Science, Strategy and War The Strategic Theory of ... - Boekje Pienter

Levels of adaptationThis naturally leads to the key theme of adaptation and evolution. At the individual leveladaptation takes place on at least four different levels 60 .Direct adaptation takes place as a result of the operation of a schema that is dominant at aparticular time (as in a thermostat or cybernetic device). None of the behavior requiresany change in the prevailing schema;The next level involves changes in the schema, competition among various schemata, andthe promotion or demotion depending on the action of selection pressures in the realworld 61 ;The third level of adaptation is the Darwinian survival of the fittest. A society may simplycease to exist as a consequence of the failure of its schemata to cope with events.The fourth level is directed evolution which is caused by selection pressures exerted byindividual human beings.The first three modes of adaptation are characterized by increasing flexibility and decreasingreversibility. Successive modes of adaptation restore as much as possible the flexibility thatthe organism has lost under environmental stress. The flexibility of an individual will dependon how many of its variables are kept fluctuating within their tolerance limits; the morefluctuations, the greater the stability of the organism. For populations of organisms thecriterion corresponding to flexibility is variability. Maximum genetic variation within apopulation provides the maximum number of possibilities for evolutionary adaptation 62 . Thethree levels of adaptation take place, generally speaking, on different time scales. An existingdominant schema can be translated into action right away; within days or months. Arevolution in the hierarchy of schemata is generally associated with a longer time scale,although the culminating events may come swiftly. Extinctions of societies usually take placeat still longer intervals of time. Obviously, the question whether adaptation is successful atany one level is in large part a function of the measure of stability of the environment andthe rate of change in relation to the rate of adaptation an organism is capable of, a themeclose to Boyd’s heart.Boyd actually already included this notion of different hierarchies and time-horizonsin Patterns of Conflict. The pattern of success in war consists of a combination of adaptiveefforts and activities to disrupt the adaptability of the opponent at the tactical, the grandtactical, the strategic and grand strategic level. And although conceptually the activities at thedifferent levels are similar, Boyd recognized that in practice adaptation at each level requireda specific type of action and involved a specific time horizon. At the highest level Boydmentions the national goal and grand strategy. The national goal is formulated in purelyComplexity Theoretical terms:Improve our fitness, as an organic whole, to shape and cope with an ever-changingenvironment 63 .60 Gell-Mann, pp.292-94.61 This is similar to changing military doctrine. Gell-Mann actually includes a military illustration here:if the strategy to reatreat to a fortress fails to deal with a series of enemy attacks, the next invasion mayprovoke the sending of an expeditionary force to the enemy's heartland. See p.293.62 Capra (1982), pp.273-74. Capra also discusses Gell-Mann's first three modes of adaptation.63 Boyd, Patterns of Conflict, p.141.138