POWER
But in fact war is a form of power--Carl von Clausewitz called it "politics by other means" --and all forms of power share the same essential sturctures. The most visible thing about power is its outward manifestation, what its witnesses see and feel.
Study the structures of your enemies. Find the "hinge" OR "joint" that holds the organization together. A blow there will divide the enemy and division is weakness.
It is the nature of power to present a forceful front, to seem menacing and intimidating, strong and decisive. But this outward display is often exaggerated or even downright deceptive, since power does not dare show its weaknesses.
Isolate one part of the enemy, concentrating a stronger force to ensure its defeat and if possible its destruction, and then turning with full strength to attack the second part; instead of a single blow, plan a series of smaller blows against scattered adversaries and set out to destroy them in detail. Take the center and the enemy will naturally break into parts, trying to hit you from more than one side. These smaller parts are now manageable, can be defeated in detail or forced to divide yet again.
And beneath the display is the support on which power rests -- its "center of gravity." The phase is von Clausewitz's, who elaborated it as "the hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends."
Distract your opponents' attention to the front, then attack them from the side, where they least expect it. By hitting them where they are soft, tender, and unprotected, you create a shock, a moment of weakness for you to exploit. Bait people into going out on a limb, exposing their weaknesses, then rake them with fire from the side. The only way to get stubborn opponents to move is to approach them indirectly.
Source of Support
To attack this center of gravity, to neutralize or destroy it, is the ultimate strategy in war, for without it the whole structure will collapse.
Individuals often show their flank, signal their vulnerability, by its opposite, the front they show most visibly to the world. This front can be an aggressive personality, a way of dealing with people by pushing them around. Or it can be some obvious defense mechanism, their most cherished beliefs and ideas; uncontrollable compulsions. Once you move on their flanks, your targets will turn to face you and lose their equilibrium. All enemies are vulnerable from their sides. There is no defense against a well-designed flanking maneuver. Hitting the center will have devastating psychological effects, throwing the enemy off balance and inducing a creeping panic.
Superior strategists look behind and beyond, to the support system. The enemy's center of gravity is where an injury will hurt him most, his point of greatest vulnerability. Hitting him there is the best way to end a conflict definitively and economically.
The key is analyzing the enemy force to determine its centers of gravity. In looking for those centers, it is crucial not to be misled by the intimidating or dazzling exterior, mistaking the outward appearance for what sets it in motion. You will probably have to take several steps, one by one, to uncover this ultimate power source, peeling away layer after layer.
To find a group's center of gravity, you must understand its structure and the culture within which it operates. If your enemies are individuals, you must fathom their psycholgy, what makes them tick, the structure of their thinking and priorites.
A person, like an army, usually gets his OR her power from 3 (three) OR 4 (four) simultaneous sources. Knock out one and he will have to depend more on the other; knock out those and he is lost.
Your enemy's center of gravity can be something abstract. But such stengths become critical vulnerabilities if you can make them unattractive OR unusable.
Structure, Culture, and Psychology
The more centralized the enemy, the more devastating becomes a blow at its leader or governing body.
Leader
To find an enemy's center of gravity, you have to erase your own tendency to think in conventional terms or to assume that the other side's center of gravity is the same as your own.
UNCONVENTIONAL
"Keep the wheels in Motion"
The unconventional is generally the province of the young, who are not comfortable with conventions and take great pleasure in flouting them. The danger is that as we age, we need more comfort and predictability and lost our taste for the unorthodox. You must fight the psychological aging process even more than the physical one, for a mind full of strategems, tricks, and fluid maneuvers will keep you young. Keep the wheels turning and churning the soil so that nothing settles and clumps into the conventional. Constantly refresh the knowledge base.
In any group, power and influence will naturally devolve to a handful of people behind the scene. That kind of power works best when it is not exposed to the light of day. Once you discover this coterie holding the strings, win it over.
MANEUVER THEM INTO WEAKNESS
The goal of maneuver is to give you easy victories, which you do by luring opponents into leaving their fortified positions of strength for unfamiliar terran where they must fight off balance.
Strike what the enemy cherishes the most.
In any interaction with people, you must train yourself to focus on their strength, the source of their power whatever it is that gives them their most crucial support. That knowledge will afford you many strategic options, many angles from which to attack, subtly or not so subtly undermining their strength rather than hitting it head-on. You can create no greater sense of panic in your enemies than of being unable to use their strengths.
Advance Knowledge
Social media is the man on the inside. We're giving away all the intelligence for free.
Attack to learn how strong they are.
Study the structures of your enemies. Find the "hinge" OR "joint" that holds the organization together. A blow there will divide the enemy and division is weakness.
It is the nature of power to present a forceful front, to seem menacing and intimidating, strong and decisive. But this outward display is often exaggerated or even downright deceptive, since power does not dare show its weaknesses.
Isolate one part of the enemy, concentrating a stronger force to ensure its defeat and if possible its destruction, and then turning with full strength to attack the second part; instead of a single blow, plan a series of smaller blows against scattered adversaries and set out to destroy them in detail. Take the center and the enemy will naturally break into parts, trying to hit you from more than one side. These smaller parts are now manageable, can be defeated in detail or forced to divide yet again.
And beneath the display is the support on which power rests -- its "center of gravity." The phase is von Clausewitz's, who elaborated it as "the hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends."
Distract your opponents' attention to the front, then attack them from the side, where they least expect it. By hitting them where they are soft, tender, and unprotected, you create a shock, a moment of weakness for you to exploit. Bait people into going out on a limb, exposing their weaknesses, then rake them with fire from the side. The only way to get stubborn opponents to move is to approach them indirectly.
Source of Support
To attack this center of gravity, to neutralize or destroy it, is the ultimate strategy in war, for without it the whole structure will collapse.
Individuals often show their flank, signal their vulnerability, by its opposite, the front they show most visibly to the world. This front can be an aggressive personality, a way of dealing with people by pushing them around. Or it can be some obvious defense mechanism, their most cherished beliefs and ideas; uncontrollable compulsions. Once you move on their flanks, your targets will turn to face you and lose their equilibrium. All enemies are vulnerable from their sides. There is no defense against a well-designed flanking maneuver. Hitting the center will have devastating psychological effects, throwing the enemy off balance and inducing a creeping panic.
Superior strategists look behind and beyond, to the support system. The enemy's center of gravity is where an injury will hurt him most, his point of greatest vulnerability. Hitting him there is the best way to end a conflict definitively and economically.
The key is analyzing the enemy force to determine its centers of gravity. In looking for those centers, it is crucial not to be misled by the intimidating or dazzling exterior, mistaking the outward appearance for what sets it in motion. You will probably have to take several steps, one by one, to uncover this ultimate power source, peeling away layer after layer.
To find a group's center of gravity, you must understand its structure and the culture within which it operates. If your enemies are individuals, you must fathom their psycholgy, what makes them tick, the structure of their thinking and priorites.
A person, like an army, usually gets his OR her power from 3 (three) OR 4 (four) simultaneous sources. Knock out one and he will have to depend more on the other; knock out those and he is lost.
Your enemy's center of gravity can be something abstract. But such stengths become critical vulnerabilities if you can make them unattractive OR unusable.
Structure, Culture, and Psychology
The more centralized the enemy, the more devastating becomes a blow at its leader or governing body.
Leader
To find an enemy's center of gravity, you have to erase your own tendency to think in conventional terms or to assume that the other side's center of gravity is the same as your own.
UNCONVENTIONAL
"Keep the wheels in Motion"
The unconventional is generally the province of the young, who are not comfortable with conventions and take great pleasure in flouting them. The danger is that as we age, we need more comfort and predictability and lost our taste for the unorthodox. You must fight the psychological aging process even more than the physical one, for a mind full of strategems, tricks, and fluid maneuvers will keep you young. Keep the wheels turning and churning the soil so that nothing settles and clumps into the conventional. Constantly refresh the knowledge base.
In any group, power and influence will naturally devolve to a handful of people behind the scene. That kind of power works best when it is not exposed to the light of day. Once you discover this coterie holding the strings, win it over.
MANEUVER THEM INTO WEAKNESS
The goal of maneuver is to give you easy victories, which you do by luring opponents into leaving their fortified positions of strength for unfamiliar terran where they must fight off balance.
Strike what the enemy cherishes the most.
In any interaction with people, you must train yourself to focus on their strength, the source of their power whatever it is that gives them their most crucial support. That knowledge will afford you many strategic options, many angles from which to attack, subtly or not so subtly undermining their strength rather than hitting it head-on. You can create no greater sense of panic in your enemies than of being unable to use their strengths.
Advance Knowledge
Social media is the man on the inside. We're giving away all the intelligence for free.
Attack to learn how strong they are.
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