Systempunkt Targets

Michael Taillard

Chapter 5 in Economics and Modern Warfare, 2012, pp 63-66 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract The value of the defeat of any target can potentially be greater than merely the assets destroyed or seized during the attack itself, if one’s target is chosen carefully. As noted in the discussion on supply channels and distribution points, stopping or even just diverting supplies from a single point can create shortages on several different operations in several different locations. The popular game “Jenga” is based on this concept, wherein removing one piece of a tower of identical wooden pieces has the potential to collapse the entire tower (the goal is the remove and restack pieces, one by one, without collapsing the tower in the process). Any point in a system of interacting or of related processes wherein the destruction or removal of the point in question will stop all the processes from functioning properly is called a “systempunkt target.” The term “systempunkt” is derived from the German word schwerpunkt, meaning “heavy point,” which was used by the Nazi soldiers during World War II to refer to any point on the enemy’s line of defense that, when destroyed, would destabilize the entire defensive line. These points were typically the focus on heavy attack for the Nazis because they were ideal targets for their blitzkrieg style of warfare (blitzkrieg, meaning lightening war, was meant to be a very fast use of mechanical warfare to overwhelm a target all at once).

Date: 2012
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DOI: 10.1057/9781137282255_7

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