Revolution in Military Affairs Centers of Gravity
Oct 5, 2023
A brisk look at why Napoleonic ideas about decisive points may not fit modern conflict. Discussion of open versus closed systems and how systems theory reshapes thinking about resilience and feedback. Critique of applying singular “centers” or targeting lists to complex, adaptive warfare. A call to rethink longstanding military concepts for contemporary realities.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Origins Of Centers Of Gravity In Napoleonic Warfare
- Clausewitz's centers of gravity arose from Napoleonic-era wars where heads of state personally led armies and were psychologically tied to army, capital, or alliances.
- Amos C. Fox ties the concept to monarchs' battlefield presence and shows why the idea fit that closed-system political-military context.
Modern Warfare As Open Adaptive Systems
- Modern conflict is better modeled as open adaptive systems, not the clockwork/closed systems Clausewitz assumed, because actors interact with environments and feedback loops.
- Fox cites Ludwig von Bertalanffy and explains open systems exchange matter, maintain steady states, and resist simple collapse.
Resilience Undermines Single-Target Collapse
- Donella Meadows' systems ideas show resilience and self-organization make contemporary actors hard to topple by attacking single nodes.
- Fox argues centers of gravity assume fragility, but open systems heal, reconfigure, and maintain functionality under stress.
