STRATEGIC CENTER OF GRAVITY

When the military develops plans they think on three levels. The highest is the strategic level. At the strategic level, military planners consider overarching national objectives. Military strategic planning is subordinate to the national strategy and must consider all elements of national power. The next level is the operational level planning. Operational planning is theater wide planning that links tactical actions to the larger strategic aims or to get “strategically meaningful results from tactical efforts”. (MCDP 1-2 pg 15) The lowest level is the tactical level of planning. This is where the rubber meets the road – combat actions to close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver. To be effective, these tactical actions need to be highly coordinated.

Planners need to think on all three levels simultaneously. During the planning process the planners will identify an enemy “center of gravity” at each level. The center of gravity is the key source of strength at a given level. If not complicated enough already, the planners must also consider the enemies three levels of planning as well as our own centers of gravity at each level. This process allows planners to mass friendly forces against the enemy’s key sources of strength while defending our own vulnerabilities against enemy actions. Of course the enemy is doing the same thing.

As noted below, America’s strategic center of gravity is its national will to see a conflict through to completion when casualties build. Our enemies have identified that if they can draw the conflict out and bloody America, the American people will quickly tire of the effort and begin to clamor for withdrawal of the troops, a la Somalia. They have also identified correctly that the American media will help them to achieve their goals. The military can protect installations from attack and protect troops with body armor and sound tactics, but the military has a much more difficult time defending against an antagonistic press corps.

Were we not a democracy, we could simply sensor the media or turn them into an Al Jazeera type propaganda machine. Left to their own devices, our media are serving the same purpose - for the enemy. The military is hard pressed to deal with a media that is more interested in sensational headlines than waiting to put the story into context. The military strategy for dealing with an irresponsible media intent on undermining its operations is two-fold. First the military quickly makes facts available to debunk much of the media’s sensationalism. Two, where there is wrong doing the military admits it and takes action to correct the problem. Of course the sensationalism travels like a shot while the truth travels like a snail.

Our strategic aims will be achieved in spite of media by holding elections and demonstrating to the people, American and Iraqi, that there is a path to democracy in Iraq. This is problematic as the insurants and our own media will strive to create the appearance of a chaotic environment unsuitable for meaningful elections. Iraqi and American forces will have to tamp down the violence and secure upward of 3,000 polling places. This may require some additional troops for the short term. The irony in this is that the complicit media will portray any troop build up as a defeat.

The military should bite the bullet in the short term and keep their eye on a strategic objective – elections. Whatever happens with the elections, our media will portray them as a failure. It doesn’t matter. What matters is how the Iraqi’s feel about the process. Americans should keep in mind our own elections during the Civil War. A whole region of the country did not participate, but the elections went forward and, as history has shown, where a great success.