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

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egulations, orders, and other means, not the least of which, according to Clausewitz, is the“iron will” of the commander 159 . New energy and effort are sucked into the open system,yet things still never go as planned; dissipation is endemic due to the interactive nature of theparts of the system.The second meaning of “friction” is the information theory sense of what has cometo be called “noise” in the system. Entropy and information have some interesting formalsimilarities, because both can be thought of as measuring the possibilities for the behavior ofsystems. According to information theory, the more possibilities a system embodies, themore “information” it contains. Constraints on those possibilities are needed to extractsignals from the noise. Clausewitz understands that plans and commands are signals thatinevitably get garbled amid noise in the process of communicating them down and throughthe ranks even in peacetime, much less under the effects of physical exertion and danger incombat. His well-known discussion of the difficulty in obtaining accurate intelligencepresents the problem from the inverse perspective, as noise permeates the generation andtransmission of information rising upward through the ranks. 160From this perspective, his famous metaphor of the “fog” of war is not so muchabout a dearth of information as how distortion and overload of information produceuncertainty as to the actual state of affairs. Clausewitz’s basic intuition here is thatorganizations are always slower and more inflexible than the natural events they are intendedto control. Seen in this light, training, regulations, procedures, and so on are redundanciesthat enhance the probability of signal recognition through the noise. On the basis of linearassumptions, one expects major obstacles to produce proportionately serious errors inresponding to the message. Clausewitz emphasizes, however, the disproportionately largerole of the least important of individuals and of minor, unforeseeable incidents. Frictionconveys Clausewitz’s sense of how unnoticeably small causes can become amplified in waruntil they produce macro-effects, and that one can never anticipate those effects. Due to ourignorance of the exact initial conditions, the cause of a given effect must, for all intents andpurposes, often be treated as unavoidable chance.Chance is the final one of the trinity, and he emphasizes that ‘no other humanactivity is so continuously or universally bound up with chance as is war’ 161 . It is associatedalso with the fog of uncertainty in war, which obscures or distorts most of the factors onwhich action is based. For Clausewitz, ‘in the whole range of human activities, war mostclosely resembles a game of cards’ 162 . This analogy suggests not only the ability to calculateprobabilities, but knowledge of human psychology in “reading” the other players, sensingwhen to take risks, and so on.Unnoticeably small causes can be disproportionately amplified. Decisive results canoften rest on particular factors that are “details known only to those who were on the spot”163. We can never recover the precise initial conditions even of known developments in pastwars, much less developments in current wars distorted by the fog of uncertainty.Interactions at every scale within armies and between adversaries amplify micro-causes andproduce unexpected macro-effects. Here we see too again the interaction between thetactical and the strategic level. Since interaction is intrinsic to the nature of war, it cannot beeliminated. The precise knowledge needed to anticipate the effects of interaction isunattainable. Unpredictability in war due to this second form of chance is thus unavoidable.159 Ibid.160 Ibid, p.101 and 117-18.161 Ibid, p.85.162 Ibid, p.86.163 Ibid, p.595.162
There is yet a third type of chance, which is a result of our inability to see theuniverse as an interconnected whole. The drive to comprehend the world through analysis,the effort to partition off pieces of the universe to make them amenable to study, opens thepossibility of being blind-sided by the very artificiality of the partitioning practice. This formof chance is a particularly acute problem when our intuition is guided by linear concepts.Clausewitz had a profound sense of how our understanding of phenomena around us istruncated by the bounds we place on them for our analytical convenience, Beyerchen asserts.As Clausewitz writes of critical analysis and proof:It is bound to be easy if one restricts oneself to the most immediate aims and effects. Thismay be done quite arbitrarily if one isolates the matter from its setting and studies it onlyunder those conditions. But in war, as in life generally, all parts of the whole areinterconnected and thus the effects produced, however small their cause, must influence allsubsequent military operations and modify their final outcome to some degree, howeverslight. In the same way, every means must influence even the ultimate purpose. 164The third paper included in Boyd’s list is the study of Pat Pentland, Center of Gravity Analysisand Chaos Theory 165 . His main argument is that, considering the insights provided by theparadigm shift, the key to the analysis of enemy centers of gravity is to incorporate the realand dynamic complexities of the natural world explained by chaos theory. Interestingly, healso incorporates Boyd’s OODA loop, acknowledging that this model and the essay,although developed in the 1970s, anticipated many of tenets of chaos theory, and isconsistent with it 166 .Pentland disaggregates an adversary’s system in elements of power. Each elementexists in three dimensions: a source, a linkage and a manifestation. The linkage assists intransforming the source into a force, and it provides connectivity within and between theelements of power. Each element of power is a center of gravity as well as a strange attractor.Power is determined by the mass of the source, the intensity of the force, interconnectivity withinthe system, and the rate of exchange flow within the linkages 167 . This offers the following set ofpotential centers of gravity 168 :Source Linkage ForceArmed forces Command and Control, Logistics, Training MilitaryGovernment bureaucracy Leadership and Communication Political & DiplomaticIndustry & natural resources Transportation & Technology EconomicSociety & culture Family, Education, Socialization Social-CulturalValue system Religion & Philosophy, Indoctrination IdeologicalChaos theory comes into play in this construct as it describes what can happen whenadditional external force is introduced into open systems, or what happens when the linkagesof power are severed 169 . He constructs an analytical approach for selecting centers of gravity164 Ibid, p 158.165 Pat Pentland, Center of Gravity Analysis and Chaos Theory (Maxwell Air Force Base, Al., April 1993).166 Ibid, p.33, footnote 60.167 Ibid, p.17.168 Ibid, p.25.169 Ibid, p.31.163
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Science, Strategy and WarThe Strate
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We are survival machines.Richard Da
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CONTENTS1. INTRODUCTION............
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Introduction.......................
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1. INTRODUCTIONTo flourish and grow
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testing of the decision selected by
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momentum and tempo, which in combin
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tracing the history of war Boyd saw
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in general. Referring to Karl Poppe
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constitute an argument about strate
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2. ON STRATEGY AND STRATEGIC THEORY
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its internal make up and the dynami
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strategist’s task is not to creat
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must be holistic, paying due respec
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Such a division can also be discern
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sensibility that would be capable o
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Why strategic theorizing is difficu
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truth is independent of human belie
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policy, is policy’ 107 . Subseque
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of systems of thought which will gu
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Science and Strategic TheoryDominan
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the major intellectual currents tha
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friction, which is infused with the
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3. THE SEEDS OF A THEORY AND THE FE
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Slowly his writings matured. In 196
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This situation also reflected the d
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at the cost of airspeed depletion)
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and air power theorists are notably
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Lawrence wrote Liddell Hart that fo
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The Indirect ApproachThe foregoing
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in weakening the opponent’s will
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standing in a direct theoretical li
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perfect information, so Chapter 9 r
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According with the enemy is the ass
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preconceived battle plan depends up
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mental or moral, instead they aim t
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calculation, based on the assumptio
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Turbulent environmentThis convictio
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the introduction of the M1 Abrams t
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campaign with which it was most com
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The debates resulted via the improv
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emphasized being more responsive, a
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4. SCIENCE: BOYD’S FOUNTAINKnowle
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The list exceeds 20 pages. Indeed,
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counter-culture. He had read severa
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Popper’s Evolutionary Epistemolog
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species. Finally, theories, unlike
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discovery’ 39 . ‘We have here t
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for failure and an encouragement fo
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investigated and a change of the ru
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Paradigm shiftBeyond NewtonIn the p
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philosophical aspects, Prigogine an
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uncertainty in another “conjugate
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The link between thermodynamics and
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As Ludwig Bertalanffy noted, the gr
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assessing deviation from coursecoun
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the system by the environment or ot
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A slightly more complex model from
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implementation of the right program
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Page 128 and 129: In Patterns of Conflict he also emp
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Page 132 and 133: advances in knowledge, adaptation,
Page 134 and 135: TraditionalReductionismLinear causa
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Page 140 and 141: It preserves the web-like pattern o
Page 142 and 143: Orientation shapes the character of
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Page 148 and 149: Levels of adaptationThis naturally
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Page 158 and 159: Such efforts have lead to suggestio
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Page 162 and 163: Boyd’s views on command and contr
Page 164 and 165: Several of these ideas surface in B
Page 166 and 167: problems they seek to comprehend or
Page 168 and 169: ehavior in reaction to what the oth
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Page 174 and 175: as focus for military planning on t
Page 176 and 177: A Discourse and the scientific Zeit
Page 178 and 179: Sharpening our mental capabilities
Page 180 and 181: perceive it’ 184 . By trying to c
Page 182 and 183: Ensure a large variety of conceptua
Page 184 and 185: The main intent of the effort is to
Page 186 and 187: e true. Thus tested and refined, it
Page 188 and 189: particulars or we can start with th
Page 190 and 191: inconsistencies may emerge to stifl
Page 192 and 193: although not exact1y -- since the u
Page 194 and 195: eality 29 . As indicated earlier, t
Page 196 and 197: He then incorporates a section of t
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Page 202 and 203: Boyd does not find fault with these
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Page 210 and 211: Blitzkrieg disrupts the connections
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Page 214 and 215: Only the fourth condition relates t
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In light of his previous observatio
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difficult) subordinates that accept
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This then leads to the second wrap-
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mask one’s own system against any
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dimension on the behavior of a stra
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Theme for Disintegration and Collap
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Strategic AimDiminish adversary’s
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ApplicationRevisiting Sun Tzu, rein
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The general underlying idea of Coun
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to victory by connecting them to th
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destruction and creation to his inv
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Boyd’s inspiration also came in p
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The Big O: Orientation.The ensuing
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implicit cross-referencing process
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Magnify adversary’s friction and
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This differs from traditional views
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patterns that produced success in m
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General SurveyIn this section his i
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city, however, the situation is qui
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“Destruction and Creation”, by
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So Boyd discerns within the adversa
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On isolation and interactionPhysica
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The Art of Success:Shape or influen
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The meaning of strategy and the art
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however is not much different, but
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Examples from EngineeringSome Outst
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words, in order to gain a richer im
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what applies to science and enginee
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technology, is connected to the gam
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The real OODA loop270
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This relates the OODA loop clearly
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for a process of learning, of evolv
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thing any system is constantly faci
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communication and explicit directio
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8. CONCLUSIONThe history of science
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found himself in. To Sun Tzu Boyd a
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strategy. He elaborates on several
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ehavior, demonstrating the value of
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film, sociology, geography, literar
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That social scientific knowledge, o
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undertakes to improve its own perfo
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The reflexive nature of modern soci
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the context within which the situat
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“road maps for action”, but rat
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all point at the changes the techno
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central sign of post-modernity. In
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a revolution in military affairs oc
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This will affect war and warfare:
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Athena’s Camp. They see swarming
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commanders to improve their decisio
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Military War Beyond Military War No
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schemas. Gell-Mann developed the id
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extent in the novel approach for th
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ANNEX B: BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PATTERNS O
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LeBoeuf, Michael, “GMP, The Great
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Wolf, Eric R., “Peasant Wars of t
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Bartolomasi, Paolo: ‘The Realitie
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Cohen, William S.: Report of the Qu
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Fukuyama, Francis: The Great Disrup
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Hughes, Daniel: ‘Abuses of German
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Lewin, Roger, and Birute Regine:
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Murdock, Paul, ‘Principles of War
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Rosenau, James, N.: ‘Many Damn Th
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Walt, Stephen M.: ‘Rigor or Rigor
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