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

a system disintegrating after the bifurcation point, unable to cope in the available time withthe radical changes imposed on it by the environment, unable to adjust the schemata or tospeed up the rate of adjustment.Conceptualizing military strategies of Complex Adaptive SystemsThis has implications for the interpretation of his work. As will become evident from readinghis work and following logically from the panorama of the scientific Zeitgeist, his workrevolves around the theme of adaptability. Boyd focusses on the factors that can impair anopponent’s capability to adapt and those that preserve one’s own capacity to do so.Adaptability is one of the premier themes in the literature on (complex adaptive) systems,this and the previous previous chapters have indicated. The system for which the strategictheory is designed will be the armed forces and its environment. An armed force is by designa fairly robust system. It is designed to cause change in an opponent and oppose the need todo so itself. It will equip itself with redundant connections, ample units of diverse nature,good sensors, relevant schema and a supportive environment. It will do anything to ensure amodicum of coherence of its actions.The aim is therefore to push a system away from its ordered disciplined statetowards a pure complex state where indeed the several subsystems need to self-organizebecause of lack of higher direction and then towards a state of randomness, but notnecessarily in such a time sequenced order. Randomness, the loss of cohesion is the oppositeof the capability to adapt. The units may still exist but not as part of a higher complexsystem. This mechanism of decreasing cohesion and fading capability to adapt can be appliedto any system and subsystem to the lowest level that can be described as a system, in armedforces this is the individual soldier. But it is not necessary to have the system completelydisintegrate in one massive blow. Because an error in response or a slower response willmagnify in impact over time through the feedback loops it is basically only necessary tocreate an initial advantage and prevent the opponent from compensating for it. That lastremark is essential because a system will react and attempt to find workarounds.The nature of a system can change from less complex to complex, or alternatively,to the point where there is hardly any connection anymore, where information is not sharedand where cohesion of action ceases to exist. Then the different elements of a system act atrandom and do not constitute a part of a system. Applied to armed forces, we can envisionan army at the beginning of a conflict executing a plan in a well ordered fashion with a highdegree of cohesion, but after setback, degradation of capabilities, the loss of connections andunits cohesion of the system degrades. Initially the central directing body can issue neworders to maintain cohesion thus providing part of new schema’s (what is expected of units,how to behave) and how the environment should look like (by providing intelligence). Whenthe capability to communicate degrades units need to look after themselves for longerperiods of time and through doctrine and training will be able to self organize for some time.After longer periods the lastly provided schema’s will not match reality anymore and withoutconnections and inputs, the units will fail to react properly and the more units do so themore the system as a whole will fail to adapt correctly to unfolding circumstances. Thisexplains the importance of the cognitive factor in Boyd’s work.Building on Jervis, Perrow, Pentland, and the insights of the previous chapters,several interrelated methods can be distilled from the dynamics of open, complex, non-linearadaptive systems that can be translated into strategic moves – albeit abstract - to accomplishthe basic aim of social systems in conflict. Most, if not all, are present in Boyd’s work:171