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

eality 29 . As indicated earlier, these mental concepts are employed as decision models byindividuals and societies for determining and monitoring actions needed to cope with theirenvironment -- or to improve their capacity for independent action.Patterns of ConflictIntroductionPatterns of Conflict is a massive slide set of 193 pages. It represents the main body of Boyd’sthoughts. It is the largest and still the core component of his magnus opus, and although nota ready-reference document, it nonetheless became the touchstone of the military reformmovement and the means by which the philosophy of the movement was spread. It is widerangingand complex, it combines an immense amount of historical data, insightfulinterpretations, and provocative questions. It is a discourse on the events, people, issues,social forces, political motivations, and technologies of the past and how they affect theprocess of winning and losing 30 .In one sense it can be read as an exercise to apply his arguments developed inDestruction and Creation. Indeed, the way Boyd constructs Patterns of Conflict is informed by theinductive-deductive approach. Here as well as in subsequent presentations Boyd offers aninitial suggestion, argument or insight, which he then sets out to illustrate, to substantiate, torefute or to affirm, albeit then in modified form, taking into account the additional findingsthis exercise has generated.In fact, A Discourse can be regarded in this light. The essay forms the inductive part,after which Patterns of Conflict seeks to affirm/refute these findings through a survey ofmilitary history and existing strategic theories. Having found sufficient grounds for acceptingthe validity of his initial arguments, he then proceeds to take the theory further into relatedquestions – Organic Design for Command and Control – and to extrapolate the conceptualimplications and possible generalizations – Strategic Game of ? and ?. One the other hand,Patterns must be read as an argument in its own right, but one which is informed by andentirely consistent with the abstract argument from the essay. In Patterns of Conflict Boyddevelops and substantiates his main arguments concerning warfighting – or ratheroperational art and strategy.The first 12 pages contain the core of his theory, or actually what he calls ‘animpression’. He then sets out on a survey of military history in a series of historicalsnapshots. It proceeds in a generally chronological fashion, a reverse of Boyd’s course ofstudying military history, and focuses on the evolution of war fighting. Gradually during thebriefing this idea is expanded to become the key for grand strategy, but by then the conceptof fast transients has gained in dimensions and layers. From this broad survey he distillsthree distinct categories of conflict as well as a synthesis of the essence, the core elementsthat characterize these categories. It includes also a 6 pages long list of sources, revealing hisdeep study of military history and strategic theory and the burgeoning interest in variousnon-military subjects such as the developments in the ‘new sciences’ discussed before.29 Here Boyd refers to sources 27: Jean Piaget, Structuralism; and 28: Michael Polanyi, Knowing andBeing.30 Hammond (2001), p.122.184