’The center of gravity means something to everyone, but not the same to anyone’ (Saxman, 1992 p. 4)
Introduction
Since Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s treatise of On War was pub-lished in 1832 (Clausewitz, 1989 p. XI), the world has changed. Indeed, one could argue that Clausewitz, developing his theories, was never able to visualize dynamic and complex environment of contemporary warfare, fighting the enemies like al Qaeda or little green men, likewise, envisioned new domains of cyber and space to be emerged. The armed forces in various theatres and in a situation of diverging and converging threats, are currently expected to conduct wide range of operations ranging from the counterinsurgency to full-scale military operations. As boundaries between symmetric and asymmetric, irregular and regular continue to blur, …show more content…
In particular, Clausewitz lived in the era of Napoleonic Wars, described by wars between nation-states or alli-ance of states with massive armies confronting on the battlefield for a decisive battle (Barfoed, 2014 p. 6). Therefore, for Clausewitz ‘a major battle in a theatre of opera-tions is a collision between two centres of gravity; the more forces we can concen-trate in our centre of gravity, the more certain and massive the effect will be’ (Clausewitz, 1989 p. 489). This also lends weight to the argument that Clausewitz understood CoG as the main source strength of the enemy (Strange, et al., 2005 p. 24). Along similar lines, one could interpret Clausewitz as an advocate of the direct approach while directing one’s all strength against enemy’s strength (Barfoed, 2014 p. 6). After all, Clausewitz warns, that each epoch has its own type of wars and theo-ries (Potter 2013: 2) as well as bear in mind that ‘our definitions are aimed only at the centres of certain concepts’ (Clausewitz, 1989 p.
Introduction
Since Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s treatise of On War was pub-lished in 1832 (Clausewitz, 1989 p. XI), the world has changed. Indeed, one could argue that Clausewitz, developing his theories, was never able to visualize dynamic and complex environment of contemporary warfare, fighting the enemies like al Qaeda or little green men, likewise, envisioned new domains of cyber and space to be emerged. The armed forces in various theatres and in a situation of diverging and converging threats, are currently expected to conduct wide range of operations ranging from the counterinsurgency to full-scale military operations. As boundaries between symmetric and asymmetric, irregular and regular continue to blur, …show more content…
In particular, Clausewitz lived in the era of Napoleonic Wars, described by wars between nation-states or alli-ance of states with massive armies confronting on the battlefield for a decisive battle (Barfoed, 2014 p. 6). Therefore, for Clausewitz ‘a major battle in a theatre of opera-tions is a collision between two centres of gravity; the more forces we can concen-trate in our centre of gravity, the more certain and massive the effect will be’ (Clausewitz, 1989 p. 489). This also lends weight to the argument that Clausewitz understood CoG as the main source strength of the enemy (Strange, et al., 2005 p. 24). Along similar lines, one could interpret Clausewitz as an advocate of the direct approach while directing one’s all strength against enemy’s strength (Barfoed, 2014 p. 6). After all, Clausewitz warns, that each epoch has its own type of wars and theo-ries (Potter 2013: 2) as well as bear in mind that ‘our definitions are aimed only at the centres of certain concepts’ (Clausewitz, 1989 p.