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

He then incorporates a section of the slide ‘a new conception’ from this slightly olderpresentation. The goal is to have the adversary’s system collapse into confusion and disorderby causing him to over- or under- react to activity that appears simultaneously menacing aswell as ambiguous, chaotic or misleading. The mechanism for creating this situation, is bycreating a rapidly changing environment, thereby either effecting a compression of hisavailable decision time or creating many mismatches in his normal decision cycle thusinhibiting his capacity to adapt to such an environment. Below shows how Boyd made thispoint in graphic form 33 .ActionExploit operations and weapons that:Ideagenerate a rapidly changing environment(quick/clear observations, orientation anddecisions, fast-tempo, fast transient maneuvers,quick kill)inhibit an adversary's capacity to adapt to such anenvironment (cloud or distort his observation,orientation, and decisions and impede his actions)Simultaneously compress own time andstretch-out adversary time to generate afavorable mismatch in time/ability toshape and adapt to change.GoalCollapse adversary's system into confusion and disorder by causing him to over and under react to activity that appearssimultaneously menacing as well as ambiguous, chaotic, or misleading.Human nature, is the subsequent topic he introduces, which reveals his Darwinian (orHobbesian) take on life. The goal of organisms, according to Boyd, is:To survive, survive on own terms, or improve our capacity for independent action. Thecompetition for limited resources to satisfy these desires may force one to:Diminish adversary’s capacity for independent action, or deny him the opportunity tosurvive on his own terms, or make it impossible for him to survive at all.The implication for Boyd is that life is conflict, survival, and conquest 34 . And this naturally leadshim to ‘the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection and The Conduct of War’ (J.F.C.33 Ibid, p.7.34 Ibid, p.10. This is quite remarkeble as Boyd had also studied Dawkins and Axelrod who both notedthat various other survival strategies exist. Cooperation as the optimal mode for long term survivaloften overrides the short term strategy of direct conflict. Moreover, Darwin actually stated that 'its notthe strongest who survive, but those most responsive to change', a message Boyd would stronglyagree with. Survival is the consequence of differences in fitness, resulting in greater reproduction,along with persistent variation in heritable traits that make for fitness differences. The most concisesummary of Darwin's view on the dynamics of selection was provided by Lewontin in 1970.According to Lewontin, Darwin argued that organisms could affect their chances of survival andreproduction if (1) there is variation among traits; (2) some of this variation is heritable; and (3) somevariants reproduce more than others. See Robert Brandon and Alex Rosenberg, ‘Philosophy ofBiology’, in Peter Clark and Katherine Hawley, Philosophy of Science Today (Oxford University Press,Oxford, 2003), in particular pp.167-175.186