Member-only story
Recommended Innovation Articles (and Commentary) 9: Disrupting Military Centers of Gravity with Eclectic London Boaters… the “Squiggly Wiggly”
This is a series I am posting to Medium where I share links to articles concerning innovation, strategic change, design thinking, and related topics. People ask me frequently for article suggestions, and I also maintain several innovation distribution lists where I provide commentary and suggestions on one article at a time. All thoughts below are of my own opinion, and while most of the linked articles will be freely available, some may be behind paywalls due to where the article is published. Follow me on Medium, Twitter, and LinkedIn for new articles in this series.
Today’s article is a fun topic that helps disrupt and challenge one of the most foundational aspects of how militaries frame their decision-making methodologies. ‘Centers of gravity’ as conceptual models provide the core structuring to our Joint Planning Process (and all NATO, service, national military variation) as well as much of the Newtonian ‘ends-ways-means’, lines of effort and are metaphoric of the centralized hierarchy. If you cut the branch of a tree, everything attached to that branch dies. thus a COG is organized through a centralized form and militaries need to find the ‘critical vulnerability’ or ‘tree trunk to cut’ to collapse…
