Welcome back to the final post my series on maneuver warfare! In this post we’re going to discuss how these principles can be applied to any scenario, peacetime or wartime. This is also where I hope to start a discussion on some of the decisions that our political leadership has been making and how we can apply these principles to politics. Onward!
Last time on The Maneuver Warfare Diaries
Attrition Warfare - Kill the other guy
Maneuver Warfare - Make the other guy stop fighting
OODA Loop - The decision making process consisting of four steps: Observation, Orientation, Decision, and Action
CG - Opposition source of strength and will to fight
CV - How you affect the opposition CG
Main / Supporting Effort - The forces that will affect the CG / everyone else
Surfaces and Gaps - Opposition strengths and weaknesses
OMPCOA / OMDCOA - The most probable and most dangerous oppositoin actions
Speed - The rate a decision maker goes from Observation to Action
Tempo - The rate a decision maker goes from Observation to Observation on successive OODA Loops
Initiative - The state of forcing the opposition to react to your plan
But I wanna work for IBM and I don’t wanna fight in a war
The US Marine Corps is often sought out by corporations to help with their decision making processes. The reason for this is the principles of maneuver warfare can be applied to any situation. Former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach used a derivative of maneuver warfare in his coaching style; he’d throw everything at the wall in the first half and then use what stuck in the second half. In baseball if you’re facing a monster hitter who can’t hit the inside slider, well that’s all he’s going to see. But Kos is a political site, so what follows is a quick hypothetical as it could relate to politics.
Since we’re all various levels of progressive here I think it’s safe to use the GOP as an opposition force. One of their centers of gravity is the conservative Christian base. Their critical vulnerability is that Jesus didn’t say “Give unto Caesar everything you have so that Caesar can be more Caesar”, he said things like “Give everything you have to the poor.” We will exploit that by pointing out directly how GOP policies go against Christian teachings. Or surfaces include knowledge, logic, and the actual text of the Bible. Our gaps include our stances on abortion and homosexuality, which generally run against commonly brought up tracts. In order to maintain the initiative we must be able to do two things: first, have more Biblical citations backing up our position than the other side; second, do not allow the conversation to shift to homosexuality or abortion.
The above is a lightning speed demonstration of how to apply the principles listed above to a political conversation. I spent maybe five minutes on it simply so I could have an example. Using maneuver warfare principles in political discussion is a viable tactic, but we must keep ourselves to a critical guideline.
We must have a stated goal. This. Is. Huge. Without a stated goal all fighting just devolves into an early Red vs Blue joke. (“The only reason we have a red base here is because they have a blue base there. And the only reason they have a blue base there is because we have a red base here.” “Yeah, that’s because we’re fighting each other.”) If you find yourself using that kind of logic you have already lost. You cannot ever wage successful maneuver warfare in any arena without clearly defined, achievable goals.
Once we have a goal we can then start analyzing the opposition for their CGs and CVs, their MDCOA and MPCOA, both sides’ surfaces and gaps, and create and implement a plan to achieve our goals. There will be periods where we are offensive and periods where we are defensive, but if we carefully plan we can ensure that we have the initiative for the majority of the conversation and can drive the narrative. Maybe this is done by allowing filibusters to stop the Senate so debate may continue, maybe it’s by holding votes on opposition proposals that will not pass, maybe it’s simply getting the message out to the press every single day about what the opposition wishes to do and what we wish to do instead. The big point is that it is not nearly enough to simply be against opposition plans, we must be for our plans and we must have a plan for action rather than a strategy for reaction.
I’ll leave the discussion open as to specifics, but as a starting point I see the Senate leadership as having a very inaccurate “orientation” stage of their OODA loop. The Senate is not what it was when many of them first became Senators, and a lack of recognition of this state has caused the strategies employed in moving legislation through the Senate to be woefully inadequate for the current environment. This single failure, causing an inaccurate OODA loop, has resulted in the initiative in the Senate being firmly in the hands of the minority opposition. And that's all I'm going to say, because this isn't "CendoJr's Plan To Fix The Senate" but rather "Let's Learn How To Apply Maneuver Warfare Principles."
Ready? Discuss!
Thanks for reading!
I hope everyone who wanted to learn something learned something, and I hope those of you who wage the political fight can take some of these concepts on board and use them. If you want to learn more, I recommend The Art of War, Boyd, and Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1 – Warfighting as starting points. The past four posts have been a scratch-the-surface primer, but it should be enough to get the point across. See you in the discussion.
Glossary
OODA Loop - The decision making process consisting of four steps: Observation, Orientation, Decision, and Action
Center of Gravity (CG) - That which gives the opposition strength and the will or ability to fight
Critical Vulnerability (CV) - A weakness in the opposition that can be exploited to influence a Center of Gravity
Main Effort (ME) - The friendly force that has the best chance or the assigned task of directly influencing an opposition Center of Gravity
Supporting Effort (SE) - Any friendly force that is not the Main Effort. All Supporting Effort forces accomplish tasks that directly or indirectly aid the Main Effort's task.
Surface - An enemy strength or strongpoint pertaining to the fight
Gap - An enemy weakness pertaining to the fight
Opposition's Most Probable Course Of Action (OMPCOA) - The opposition strategy and tactics most likely to be used
Opposition's Most Dangerous Course Of Action (OMDCOA) - The opposition strattegy and tactics that would cause the most damage to friendly forces
Speed - The time it takes to complete a single OODA Loop cycle
Tempo - The rate at which multiple OODA Loop cycles are completed
Initiative - The state of forcing the opposition to react to your plan rather than reacting to the opposition's plan