What could be more important than a nation’s strategy? A strategy brings together ends, ways, and means. It assesses costs and risks and establishes priorities. It takes basic guidance and direction from national policy, but, in turn, strategy guides subordinate plans and policies. It provides a framework that can help us comprehend contextual developments, which, in turn, can reshape the strategy. A consistent strategy is also a certain trumpet for friends and allies to heed. In our messy democracy, domestic politics and bureaucratic politics will often frustrate strategy, but, in the end, national strategy retains its importance.

Debates continue in the media, military, and foreign policy circles about the national strategy to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Imbedded within these debates are fundamental disagreements about ISIL’s strategic and operational centers of gravity. Correctly identifying the center of gravity (COG) of an adversary is critical to designing an operational approach to defeat him

Given Australia’s position as a key U.S. ally and a much smaller military power, as well as the array of cultural similarities between the two countries, it should come as no surprise that U.S. developments have regularly influenced Australian Defence Force (ADF) thinking about armed conflict.1 Center of gravity (COG) analysis, a lynchpin of campaign and operation planning, is no exception.