion resulting from a 

poor or hasty analysis can have very serious consequences, such as the inability to achieve 

strategic and operational objectives at an acceptable cost.”54 I agree with doctrine having 

participated in and witnessing firsthand the utility of the COG concept and the impact of 

COG determination on a campaign plan. In March 2005 the Multinational Forces–Iraq 

(MNF-I) staff was conducting a ‘campaign plan review.’ I was serving as a strategic planner 

in the headquarters’ Strategy Plans and Assessment Division (SPA). As part of the review 

I conducted a COG identification and analysis using the ends, ways and means method 

while my counterpart in the Campaign Plans section used the more traditional and doctrinal 

method. I concluded that the population was the COG or ‘doer’ that would decide the 

outcome of the insurgency. My counterpart determined that the Iraqi government was the 

COG as it was the ‘source of power’. Both proposals were briefed to Major General Steven 

Sergeant, Chief of SPA and Colonel Bill Hix, Chief of Strategy and the two of them agreed 

with my ‘population’ designation but decided to present both to the MNF-I Commander for 

a decision. The Commander, after hearing the merits of both proposals, decided to keep the 

Iraqi government as the MNF-I Campaign center of gravity and focus of effort.

A year later the Samarra Mosque attack in February 2006 marked the outbreak of 

increased insurgent and sectarian violence at levels yet unseen in the war.55 Despite Iraqi 

and Coalition efforts to stem the violence it continued with civilian casualties peaking at a 

new high in July 2006.56 This suggested that the MNF-I’s campaign strategy was failing and 

we were losing the war.57 In response to the deteriorating situation a ‘New Way Forward’ 

was announced in January 2007 and General David Petraeus took command and brought 

a new population centric counter-insurgency strategy. The success of this approach was 

born out in ‘the awakening’ movement which saw significant elements of the population 

turn against the insurgents resulting in Coalition and Iraqi security forces rolling back the 

insurgency.

My conclusion was that getting the center of gravity right makes a huge difference. 

The Iraqi government center of gravity strategy failed while the later population center of 
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gravity succeeded in focusing the coalition’s efforts where they had the greatest impact. 

So is the center of gravity useful? If based on sound reasoning and logic the answer is yes. 

Is the Modernized Center of Gravity Compatible with Political and Systems Theory? 

A colleague offered the following argument why COGs do not exist. “The COG is 

theory and opinion, and it is under-theorized and insufficiently buttressed....There’s nothing 

like it in all of political science, international relations, and the practice of war and politics 

such that all agree.”58 Just because something is “under-theorized” or lacks complete 

agreement does not mean it does not exist. It only means it is not understood, perhaps due 

to under-theorization. Given the center of gravity’s history, and current definition it is easy 

to see why understanding and agreement is lacking. However, a lack of understanding is an 

argument for dropping the Clausewitzian foundation and contributing to the “theorizing” 

and “buttressing” of the concept with a new course of action. It is not an argument for 

declaring the concept dead; rather it is an argument to fix the concept.

The center of gravity is a military planning concept, not a political science concept. 

It has existed in some form in military literature since the publication of On War, and in 

US military doctrine since 1986. Operational level plans since Operation Just Cause have 

included it.59 An assertion that civilian political leaders, national security experts at the 

strategic level, political science professors and international relations experts do not use or 

cite the concept is not evidence of nonexistence. It only suggests that they do not read or 

use military doctrine in their domains. 

Another argument for non-existence is systems theory. Networked systems proponents 

argue that there is no ‘hub of power’. They claim organizations disperse capabilities and 

requirements across a net-work to reduce vulnerabilities. The very idea of a network is to 

eliminate or reduce single points of failure (hubs or centers of gravity). Some will argue 

that dispersed, networked organizations do not ‘mass’ or come together and form a hub and 

therefore there is no center of gravity. For example a School of Advanced Military Studies 

(SAMS) graduate stated that insurgencies do not have centers of gravity because insurgents 

do not mass.60 Dr. Ryan a SAMS faculty member said in the context of a Clausewitzian 

definition that, “In a complex system, there may be no “center.” Control and cohesion can 

be distributed. Then, identifying a COG attacks the system at the wrong scale, like a boxer 

swinging at a swarm of bees.”61 These arguments have merit if one clings to the mechanical 

metaphor of a hub or center. However if one is open to non-Clausewitzian models such 

as the proposed definition, The Center of Gravity is the primary entity that possesses the 

inherent capability to achieve the objective, then the arguments are moot. The primary 

determinant of the COG’s existence should be the ends, way and means construct, not the 

organization’s structure.

The fact is the current doctrinal concept is well grounded in systems theory. JP 5-0 

and JP 2-01.3 both discuss systems perspectives and a system of systems approach to 

identifying and analyzing COGs. The idea of a center of gravity and its critical factors are 

nothing more than different terms for what systems theorist Peter M. Senge calls, “high 

leverages of change.”62 However, doctrine could further strengthen the concept’s linkage to 

systems thinking by deleting the Clausewitzian based phrases such as “sources of strength” 
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and replacing it with terms like “systems.” For example JP 5-0 could then say, “The COG 

construct is useful as an analytical tool to help JFCs [joint force commanders] and staffs 

analyze friendly and adversary systems for weaknesses and vulnerabilities.”63

The modernized concept is not only compatible with systems theory, it also supports 

systems thinking. The definitions, the ends, ways and means identification method and the 

validation process together produce an understanding of a system’s purpose, key nodes 

and critical linkages. It not only describes a system, it identifies critical factors that suggest 

‘points of leverage.’

For example, malaria is a decentralized system of networked parasites, vectors 

(mosquitoes), hosts and numerous environmental requirements. Its objective is propagation; 

the way is to reproduce in humans. There is no single parasite, vector or host to act as a 

source or hub of power, they are dispersed yet connected. These connections are critical 

requirements some of which are vulnerable. A mosquito net breaks the connection between 

a potential host and the vector. Changing the mosquito’s environmental requirements breaks 

the connection between the parasite and the potential host. Understanding the malarial 

system and focusing on the mosquito as a COG with requirements and vulnerabilities 

provided insights on how to combat malaria despite it being a complex networked system.

Can There Be Multiple COGs?

The question always arises: can there be more than one COG? Doctrine acknowledges 

that multiple COGs can exist but recommends focusing on one. The proposed definition and 

identification method allows for multiple COGs if a system chooses multiple but distinctly 

different approaches to achieve its objective. There can be a COG for each approach. For 

example a nation confronting a crisis may choose to pursue both diplomatic solutions and 

military solutions. In this case there would be a diplomatic COG and a clearly separate 

military COG. The key is that the capabilities be sufficiently unique as to require different 

skill sets. 

For example, at an operational level an insurgency generally has two COGs. There is 

the political COG that attempts to exploit then meet the population’s needs or grievances. 

The other COG is the militant element that attempts to secure the population’s support 

while attempting to counter the adversary’s COGs. These dual COGs (carrots and sticks) 

are why most insurgencies have both political wings and military wings. Think of the civil 

COG as a shovel to fill the population’s pot hole of grievances and the militant COG is the 

guard that breaks the other guy’s shovel while protecting his own. Since insurgences have 

two distinct approaches they have two distinct COGs that co-exist at the same time. What 

determines the number of COGs is the number of distinct capabilities required to achieve 

the objective. This also applies to multiple but distinct objectives.

Are There Centers of Gravity At Every Level of War?

The issue isn’t whether or not COGs exist at each level of war. They do. COGs exist 

everywhere there is a system that has an objective, whether it is a nation or plant or 

something as small as a parasite. The real question is whether there is utility in the center of 

gravity concept at all levels of war.64 The answer is no. Generally, the simpler the problem 

or system, the more obvious the answer is and a COG study is not needed. For example 
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a weed has a COG but you don’t spend time analyzing its systems and requirements, you 

just pull or poison it–the direct approach. Malaria on the other hand is a complex system 

and a center of gravity identification and analysis of sorts was useful in the identification 

of the mosquito as a COG and standing water as a critical requirement that was vulnerable 

to abatement action–the indirect approach to attacking malaria. It is all a matter of system 

complexity; the greater the complexity the greater the utility in the concept. Because of the 

complexity-simplicity issue the Army says the concept is not relevant at the tactical level.65

It isn’t saying COGs do not exist at the tactical level, just that they are not useful. 

The strategic and operational levels of war deal with “what” type questions. What is 

the adversary or friendly aims or objectives? What options are available? What resources 

are available or needed? What can obtain the objective? What is deficient? What must be 

protected or attacked? Answering these questions is the essence of strategic and operational 

level planning. The utility of the center of gravity is that it provides insights into answering 

these ‘what’ questions. Tactical levels deal less with ‘what’ questions and more with ‘how’ 

questions and therefore the center of gravity concept has less relevance.66

Can COGs Change in Dynamic Environments? 

Clausewitzian based COGs can change, but it isn’t clear how or why because there is no 

connection to purpose or logic. It seems the ability to change was an effect of the planner’s 

flexibility rather than anything inherent in the concept. This led some to argue that the COG 

was not dynamic and could not accommodate rapid changes in the modern environment. 

Many cited the shift from conventional to insurgency operations during Operation Iraqi 

Freedom as the COG concept’s failure to change in a dynamic environment or a failure 

for the concept to include a feedback mechanism. However, traditionalists would argue 

that in fact the COG could and did change especially as ends, ways or means changed. 

The problem was planners were not clever enough to see this environmental change. The 

proposed concept with its built in logic avoids this debate altogether and assists planners 

in seeing change by providing three areas or indicators of change – a feedback mechanism. 

By tying the COG to objectives, capabilities and requirements rather than sources of 

power or hubs, the COG becomes more sensitive to environmental changes. This makes 

the concept more flexible and useful in dynamic environments. The proposed definition’s 

three components; objective, capability and possessor of the capability – ends, ways and 

means- not only help identify a COG, they are indicators of changes in the environment. 

Planners identify changes in the environment by asking has the objective, ways or means 

changed. An advantage of the method is that it also provides clues on how to favorably 

change the environment by affecting critical vulnerabilities, requirements and COGs.

Ends, ways and means are interconnected; a change in one affects change in the 

others. Monitoring these changes provides the feedback necessary to adapt to a changing 

environment. In conflict the idea is to force an adversary to change this objective, normally 

by affecting a COG’s critical capabilities. Change is induced by directly attacking the COG 

or indirectly by attacking critical requirements. The goal is to protect your objectives and 

COGs by guarding your means while forcing changes on the adversary that he can’t adapt 

to. 
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In the context of military plans any change of end state or capabilities required during 

a phase, a major operation or a campaign can change the COG. Typically during phased 

operations there is an end state and a COG or main effort and supporting effort for each 

phase. When a phase changes due to attainment of the previous phase’s end state the COG 

may change due to the capabilities required to attain the new phase’s end state. The same 

also applies to major operations and campaigns. 

What is a Better Relationship: Adversary or Objective?

Understanding the correct relationship between the COG, the objective and the 

adversary is critical to sound COG understanding and identification. Unfortunately the 

relationship is misunderstood.

Current doctrine and those relying on Clausewitz focus the relationship on the 

adversary while giving the objective little consideration. Joint doctrine claims COGs “are 

formed out of the relationship between adversaries, and they do not exist in a strategic or 

operational vacuum.” 67 In other words COGs only exist if there is an adversary. Dr Strange 

and Colonel Iron, relying on Clausewitz, also support the adversarial context saying, “...a 

center of gravity is relevant only in the relation to an enemy. It is not an isolated concept.”68

Use of the word “relevant” implies existence but no utility. However, they go on to say the 

COG is “not an isolated concept” suggesting it cannot exist outside the adversarial context. 

Following this logic, if a system has an objective, strength and means to achieve it, but no 

opposition, it does not have a COG or ‘doer.’ Doctrine suggests the adversary, based on his 

capabilities, is the determinant of the other’s center of gravity. This ignores the role of the 

objective in COG identification. 

This is not to say that the adversarial context does not have a role in center of gravity 

analysis. It can. If an adversary is present, and in most cases it is, then it is part of the 

environment and must be factored in. The adversary is one determinate of the capabilities 

required to achieve the objective. However, it is not an essential element for a COG to 

exist. On the other hand an objective or purpose for a system is essential. It must be present 

and the COG does not exist without it. For example if my objective is to be at work on time, 

I need a capability to get there. The means I chose with that capability is my car. It is my 

COG, and I did not need an adversary to determine that.

This adversarial context potentially creates confusion by putting the primary emphasis 

on adversarial capabilities and not on attaining the system’s objective. Another flaw is 

that emphasis on the adversarial relationship reinforces symmetrical thinking and mirror 

imaging, which can be a detriment in the current environment. This is not to say there is no 

relationship to the adversary. There is, but only that it is insufficiently explained in doctrine 

and that it is a subordinate relationship to the COG-objective relationship. 

The objective and adversary are two sides of the same coin, but the COG identification 

process begins on the objective, not the adversary side. Adding the objective to the 

relationship and reducing the adversary to a secondary relationship make more sense. The 

adversary is relevant in selecting the ways to achieve the objective and the determination 

of one’s vulnerabilities. But the objective remains the center of gravity’s reason d’etre. 

This is why Dr. Milan Vego of the Naval War College argues that the objective, not the 
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adversary is the prime determinate of the center of gravity and this relationship is superior. 

Dr. Vego states, “It is the military objective that provides the larger framework within 

which the respective center of gravity is determined.”69 The ends, ways and means COG 

identification methodology is such a framework. He goes on to state, “One should always 

bear in mind that it is the objective and the situation that determine a center of gravity, 

not the other way around.”70 In COG identification the objective is most critical and the 

adversary is a secondary factor because attaining the objective is the prime purpose. 

Is the ‘Ends, Ways, Means’ Methodology Too Scientific For Operational Art?

Some argue that the rules or logic of the ends, ways and means methodology constrain 

‘creative’ thinking by producing black and white answers in what is a grey world. Critics 

claim the methodology produces objective answers leaving little room for subjectivity; it 

is just too scientific or Cartesian for operational art. But the evidence discussed suggests 

the current ‘art’ and highly subjective ‘visualization’ method isn’t satisfactory. Rules or 

‘science’ is the foundation of art and art without science to serve as guidelines is a jumble 

of elements without form or purpose. While the current center of gravity has purpose, it 

lacks form, hence the concept’s requirement for a more ‘scientific’ approach. The ends, 

ways, and means methodology purposely leads to more objective or ‘scientific’ answers 

which provides form to the concept and better focuses the application of operational art. 

In the ‘Arts’ composition is synonymous with ‘rules’ or the science of art. Operational 

art has its elements of ‘composition’ of which the center of gravity is one. In painting the 

elements of composition are rules or guidelines regarding shape, perspective and color. 

The same is true in sculpture, music and writing, they all have their science. These rules 

or constraints on creativity are what separate the creativity of successful painter from the 

creativity of a three year old scribbling with crayons. Science is answering what “is.” Art 

is the application of the “how to.” Identifying the center of gravity is science in support 

of art. How to use the center of gravity is the art. The purpose of the ends, ways and 

means methodology is to help produce more successful operational artists and decrease the 

number of ‘three-year-olds’ scribbling operational level plans. 

Summary

Because of its basis in logic and clear definitions rather than metaphors, the modernized 

center of gravity concept should generate fewer questions and more answers. This improved 

situation should contribute to reasoned thought, which in turn should enable strategists to 

focus their plans aided by the concept rather than being distracted by it. 

Part Three: Using the Modernized Center of Gravity Concept

The following section discusses the role of the center of gravity in operational planning. 

Specific topics include operational art, operational design, the operational approach and 

selected elements of operational design including decisive points, lines of operation and 

effort and direct-indirect approaches.

When FM 100-5 reintroduced the center of gravity concept it claimed it was the 

“essence of operational art”71 Today a claim can be made that ‘operational design’ is now 

the essence of operational art.72 Nevertheless, the center of gravity concept is still the 
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powerful analytical tool doctrine describes. It now has an expanded role in the application 

of operational art, operational design and the expression of an operational approach. 

Therefore the issue isn’t operational design versus the center of gravity. One just needs to 

understand where and how the center of gravity fits in operational art, operational design 

and the operational approach.

Center of Gravity’s Role in Operational Art 

Operational art is an umbrella term for a cognitive process used by commanders 

assisted by the staff to “describe how the joint force will employ its capabilities to achieve 

the military end state.”73 Operational design is joint doctrine’s methodology to conduct and 

apply critical thinking and reasoning necessary for the application of operational art. It is the 

practical, ‘how to’ of operational art. Operational design helps commanders by providing 

a method to reduce the uncertainty of complex environments, provides understanding 

of the nature of the problem and enables them to construct an approach to solving the 

problem and achieving the end state. The end result of a commander’s use of operational 

art assisted by operational design is an operational approach which is a broad description 

of the actions forces must take to achieve the desired end state.74 The operational approach 

is the commander’s initial intent and planning guidance to the staff that begins the detailed 

planning process. In simple terms, operational art (conceptual planning) uses operational 

design a method to produce an operational approach.

The center of gravity is the link that enables the commander to connect his situational 

understanding derived from operational design to the practical, ‘what are we going to do 

about it’ in the operational approach. While operational design assists in the identification 

of the problem, the center of gravity concept provides insights into how to remove the 

problem. Together, the problem identification and how to remove it are the essence of the 

operational approach.

Center of Gravity and Operational Design

Operational design has three components: understanding the environment, defining the 

problem and producing an operational approach. Commanders and planners can analyze 

each component using a series of four basic questions. The answers to these questions 

provide understanding, identify the problem(s) and point the way to an approach to solving 

the problem. The four questions listed here are the essence of operational design.75

1. “What is going on in the environment?” This question prompts planners to capture the history, culture, current state, and future goals of 

relevant actors in the environment. This is part one of understanding 

the environment.

2. “What do we want the environment to look like?” This is part two 

and prompts planners to review higher level intents and missions and 

posit a desired future state of the environment. Knowing how the current environment operates by using a systems perspective and how we 

want the environment to be provides understanding of the environment and the information needed to answer the third question. 
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3. “What is the problem(s) that is preventing movement from the current 

state to the desired end state?” The answer to this question tells planners what the problem(s) is and where -conceptually- they should act 

to achieve the desired state? Problems can be thought of as obstacles 

or adversaries that stand in the way of achieving the end state. The 

problem(s) is not the center of gravity; rather it defines the adversary 

and sets up the center of gravity identification and analysis process of 

that adversary system. Planners and analysts using a systems perspective study the adversary/problem’s system to determine its COG. 

4. “How do we get from the current state to our desired state?” This 

prompts planners to envision what combinations of actions address 

the problem(s) through its COG(s) and related critical factors and help 

achieve the desired end state.

Center of Gravity and the Operational Approach.6

Once commanders and planners agree on the problem they need a way to address it. 

The operational approach is the broad outline and provides the commander’s guidance on 

general actions usually expressed as missions or tasks that will produce the conditions that 

define the desired end state. Think of it as what needs to be done, not how to do it.

The operational approach is a conceptualization that starts by asking what action will 

solve or manage the problem/adversary. The center of gravity and critical factors analysis 

of the adversary will suggest requirements and vulnerabilities that offer possible solutions 

or courses of action. This analysis feeds the details that shape the commander’s guidance 

and intent.

As with the other components of operational art there are no prescribed formats. 

However, joint doctrine suggests that the operational approach should include a concise 

description of the environment, a clear statement on what the problem or problem set is, 

an approach to resolve the problem and lastly any other specific guidance.77 Developing 

an operational approach requires a continuous dialogue between the commander and the 

staff starting at the initiation of planning and continuing through mission analysis. It also 

requires data and analysis from the staff that includes termination, end state and centers of 

gravity. 

A technique for developing an operational approach is to:

1. Identify the problem or problems set and then view it as an adversary 

system.

2. Determine the system’s center of gravity ( COG).

3. Identify the COG’s critical requirements then critical vulnerabilities.

4. Create lines of operation or effort based on the critical requirements 

and critical vulnerabilities
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5. These lines of operation or effort can become actions, missions or 

tasks. 

Center of Gravity and Decisive Points 

Decisive points are typically “a geographic place, specific key event, [center of 

gravity’s] critical factor, or function that, when acted upon, allows a commander to gain a 

marked advantage over an adversary or contributes materially to achieving success.”78 For 

planners decisive points suggest the when, where and what actions to take. These points 

then become effects, objectives or tasks for subordinates. (NATO doctrine uses the term 

“decisive conditions.”79 For most planning purposes the terms are synonymous.)

Keep in mind that a decisive point provides a ‘marked advantage’ or conversely for the 

adversary a marked disadvantage. An advantage is a step towards the objective or end state. 

While many things can be considered decisive points the challenge is to select those points 

that can be realistically addressed and from them to select the most critical or productive. 

This is where center of gravity analysis with its critical factors (critical requirements and 

critical vulnerabilities) becomes a useful tool in the identification of critical or productive 

decisive points. 

The center of gravity analysis is a tool planners use to determine potential decisive 

points. Planners study centers of gravity, critical and vulnerable requirements to determine 

if they suggest or are potential decisive points. These decisive points are then arranged 

along lines of operation or effort. The logic is that denying an adversary’s critical 

requirement weakens his COG thus providing you, and denying him a marked advantage. 

Conversely successfully defending your own critical requirements can be decisive points. 

It is important to note that decisive points are not limited to COG analysis and can include 

other events or functions. However in planning, especially during conceptual planning, 

COG analysis and listing critical requirements and critical vulnerabilities can serve as a 

start point for determining decisive points.

Center of Gravity and Lines of Operation (LOO) and Lines of Effort (LOE) 

Lines of operation or effort are physical or conceptual paths that a force must take to 

reach its objective or end state. They lay out and arrange in a logical sequence actions, 

tasks, requirements or decisive points that create effects that in turn achieve the objective. 

They also serve to orient the force in terms of time, space and purpose in relation to the 

objective or adversary.80 Commanders use combinations of lines of operation and effort 

as tools to visualize actions and sequences required to achieve the operations’ end state or 

objective and to articulate their operational approach. 

Lines of operation are geographic in nature and show paths from a base to an objective 

location. Physical geography combined with force capabilities, requirements and diplomatic 

or political factors determine the options for lines of operation. Lines of operation connect 

a series of decisive points, often based on critical requirements or vulnerabilities that lead 

to control of a geographic objective. Critical requirements that are geographical in nature 

such as lodgments, bases of operations and route infrastructure often determine a line of 

operation. 
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Lines of effort (LOE) are conceptual and link related actions to purpose and effect 

when geographical reference is not relevant. Lines of effort link decisive points with the 

logic of purpose. Determining lines of effort requires sound analysis and the ability to see 

how potentially-decisive events throughout the campaign or operation link together. The 

center of gravity analysis of critical requirements and vulnerabilities is a useful tool for 

determining areas of logic or purpose. For example critical requirements for command and 

control and logistics can become lines of effort to attack or protect. When determining and 

portraying LOEs, the staff should follow these steps: 

1. Understand and portray the critical initial conditions in the environment. 

2. Understand and portray the desired environmental conditions and the 

timing of achieving those conditions. 

3. Understand and portray the objectives (phased over time as needed) to 

achieve the desired conditions. 

4. Array decisive events (actions, functions, requirements, vulnerabilities, etc) for adversary and friendly efforts. 

5. Examine the decisive points and group them into unifying patterns. 

6. Collect and organize the patterns into lines of effort that run throughout the operations or campaign.81

Graphics or narratives are used to depict these lines of operation and effort and convey 

the logic and sequence of actions. Lines of operation are typically displayed on a map or 

schematic while lines of effort use a chart or matrix. Regardless of form, the aim is to assist 

commanders and planners to visualize the operation from start to finish and to enable them 

to construct a concept of operations or operational approach that will be used to develop 

courses of action. Figure nine is an example of lines of effort chart using the COG analysis, 

critical requirements and critical vulnerabilities as a framework. 

 Center of Gravity in Direct or Indirect Approachs. 

There are two options for attacking a COG, directly or indirectly. In a direct approach 

one attacks the COG directly seeking to defeat it. This approach may have the advantage of 

being less time consuming and is appropriate when a force has overwhelming superiority 

over its adversary and risk is low. An indirect approach seeks to exploit an adversary’s 

vulnerabilities while avoiding it strengths. It is an attack on a COG’s critical requirements 

or vulnerabilities. This approach denies the COG the means it requires to perform a critical 

capability. With this approach a COG may still physically exist, but is unable to attain its 

objective. An indirect approach is appropriate when a force lacks the strength to attack a 

COG directly or is otherwise constrained from doing so.
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Part Four: Comparison of Other Center of Gravity Identification Methods

This section’s focus is on center of gravity identification methods, which is not the 

same as center of gravity analysis. This is an important but often overlooked distinction. 

Identification focuses on selection of the COG. Analysis assumes a correct COG selection 

then looks at the COG’s relationship with critical factors (critical capabilities, critical 

requirements and critical vulnerabilities). Below are summaries of the main elements of 

center of gravity identification methods found in joint doctrine and the writings of Dr. Joe 

Strange, Dr. Milan Vego, and Dr. Antulio Echevarria. This is not detailed discussion of 

each method or how they are applied. The intent is to provide a basis for understanding and 

comparison. 

Joint Doctrine.

Manual JP 5-0, Joint Operation Planning, does not provide a methodology; rather it 

explains who is responsible for the enemy center of gravity identification. It states:

Joint force intelligence analysts identify adversary COGs, determining 

from which elements the adversary derives freedom of action, physical 

strength (means), and the will to fight. The J-2, in conjunction with other 

operational planners, then attempts to determine if the tentative or candidate COGs truly are critical to the adversary’s strategy. This analysis is 

a linchpin in the planning effort. Others on the joint force staff conduct 

similar analysis to identify friendly COGs.82

Figure 9. Lines of Effort.

Enemy Critical

Requirement 1

Enemy Critical

Requirement 2

Enemy Critical

Vulnerability

Friendly Critical

Requirement 1

Friendly Critical

Requirement 2

Friendly Critical

Vulnerability

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

Friendly

CoG

Enemy

CoG

Objective

Lines of Effort

Decisive Points

Enemy Critical

Requirement 1

Enemy Critical

Requirement 2

Enemy Critical

Vulnerability

Enemy Critical

Requirement 1

Enemy Critical

Requirement 2

Enemy Critical

Vulnerability

Friendly Critical

Requirement 1

Friendly Critical

Requirement 2

Friendly Critical

Vulnerability

Friendly Critical

Requirement 1

Friendly Critical

Requirement 2

Friendly Critical

Vulnerability

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

CV

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CV

CV

Friendly

CoG

Enemy

CoG

Objective

Lines of Effort

Decisive Points
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To find a method one has to go to JP 2-01.3, Joint Intelligence Preparation of the 

Operational Environment. It states, “JIPOE analysts continuously assess the adversary’s 

leadership, fielded forces, resources, infrastructure, population, transportation systems, and 

internal and external relationships to determine from which elements the adversary derives 

freedom of action, physical strength, or the will to fight.”83 “JIPOE utilizes a macro-analytic 

approach that seeks to identify an adversary’s strategic vulnerabilities and COGs.”84 JP 

2-01.3 then identifies the method saying, “The most effective method for JIPOE analysts 

to identify adversary COGs is to visualize each COG’s role/function relative to each of 

the various systems and subsystems.”85 The ‘visualization’ method is a holistic view of a 

system and discerning where its strength comes from:

Dr. Strange’s method relies on a modified Clausewitzian definition of the center of 

gravity. Strange defines the center of gravity as, “Primary sources of moral or physical 

strength, power and resistance.”86 He then recommends listing the sources of power and to 

find the primary source of power using a “process of critical analysis”.87 Strange does not 

prescribe specific techniques for ‘critical analysis’.

Dr. Milan Vego, believes a center of gravity is a source of strength or leverage.88

He advocates that, “An analytical construct should be used to determine the enemy and 

friendly centers of gravity...” Then, “...the judgment and wisdom of the commander’s and 

their staffs are the keys to determining the proper center of gravity...”89 The ‘analytical 

construct’ includes the objective, which is the principal factor, the military situation, and 

the critical factors. The military situation includes tangible and abstract military and nonmilitary elements, more simply the operating environment. Vego’s critical factors are critical 

strengths, critical vulnerabilities, and critical weakness and are considered the essentials 

for the accomplishment of the objective. Using this three part construct to provide a holistic 

view and understanding, commanders and planners determine the source of strength. A 

method for determination is not prescribed.

Dr. Echevarria places the emphasis, not on strength but on cohesion and replaces the 

center of gravity metaphor with “centripetal force” that holds the force together. He also 

suggests that the concept is best suited for war seeking the complete defeat of an enemy, and 

has less utility in limited wars. He then lays out a three step process for COG identification. 

1. Step 1: Determine whether identifying and attacking a COG is appropriate for the type of war [total defeat or limited] we are going to 

wage.

2. Step 2: Determine whether the adversary’s whole structure or system 

is sufficiently connected to be treated as a single body. [concentrated 

or dispersed]

3. Step 3: Determine what element has the necessary centripetal force to 

hold the system together.

He also recommends redefining the COG as focal points that serve to hold a system 

or structure together and that draws power from a variety of sources and provide it with 
163

purpose and direction.90 Note that this definition has three elements: holds a system together, 

draws power, and provides purpose and direction. One must assume that a COG candidate 

must possess all three elements. 

A survey of center of gravity doctrine and articles show that the most common 

method of COG identification is ‘critical analysis’ and its partner ‘visualize’ and use of an 

‘analytical framework’ summed up as ‘critical reasoning.’91 None of these ‘methodologies’ 

describe a process for their application. One of the few exceptions is Antulio Echevarria’s 

‘Center of Gravity Recommendations for Joint Doctrine’ with its three step process.92 A 

criticism of these methods is that they lack practical ‘how to’ techniques for planners on 

how to apply them and leaves planners scratching their heads. The ‘ends, ways and means’ 

methodology answers this criticism. It is nothing more than a codification of the application 

of critical reasoning that provides an ‘analytical framework’ for step by step center of 

gravity determination methodology. Not only is the ‘ends, ways and means’ methodology 

compatible with the other methods (Echevarria excepted) it provides a simple and logical 

technique for applying critical analysis or thinking. 

Summary

To make the center of gravity concept the useful ‘analytical tool’ that doctrine intended 

it to be, doctrine should adopt the modernized definitions based on the intent of doctrine, 

modern systems thinking and the criteria of clarity, logic, precision and testability. Doctrine 

should then adopt the six step ‘ends, ways, and mean’ center of gravity identification 

methodology. Should doctrine accept these proposals then planners could stop debating 

what the center of gravity is and get on with using it.

Figure 10. Center of Gravity Sources.
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Modernized Definitions

1. Center of Gravity. The primary entity that inherently possesses the 

critical capabilities to achieve the objective.

2. Critical Capabilities. Primary abilities essential to the accomplishment of the objective which merits a Center of Gravity to be identified 

as such. 

3. Critical Requirements. Essential conditions, resources and means the 

COG requires to perform the critical capability.

4. Critical Vulnerabilities. Critical requirements or components thereof 

which are deficient or vulnerable to neutralization, interdiction or attack in a manner achieving decisive results.

 Center of Gravity Identification Methodology

1. Identify the organization’s desired ends. 

2. Identify ‘ways’ or actions that can achieve the desired ends. Select the 

way(s) the organization is most likely to use. That selection is/are the 

critical capability(ies). Ways = critical capabilities. 

3. List the organization’s means or resources available or needed to execute the critical capability. 

4. Select the entity from the list of means that inherently possess the 

critical capability. This is the center of gravity. 

5. From the remaining means select those that are critical for execution 

of the critical capability. These are the critical requirements. 

6. Identify those critical requirements that are vulnerable to adversary 

actions. 
165

Notes

1. Dr. Joe Strange and Col Richard Iron, “Understanding Centers of Gravity and Critical 

Vulnerabilities, Part 1,” online at www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/ COG1.pdf pp.1 (accessed 

15 December 2011).

2. Dr, Alex Ryan, email to LTC Celestino Perez, Command and General Staff College, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas, passed on to Dale C. Eikmeier, 13 October 2011.

3. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, editors and translators, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, 

Princeton, NJ. Princeton University Press, 1984. 485-486. And Department of the Army, FM 100-5 

Operations. Washington DC, May 1986. pp.10, Appx B, 179-180.

4. Department of Defense (DoD), Joint Publication (JP) 5-0 Joint Operation Planning (U.S. 

Department of Defense Washington DC 2011), III-22,23.

5. On War 485-486.

6. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, editors and translators, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, 

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 485-486. And Department of the Army, Field 

Manual (FM) 100-5 Operations, (Department of the Army:Washington DC,1986), 10, Appx B, 179-

180; Department of the Army, FM 100-5 Operations. Washington DC, May 1986. pp.10, Appx B, 

179-180. Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 100-5 Operations Headquarters , Department 

of the Army:Washington DC,1986),10 Appx B, 179-180. and Mark, Cancian, “Centers of Gravity 

Are a Myth”, Proceedings September 1998, 30.

7. LTC Celestino Perez Jr. PhD, email to Dale C. Eikmeier, Command and General Staff 

College, Fort Leavenworth, KS,30 September 2011.

8. DoD, JP 5-0, III-22,23.

9. Discussions at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas during the winter and spring 2010 among 

Command General Staff College instructors, and the Deputy Commandant’s Initiative Group on 

the implementation of ‘Design’ in the US Army’s FM 5-0 The Operations Process. The issue was 

whether or not the design methodology and its “problem frame” would replace the center of gravity. 

10. Paraphrased from Stephen D. Brookfield, The Skillful Teacher, 2nd Edition, (Jossey-Bass, 

San Francisco) 2006, 13.

11. Dept of the Army, FM 100-5, 10, Appx B, 179-180.

12. Author’s conclusion based on the changing definitions and descriptions of the center of 

gravity in both US Army and Joint Doctrine from 1986 through 2011 (FM 100-5 1986/1993, JP 

5-00.1 2002, JP 5-0 2006/2011) and the number of articles and critiques on centers of gravity 

(Strange, Echevarria, Vego, Eikmeier).

13. Dr. Christopher Bassford, online at http://www.nndb.com/people/676/000087415/ (accessed 

5 December 2011).

14. B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy, (Meridian: New York, New York, 1991), 344.

15. Presentation by Lars Falk, Swedish Defense Research Agency, “Centers of Gravity and 

Clausewitz’s Model of War” 2nd Annual Conference on Terrorism and Global Security, Washington 

DC, Ambivium Institute on Security and Cooperation. 14-15 September 2011, http://www.

ambivium.org/events.html. 

16. Author’s experiences as a student and instructor at the Army’s Command and General Staff 

College, the School of Advanced Military Studies, as an instructor at the Army War College and 

as an operational level planner. The mechanical meaning of center of gravity would have to be 

explained so use of the metaphor could be understood. If a metaphor has to be explained the use of 

a metaphor is in appropriate to begin with. 
166

17. Milan Vego, “Clausewitz’s Schwerpunkt: Mistranslated from German Misunderstood in 

English”, online at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PBZ/is_1_87/ai_n27135952/ (accessed

10 January 2012). and Antulio J. Echevarria II, “Clausewitz’s Center Of Gravity: Changing Our 

Warfighting Doctrine—Again!” (Carlisle Barracks, PA, Strategic Studies Institute September 2003), 

6. 

18. Milan Vego, Joint Operational Warfare Theory and Practice, (Newport, RI, US Naval War 

College, September 2007), VII-37 –VII-48.

19. Colonel J.J. Graham’s 1874 English translation of On War, 144, 151, 331, available as an 

ebook at www. Gutenberg.org.

20. Dr. Christopher Bassford online article at http://www.clausewitz.com/bibl/WhichTrans.htm 

(accessed 5 December 2011).

21. Dr. Joe Strange and Colonel Richard Iron, Understanding Centers of Gravity and Critical 

Vulnerabilities, National Defense University 2003,online at http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/

usmc/ COG1.pdf .7 (accessed 15 December 2011).

22. Email and phone discussions between Dr. Milan Vego, U.S. Naval War College, Newport, 

Rhode Island and Dale C. Eikmeier, US Army Command and General Staff College, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas on 13 February 2012

23. Strange and Iron, 10.

24. Dennis Prange, Munich Foundation, discussions with the author at the 2d Annual 

Conference on Terrorism and Global Security, Washington DC. Ambivium Institute on Security and 

Cooperation. 14-15 September 2011, online at http://www.ambivium.org/events.html.

25. Dept of the Army, FM 100-5, (1986), 179.

26. Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 100-5 Operations. (Headquarters Department 

of the Army: Washington DC 1993) GL-1.

27. Dr. Joe Strange. Perspectives on Warfighting Number Four Second Edition , Centers of 

Gravity & Critical Vulnerabilities, (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps Association, 1996), ix .

28.Discussions with Dr. James J. Schneider, School of Advance Military Studies, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas, 1998.

29. Department of Defense (DoD), Joint Publication (JP) 1-02, Department of Defense 

Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, (Department of Defense, Washington DC, 23 March 

1994), 63.

30. Department of Defense (DoD), Joint Publication (JP) 5-00.1, Joint Doctrine for Campaign 

Planning, (Department of Defense, Washington DC, 25 January 2002), GL-3.

31. Department of Defense (DoD), Joint Publication (JP) 5-0 Joint Operation 

Planning,(Department of Defense, Washington DC, 26 December 2006,) IV-8 and Department of 

Defense (DOD), Joint Publication (JP) 5-0 Joint Operation Planning, (Department of Defense, 

Washington DC, 11 August 2011), III-22.

32. NATO, Allied Joint Doctrine AJP-01(D) (Headquarters North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

Brussels, Belgium, 21 December 2010), Lexicon-5.

33. NATO, 5-15.

34. See Center of Gravity articles by Dr. Joe Strange and COL Richard Iron, Dr. James 

Schneider, Dr. Antulio Echevarria II, Dr. Milan Vego, and COL Dale Eikmeier, just to name a few. 

35. Dr. Ryan email.

36. JP 5-0 , (2011) GL-8.

37. JP 5.0, III-22.

38. JP 5.0, III-22.

39. JP 5.0, III-23 figure III-11.

40. JP 5.0, III-24.
167

41. JP 5.0, III-23.

42. The use of the word “primary” is attributed to Dr. Joe Strange. Dr. Joe Strange. Perspectives 

on Warfighting Number Four Second Edition, ix.

43. JP 5-0, (2011) III-22.

44. JP 5-0, (2011) III-24.

45. JP 5-0, (2011) III-24.

46. Strange. Perspectives on Warfighting Number Four Second Edition, ix.

47. JP 5-0, (2011) GL-8 ,IV-12.

48. Strange. Perspectives on Warfighting Number Four Second Edition, ix, and DoD, JP 5-0, 

GL-8 ,III-24 .

49. Department of Defense (DoD), Joint Publication (JP) 2-01.3 Joint Intelligence Preparation 

of the Operational Environment, (Department of Defense, Washington DC, 16 June 2009), I-3,4, 

II-44,45,46, III-13.

50. JP 5-0, 2-01.3, II-65.

51. Author’s personal experience as a planner and strategist at the tactical through strategic 

levels in Operations Desert Shield/Storm , Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom

and as an instructor at the US Army Command and General Staff College, the School of Advanced 

Military Studies, and the US Army War College. 

52. Arthur F. Lykke Jr., ed., Military Strategy: Theory and Application (US Army War College, 

Carlisle, PA, 1998). 

53. DOD, JP 5-0, (2011) III-24.

54. DOD. 

55. Council on Foreign Relations, Timeline for the Iraq War, online at http://www.cfr.org/iraq/

timeline-iraq-war/p18876?gclid=CICBsszE46wCFRAq7AodXRgpnw (accessed 13 January 2012). 

56. Timeline for the Iraq War.

57. Associated Press, “Senator Reid says the War is Lost”, April 202007, online at http://www.

msnbc.msn.com/id/18227928/ns/politics/t/reid-iraq-war-lost-us-cant-win/, (accessed 13 January 

2012). 

58. LTC Celestino Perez Jr., email to Dale C. Eikmeier, Command and General Staff College, 

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 30 September. 

59. LTG David Huntoon, XVIII Corps planner during Operation Just Cause, email to Dale C. 

Eikmeier Command and General Staff College, 30 October 2011. Author’s personal experience 

as a planner in the 1st Infantry Division’s G3 section during Desert Storm and Desert

Shield; as a J3 planner at USCENTCOM Fwd, Camp As Sayliyah, Qatar, Operation Enduring

Freedom, January 2004; and as a strategist in Multinational Forces Iraq, strategy, Plans and 

Assessments Division, Baghdad, Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2005. 

60. Discussion in a meeting on center of gravity at the Command and General Staff College, 

Fort Leavenworth, KS, October 26, 2011. 

61. Dr. Alex Ryan email 13 October 2011, provided to the center of gravity meeting at the 

Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 26 October 2011. 

62. Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline, (Doubleday: New York, 1990), 114-126. 

63. DOD, JP 5-0 (2011) III-22,23.

64. Department of the Army, FM 3-0 Operations. February 2008, (Headquarters Department of 

the Army, Washington DC), 6-8. 

65. Dept of the Army.

66. Dept of the Army.

67. DOD, JP 5-0 (2011), III-22.
168

68. Joseph Strange and Richard Iron, “Center of Gravity: What Clausewitz Really Meant”,

Joint Forces Quarterly, Summer 2003: 24.

69. Vego, Joint Operational Warfare Theory and Practice, VII-24. 

70. Vego.

71. Dept of the Army, FM 100-5 Operations. (1986) 10.

72. DOD, JP 5-0, (2011), III-2. 

73. DOD, JP 5-0, (2011), III-1.

74. DOD, JP 5-0, (2011).

75. Celestino Perez, “A Practical Guide to Design: A Way to Think About It, and

a Way to Do It,” Military Review, (March-April 2011).

76. The term “Operational Approach,” depending on its context, can have two meanings. In the 

context of Design it is a concept of how to solve a problem or commander’s vision. When discussing 

the “Elements of Operational Design” it is either a direct or indirect approach to attacking a center 

of gravity.

77. DOD, JP 5-0 (2011), III-14.

78. DOD, JP 5-0 (2011), III-26.

79. Allied Joint Publication -01(D), 5A2.

80. DOD, JP 5-0 (2011), III-27,28.

81. Department of Military Strategy, Planning and Operations, CAMPAIGN PLANNING 

HANDBOOK AY 11, (US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA). 62. 

82. DOD, JP 5-0 (2011), III-23.

83. DOD, JP 2-01.3, xx.

84. DOD, JP 2-01.3, I-4.

85. DOD, JP 2-01.3, II-65.

86. Strange. Perspectives on Warfighting Number Four Second Edition, ix.

87. Strange, 18.

88. Vego, VII-13.

89. Vego, VII-14.

90. Antulio Echevarria II, “Center of Gravity Recommendations for Joint Doctrine”, Joint 

Forces Quarterly, issue 35.

91. Strange. 18: DoD, JP 2-01.3, pp. II-65; Vego, VII-14.

92. Antulio Echevarria II, “Center of Gravity Recommendations for Joint Doctrine.” 
169

Figures

Figure 5. “Center of Gravity Analysis Example,” Joint Pub 5-0, Joint Operation Planning, 11 

August 2011, page III-25, figure III-12. CGSC Copyright Registration Number: 12-1073 C/E.


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