Surge to wipe out /COI?N

The Counter-Insurgency doctrine manhandled into position by the Combined Arms Center under the tutelage of LTG Petraeus and published as FM3-24 represents a clear and present danger to Transformation of the military from one capable to fighting anyone anywhere, for any reason into one focused on a notional figmentary enemy and terrain created to foster predictable career development patterns and to justify the spending of tens of billions in weapons and equipment solely needed for the notional battlefield.

The principle threat to the SuperGrade-Industrial Complex, formerly known as the Military-Industrial Complex until rotational assignment rotas ensured that the impact of the military assigned to be Pentagon is controllable by superior GS15 plus Supergrades which has effectively reduced the military in the Pentagon to Hand Puppers. Likewise, any political appointee can, like in other governments, can be danced around until they quit for frustration or get set up.


The proof that such a pageant exists is that the military assigned to the Pentagon normally serves for three years, not long enough to find out who does what, who produces and go obfuscate, and my the second year figures out what needs to be done and before the third implementing rule is finished, so is the policy which the next Colonel who comes in will get an MSM for reversing it.

Likewise it is impossible for any unstable force of milicrats to sustain a policy of anykind for more than three years and most of the policies associated under the lable :”Transformation” are remarkable in consistency over multiple administrations, something a rotational military/appointed civil service could sustain.

While there were serious conflict in the Pentagon over the conduct of the war between the role specified in FM3-24 calling for a multi-disciplined multi-level effort to mix economic, political, health, governance, and judicious use of massive firepower, has been sabotaged by the Surge, a rotational concept beloved by rotational career centric policies of Transformation.

Surges are temporary which sabotages the longpull approach of COIN operations. By associating Petraes name with the Pentagon Surge Policy dooms his effectives which the srurge recedes..

Likewise is the Pentagon;s insistence that the Army is over-extended, a condition created by the Pentagon by not pushing for Full Presidential Mobilization which would have kept the Guard and Reserve units on active duty until the emergency was over..

Centers of Gravity Aren't

In order to sound both appropriately pompous, erudite, and authoritative on things military, it is fashionable to use the term “Center of Gravity” to define that which the power of a belligerent emanates, and “around which” the opponent operates. This concept was described in pompous, erudite, and authoritative terms in the book “On War” by Karl Clauswitz published by his wife in the 1800’s after his death. Likewise, it has become quite the fad to quote Clausewitz in the same manner a fundamentalist religionist quotes Holy Scripture be it Bible, Koran, Torah, or Karl Marx.

Unfortunately for the military professional, that which constitutes the Center of Gravity (COG) isn’t all that obvious. It could be geographic, political, social, economic, technical, and/or personal at multiple levels of interest. Clausewitz’s concept itself shifts throughout his book being quite different at the end of the book than of the beginning. As such, military writings today are filled with differing notions of what it is. Or how many there are.

In order for the concept of a COG to be useful to a combatant, it should be consistently understood by his or her forces, but if it were that obvious to one side, it would be obvious to the other(s). Hard to be deceptive under those circumstances and Sun Tzu, the next most quoted authority, would send a pupil who used COG as a term to the blackboard to write “COG’s aren’t”, ten thousand times.

The very notion that one operates “around” a COG suggests a circular voyage as in staff coordination in the Pentagon. Quite useless in practice and the French would be aghast as it not only doesn’t work in practice (forgivable), it doesn’t even work in theory.

The notion that COGs exist in the RW (Real World) has lead to more tragedy than triumph. Clausewitz was fashionable during and before WW1 which induced combatants of both sides to attack each others strong points as at Verdun while the collapse of the Triple Entente came from inside and their rear as hunger, chaos, and Communism carried by troops from the Eastern Front defeated the Will of the People.

The Japanese perceived the COG as the US battle fleet, the defeat of which would bring the US to a negotiating table. That didn’t work out that way. Likewise, Osama Bin Ladin chose the World Trade Center (WTC) as the Center of Gravity of the Great Satan. Both events were somewhat counter-productive.

If one had the Sword of Damocles suspended by a single horse hair above one’s head, the Clausewitzean would deal with the sword, while students of B H Liddell Hart would step out of the way and cut the thread. Like Yin and Yang, and in Aikido, one uses the weakness against the strength.

COGs are too elusive a concept to be useful for field commanders to guide their actions which, instead should be based on proven concepts of military decision making taking into account the Factors of METT (Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Troops Available), plus Time and Technology available. At the risk of my own pomposity, let me suggest METT-T2.
Likewise the analysis of capabilities, limitations, weaknesses and strengths should take into account that some factors are timeless, some a transitory, and some are illusionary. The closest of factors to consistency is the human will, and geography which we called COCOA in the Pentomic Era. Cover and Concealment, Observation, Critical Terrain, Obstacles, and Avenues of Approach, all of which are used to be able to dominate or deny movement over five kinds of terrain: hills, holes, valleys, ridges, and passes by movement over the high ground, low ground, cross corridors, ridge running or through the pass.

Clausewitz posited that the Will to Resist is a function of the ability to resist, which in Napoleonic times seemed reasonable. But given the stubborn resistance of U-Boot crews, Viet Cong troops, and the Jihadi, it’s just as likely that the reverse is true. The ability to resist is a function of the will to resist, a sort of Triumph of the Will, so to speak.

Gordon S Fowkes

The One to Ten Percent Rule for Mobilization

There are valid questions of what type and level of force the nation needs for any given period. I suggest several benchmarks based on the level of human resources needed:

One percent of total population should be available for military service in short order, regardless of composition in service or component. Given the WW2 benchmark, the nation should be able to go from one percent to ten percent in three years.


At the population that means three million in idle times, while serious war would require thirty million. In WW2 we fielded 100 combat divisions (Army and USMC) and 102 aircraft carriers of all sizes. There were twelve million in uniform in WW2 with a population of 120 millions (e.g. 10%)

As to composition, at base level the defense of the Continental U.S. alone can be done with a well trained Guard and Reserve force, while the needs of the defense of the trade by sea requires a standing naval capability


It is the need to project force overseas, and to deal with extant threats overseas, that standing forces are needed. In between big wars, there is a need for soft power integrated with political, economic, social as well as firepower is needed. Once a big one starts, the need for more firepower and logistics changes the complexion of forces, and both must be planned for, with those forces not needed forward are kept in reserve."

Comparison of weaponry from age to age doesn't impact on how many people are employed. Were that so, the entire combined Confederate and Union forces could be defeated by a Marine Expeditionary Unit (a division sized force with it's own air and sea forces.). One Apache gunship could have swept the field at Gettysburg. A single Raptor could have wiped out the Japanese fleet with fuel to spare. That doesn't mean the our defense needs could be met by a Raptor and a Marine division.........

The Range of weaponry hasn't affected the reaction time for a nation to react. Consider the days of the Viking raiders whose appearance out of the morning fog coming over the surf was all the warning that the local castle, town or monastery would get .... minutes. Cities kept their gates locked at night to defend against a sudden assault, the likes of which happened all too often. Before radar, the firs sight of an invading force was the appearance of the fleet as it deployed to begin bombardment .... minutes, maybe hours. Even with advanced warning before the age of the telegraph, it often took days to spread that warning.........

We don't have the industrial base we had in the Twentieth Century and that is a major limiting factor on our mobilization in terms of material, but not in terms of manpower. It means that, like a lot of nations in the past, meant that the invading hordes would be met with staves and pitchforks. ........

Do we have the time? Yes, unless the invaders come from outer space with technology to match. There is no nation with sufficient force in place or within less time to mobilize than we, that could cross one of two oceans or invade from Mexico or Canada. The creation of such force anywhere could not take place without considerable advance notice, of sufficient time for the US to counter it ... should we chose. ......

The threat to the US is to it's Constitution, not a piece of dirt nor of a bunch of people except as it relates to changing the Constitution, which requires only 13 states to preserve. One must consider what parts of the continental US must stay under US control before the US would consider surrender. For the sake of simplicity, one could break down the US into six zones: The Union, the Pacific Coast, the Mississippi, the Confederacy, the Great Planes, and the Mountains, in order of importance. The nation could be still operation with three of these with one of the first three. It gets to be a problem if there are large non-contiguous areas. The geographic center of gravity is St. Louis which if controlled by a force marching from any direction is in a position to over-whelm the rest. ....

By the time any force gets big enough to launch such an attack, we would be well past staves and pitchforks. And through whatever ad hoc coastal defense force we could stamp out of the ground/water/

The option of surrender to an overwhelming nuclear or death ray threat, only depends on our own capability to annihilate someone else's population centers.