Arguing the OE, Episode 14: Identifying the Center of Gravity, Eikmeier Method
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- Опубликовано: 7 авг 2013
- The center of gravity in joint doctrine is a much-contested planning construct. Dale Eikmeier, a professor at the U.S. Army Command & General Staff Officers Course, has devoted much time and effort to thinking and writing about the center of gravity, or COG. His approach to identifying the COG is popular with many students and teachers, and it is fully consistent with doctrine. Hence, it provides students in the College and officers in the field and at home station a quick, coherent approach to implementing the COG into military planning. In later episodes, we will tackle other approaches to the COG, to include those of other faculty members at Fort Leavenworth as well as prominent military thinkers such as Strange and Iron, Vego, Echevarria, Schneider and Izzo, Beyerchen, Strachan, and Naveh.
For a survey of different faculty members take on the COG (to include views that contest the concept's utility, Google "Addressing the Fog of COG: Perspectives on the Center of Gravity in U.S. Military Doctrine (Combat Studies Institute, 2012)."
I honestly could not agree more with the comment below on "overly intellectualizing operations and burying it in terminology" - well said.
Thank you for this series. Helps my understanding, coupled with readings this is a great resource - your time and talents are appreciated! john armstrong, retired US Army, now GS
A clear and useful presentation. Thank you.
good video that brings the idea together.
GOD BLESS YOU
I understand what he is trying to get at, but this is a fundamental issue with how we get ourselves bogged down. We are over-intellectualizing operations and burying it in terminology. Staffs get incredibly wrapped around the axle with this sort of thing and waste time on process that takes away from the time subordinates need.
I know the Army loves having CGSOC contribute to getting Master's Degrees, but we don't need a ton of field grade officers with degrees in, essentially, thinking about the military. We have tons of officers with "soft" degrees already, and for those of us who are entering Master's programs where this material is not relevant, we are having to do all of this work, plus our actual studies, plus our regular jobs - for those of us that don't get to go full time.
I know many will disagree, but if the standard is taking a bunch of 10-question quizzes that are essentially trivia from the block of instruction, and writing some papers that are severely limited in length just to make grading them all achievable (and this is, indeed, what ILE Ph 2 requires, online) it's pretty obvious this is a matter of making it so that a bunch of majors who don't want to sit through interminable theorizing can still pass. The "required" readings aren't necessary, and non-resident students don't have time to read them all.
The Army needs to seriously re-think whether it's goal is to provide educated officers, or present the pretense of conducting grad school education. I'm already dreading the AOC because it will be that + a computer science master's + reserve duty + full time job + family.
And now I regret even wasting time typing this because I have too much else to do.
It's an old post and I'm hoping you've learned something by now, but really well done! I didn't think someone could be so wrong in so many ways.
I'm sure your plan of keeping military officers ignorant and never introducing them to new ways of thinking will be really healthy for the Army.
@Apocalypse31 im not sure why you needed to troll a post from so long ago with such a blatant straw man, but that's not what I suggested.
I suggested that we need more officers with technical degrees as the air force and navy have, and less simple "filler" content in military education. I am not going to restate it all again for you since your reading comprehension is obviously minimal, if that was your takeaway.
Im nit wrong at all. I am 100% on target, and no, I don't cate what rank or degree you either have or will lie about having. Your reply marks you as too lazy and probably too ill informed to have any right to argue back since you made no substantive rebuttal whatsoever.
In the future, shut yoir pie hole.
doesn't CoG have limitations in an asymmetrical environment as the CoG may not be part of the 'system' as described here. Or is it an ontological limitation, i.e. is the system defined by the objective of the actor?
also, a 'system' may not have just 1 objective. an organization / system may have many objectives, and therefore the CoG will vary whether it applies to mitigating the objective, or dismantling the organization.
A British perspective: we had some success by tweaking two things.
Firstly, and most importantly never define a node by an object or event, but what effect it is delivering within the time and space of the operation. This avoids fixation on a specific system or tactic which can be replaced or reinvented (particularly in asymmetric war).
Secondly, as you define nodes, try to force them into a tree structure like a hypothesis tree.
Very brief comment, I know
But kick these ideas about, see how you go.
These are great videos. Just a suggestion: put your camera on a tripod to reduce the camera movement. Otherwise very good.
and a do no knock sign 5:34
The way I'm being taught this in CGSC, somehow the COG is always just the enemy/friendly force. The way this is explained in the video, the COG is the "who" that does the "what" (the CC's), with support from the CR's. This leads to the inevitable conclusion in every situation that the Enemy/Friendly commander is the COG. Obviously this can't be true in every case. I think this boxes planners into a single solution that is ultimately unimaginative and not creative enough to really be useful. Also it appears from the video that the COG comes from a CR. I realize that takes some interpretation from what is said in the video, but that's what I'm being taught. JP 5-0 says nothing about where the COG comes from (whether its a CC or a CR). That leads to confusion on the part of instructors who rely on this video to teach, and confusion on the part of students who take this approach at face value.
My god can you put the camera on a stand, I about got motion sickness trying to watch
This guy isn't reading off a butcher block
Awful video. There are people typing in the background, dudes walking in on the lecture and they couldn't find anyone to hold their iPhone 2 steady to film this.
OMG they couldn't get someone who wasnt so boring??? Why does he talk SOOOO slow?
The instructor is the individual who wrote the method you just learned about.