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

Sharpening our mental capabilities is critically important if we are to adapt and survive in acomplex, uncertain, constantly changing environment. Your best weapon is your mind.Learning how to think well and quickly is the first prerequisite of survival 178 .Awareness of this process of analysis and synthesis and of the value of combining insightsfrom seemingly unrelated fields of knowledge was thus a crucial point Boyd wanted to getacross. Boyd emphasized the importance of using different theories and disciplines to lookfor connections and new lines of causality that might explain and illuminate familiarprocesses and events, all the while looking for connections that might lead to a more generalelaboration of what is taking place. In short, he emphasized looking for those insights andconnections that might provide some universal pattern, process or a model as a tool forexplanation and for sound military thinking. As a result, Boyd states in the ‘Introduction’,A Discourse’ represents the key to evolve tactics, strategies, goals, unifying themes, etc., thatpermit us to actively shape and adapt to the unfolding world we are part of, live in and feedupon 179 .In the two page written introduction Boyd makes it quite clear that what really matters aboutA Discourse is the way the whole set of ideas had come together, how it was synthesized fromlooking at war and strategy from different angles, using different frames of reference and notnecessarily only those from the more obvious social sciences but also from other seeminglyunrelated fields. As he states:The theme that weaves its way through this ‘Discourse on Winning and Losing’ is not somuch contained within each of the five sections, per se, that make up the ‘Discourse’; rather,it is the kind of thinking that both lies behind and makes up its very essence 180 .He put forward his ideas in several evolving presentations that, combined, form A Discourse.Thus A Discourse emerged in its final form after numerous changes that resulted from adialectic process of destruction and creation. In fact it evolved through the application of theOODA loop. Boyd inserted and discarded ideas and insights, he altered the verbiage andadded or deleted historical illustration based on discussions, further study and new books hehad read, also taking into account whether adding another piece would help to make aparticular point come across. A Discourse is thus the result of a discourse with history, scienceand the audience, inspired by an insight from his experience as a fighter pilot. Like thegrowth of scientific knowledge, Boyd’s work evolved.For Boyd then, this deliberate search for novel insights by studying various fields ofknowledge, a deliberate maintenance of an open attitude towards various disciplines had anormative character. According to Boyd it is the way strategy and war should be studied.Studying scientific literature in an interdisciplinary way, and gaining an understanding howscientific knowledge develops was as normative as the study of military history if one wantedto gain a proper understanding of conflict, winning and losing. The metaphors, analogies andillustrations Boyd employed were deliberately chosen. Moreover, they were, and are, also partairbase security and police to the Japanese art of war, evolutionary epistemology and the growth ofbiological thought - to Boyd they were all clearly interrelated’.178 Hammond, p.182.179 John Boyd, A Discourse, Abstract, p.2.180 Ibid.168