Op-eds by Jacob Barfoed
Den historiske erfaring viser, at forsvarsreformer og krigsstrategi bedst gennemføres i gensidig ... more Den historiske erfaring viser, at forsvarsreformer og krigsstrategi bedst gennemføres i gensidig respekt og tillid - trods uenighed - mellem generaler og civile ledere og med ministeren som aktiv leder for bordenden.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Vi skylder vores soldater, deres familier og skatteborgerne, at vi i fremtiden udarbejder en stra... more Vi skylder vores soldater, deres familier og skatteborgerne, at vi i fremtiden udarbejder en strategi, der indeholder en samtænkt indsats for opnåelse af realistiske mål, inden vi vælger at sende vores soldater i krig,
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Papers by Jacob Barfoed
The concepts of military doctrine and military strategy are sometimes wrongly used as if they wer... more The concepts of military doctrine and military strategy are sometimes wrongly used as if they were the same concept; while the two concepts are related, the student and practitioner of warfare must understand the differences and not confuse them with each other. This article will briefly discuss the two concepts and their relation. The article argues that while doctrine represents the more scientific side of warfare, strategy represents the artistic side. Existing doctrine will almost never meet the requirements for winning the next war; it is through the artistic application of generic peacetime doctrine to the specific strategic and operational context, using doctrine as building blocks for a context specific military strategy, that the military commander outwits and defeats or coerces the adversary and achieves the military objectives.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The Clausewitzian Center of Gravity (COG) concept is central in western military strategic thinki... more The Clausewitzian Center of Gravity (COG) concept is central in western military strategic thinking and serves as a core concept in military planning. However, several interpretations of the concept exist, which contributes to theoretical as well as practical confusion. Moreover, the concept receives critique such as “it is so abstract to be meaningless,” “it fails to provide convincing evidence for its use at the strategic level of war,” “there is a lack of interdisciplinary awareness,” it is an analogy tailored to Prussian military challenges in the early 19th Century, etc. This article contributes to the discussion by combining the COG concept with strategic theory, hereby addressing many of the raised critique points. The article presents three COG-Strategy schools, centered on different/competing interpretations of the Clausewitzian Center of Gravity (CoG) concept as well as different approaches to strategy. Each CoG-strategy school is rooted in the experiences as well as the historical roles of the individual U.S. military services and expresses a distinct, ideal-type way of fighting and winning wars. The article finishes with a discussion of how the COG concept can connect a grand strategy to the military strategy. For this purpose, it introduces the Will and Ability COG concept, which belongs to COG-Strategy school three (see below). The Will and Ability COG concept provides strategists a method for designing war winning strategies that focus on inducing a policy change by the adversary leadership and on defeating the adversary’s strategy, starting at the grand strategic level of war and with the lower levels providing increasingly more details to various elements of the grand strategy.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Debatten raser om hvorvidt Danmark skal købe nye kampfly til afløsning for de nuværende F16. Bert... more Debatten raser om hvorvidt Danmark skal købe nye kampfly til afløsning for de nuværende F16. Bertel Heurlin har på Indblik Nu argumenteret for, at forsvaret bør satse på en levetids-forlængelse af de nuværende kampfly, halvere antallet af operative kampfly og samtidig ud-skyde købet af nye. Major i Flyvevåbnet Jacob Barfoed savner den analyse af forsvarets frem-tidige mål og opgaver, som kan begrunde forslaget.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The United States has over the last 16 years demonstrated amazing proficiency in winning military... more The United States has over the last 16 years demonstrated amazing proficiency in winning military campaigns, but failure in securing “a better peace” as Basil Liddell Hart advocated. There is a need for an interagency analysis model, owned by the National Security Council (NSC), that can determine how the different instruments of power (IOP) can contribute to the achievement of the national strategic objectives, including which combination of IOPs is most efficient, but it must also bridge the strategic level of war to the operational and tactical levels. Therefore, this paper proposes an analysis model based on Dr. Joseph L. Strange’s center of gravity (COG) model, Robert Pape’s concept of coercion, and effects-based operations (EBO). The model could create unity of effort in utilization of all national and international IOPs and in securing the necessary linkage
among the three levels of war to affect the adversary’s will and his strategy.
First, until there is a Goldwater-Nichols Act II that establishes a more permanent strategic-level interagency staff or committee structure under the NSC that can be custodian of the proposed analysis model, the Joint Staff should be the custodian of the proposed model. The Joint Staff will be responsible for updating the Joint Operation Planning and Execution System (JOPES) and the joint operation planning process (JOPP) using the model.
Second, the concept of COGs combined with Pape’s concept of coercion provide useful focus points for attacking the adversary’s strategy. Third, Strange’s COG analysis model shows how to affect the adversary’s COGs most efficiently. Fourth, merger of COG analysis and EBO can ensure the linkage among the three levels of war.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Teaching Documents by Jacob Barfoed
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Uploads
Op-eds by Jacob Barfoed
Papers by Jacob Barfoed
among the three levels of war to affect the adversary’s will and his strategy.
First, until there is a Goldwater-Nichols Act II that establishes a more permanent strategic-level interagency staff or committee structure under the NSC that can be custodian of the proposed analysis model, the Joint Staff should be the custodian of the proposed model. The Joint Staff will be responsible for updating the Joint Operation Planning and Execution System (JOPES) and the joint operation planning process (JOPP) using the model.
Second, the concept of COGs combined with Pape’s concept of coercion provide useful focus points for attacking the adversary’s strategy. Third, Strange’s COG analysis model shows how to affect the adversary’s COGs most efficiently. Fourth, merger of COG analysis and EBO can ensure the linkage among the three levels of war.
Teaching Documents by Jacob Barfoed
among the three levels of war to affect the adversary’s will and his strategy.
First, until there is a Goldwater-Nichols Act II that establishes a more permanent strategic-level interagency staff or committee structure under the NSC that can be custodian of the proposed analysis model, the Joint Staff should be the custodian of the proposed model. The Joint Staff will be responsible for updating the Joint Operation Planning and Execution System (JOPES) and the joint operation planning process (JOPP) using the model.
Second, the concept of COGs combined with Pape’s concept of coercion provide useful focus points for attacking the adversary’s strategy. Third, Strange’s COG analysis model shows how to affect the adversary’s COGs most efficiently. Fourth, merger of COG analysis and EBO can ensure the linkage among the three levels of war.