Echevarria II - Clausewitz's Center Of Gravity.pdf

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CLAUSEWITZ’S CENTER OF GRAVITY:
CHANGING OUR WARFIGHTING
DOCTRINE—AGAIN!
Antulio J. Echevarria II
September 2002
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ISBN 1-58487-099-0
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FOREWORD
Over the last 25 years, the center of gravity concept has
grown increasingly central to the U.S. military’s
warfighting doctrine. It has been hailed by each of the
Services and the Joint community as the cornerstone of the
operational art; and it has come to occupy a common place in
the vocabulary of professional soldiers. It is somewhat
surprising, therefore, that, over the last quarter-century
especially, the term has come to have so many different
meanings.
In this monograph, the author, Lieutenant Colonel
Antulio Echevarria II, cuts through the myriad
interpretations surrounding the concept and gets back to
the original idea as conceived by its author, the Prussian
military theorist, Carl von Clausewitz. In going back to the
original concept, Lieutenant Colonel Echevarria reveals
that Clausewitz intended the center of gravity to function
much as its counterpart in the mechanical sciences does,
that is, as a focal point. Lieutenant Colonel Echevarria thus
argues, quite persuasively, that the Clausewitzian center of
gravity is not a strength, nor a weakness, nor even a source
of strength. A center of gravity is the one element within a
combatant’s entire structure or system that has the
necessary centripetal force to hold that structure together.
This is why Clausewitz wrote that a blow directed against a
center of gravity will have the greatest effect. The
monograph concludes with recommendations for revising
Joint and Service doctrine so that they will reflect a more
accurate and coherent definition of a center of gravity. It
also offers some considerations for the war planner when
applying the concept.
DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.
Director
Strategic Studies Institute
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR
ANTULIO J. ECHEVARRIA II, a lieutenant colonel in the
U.S. Army, is currently assigned as the Director of Strategic
Research at the Strategic Studies Institute. He graduated
from the U.S. Military Academy in 1981, was commissioned
as an armor officer, and has held a variety of command and
staff assignments in Germany and Continental United
States; he has also served as an assistant professor of
European history at the U.S. Military Academy; Squadron
S3 of 3/16 Cavalry; Chief of BN/TF and Bde Doctrine at the
U.S. Army Armor Center at Fort Knox; as an action officer
at the Army After Next project at HQ TRADOC, Ft. Monroe,
VA; and as a speechwriter for the U.S. Army Chief of Staff.
He is a graduate of the U.S. Army’s Command and General
Staff College, the U.S. Army War College, and holds M.A.
and Ph.D. degrees in History from Princeton University. He
has published articles in a number of scholarly and
professional journals to include the Journal of Strategic
Studies , Journal of Military Histor y, War in History, War &
Societ y, Parameters , Joint Force Quarterl y, Military
Revie w, and Airpower Journal . His book, After Clausewitz:
German Military Thinkers before the Great War , was
published by the University Press of Kansas in the spring of
2001.
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SUMMARY
The center of gravity has become one of today’s most
popular military concepts despite the fact that its origins
extend back to the early industrial-age. Clausewitz’s
military center of gravity (CoG) and the CoG of the
mechanical sciences share many of the same properties:
neither is a strength or a source of strength, per se, but
rather a focal point where physical (and psychological)
forces come together. The U.S. military’s doctrinal
publications—especially Joint Pub 3-0, Doctrine for Joint
Operations , and Joint Pub 5-00.1, Joint Doctrine for
Campaign Planning —should be revised to reflect a more
accurate definition of the CoG.
U.S. Military Doctrine and the CoG Concept.
Over the last 2 decades especially, the U.S. military has
struggled both to understand the CoG concept as developed
by Clausewitz, and to find practical ways to apply it. In the
process, however, it has drifted away from Clausewitz’s
original idea. For example, each of the services—shaped by
different roles, histories, and traditions—tended to view the
CoG concept in their respective images. The CoG concept
has, therefore, been fitted with many guises over the years.
The Joint community attempted—though with only limited
success—to pull the various service perspectives together
into a single definition with the publication of Joint Pub 3-0
in 1995. In other words, Joint Pub 3-0 strove to achieve an
“authoritative” consensus by drawing together many of the
services’ predilections. However, in so doing, it defined
CoGs too broadly and offered no real method for
determining them.
The recently released Joint Pub 5-00.1 (January 2002)
builds upon Joint Pub 3-0 and attempts to provide a general
method for determining CoGs. However, the process that
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