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

Cloud/distort signature and improve mobility to avoid fire yet focus effort to penetrate,shatter, envelop, and mop-up disconnected or isolated debris of adversary system.The intent if this is to:Exploit tactical dispersion in a focused way to gain tactical success and expand it into agrand tactical success.This in turn implies, in yet more abstract terms that:Small units exploiting tactical dispersion in a focused way - rather than large formationsabiding by the “Principle of Concentration” - penetrate adversary to generate many noncooperative(or isolated) centers of gravity as basis to magnify friction, paralyze effort,and bring about adversary collapse.In infiltration tactics Boyd saw the solution to the problem of the massive increase inweapons lethality developed in the 19 th and early 20 th century. Up to the latter part of WW I,commanders had not been able to develop such a tactic due to various organizational andcultural obstacles. According to Boyd ‘the aristocratic tradition, the top-down command andcontrol system, the slavish addiction to the “Principle of concentration” and the drillregulation mind-set, all taken together, reveal an “obsession for control” by high-levelsuperiors over low-level subordinates to evolve the indistinct-irregular-mobile tactics thatcould counter the increase in weapons lethality’ 61 .These ingrained features also prevented Ludendorff from capitalizing on the tacticalsuccesses of his platoon, company and battalion level infiltration units. Ludendorff violatedhis own novel concept by his tendency to use strategic reserves to reinforce against hardenedresistance. Thus, at the strategic level, he seduced himself into supporting failure and notsuccess. Moreover, the logistics set up was not flexible enough to support rapid/fluidpenetration and deeper exploitation of breakthroughs. Communication technology was stilltoo immobile to allow command to quickly identify and reinforce successful advances. Thiscaused infiltration units to end operating beyond the reach of their own artillery supportexposing them to enemy artillery fire and flank attacks 62 . Boyd thus highlights the nexusbetween strategy and tactics on the one hand, and organization and culture on the other.Boyd nevertheless advances the idea that conceptually ‘infiltration tactics of fire andmovement can be viewed as Napoleon’s multi-thrust strategic penetration maneuvers beingtransformed into multi-thrust tactical penetrations maneuvers to the lowestoperational/organizational level - the squad’ 63 . And infiltration tactics a la Ludendorff alsoseemed to be similar in nature to irregular or guerilla tactics a la T.E. Lawrence, for bothstress ‘clouded/distorted signatures, mobility and cohesion of small units as basis to insert anamorphous yet focused effort into or thru adversary weaknesses’ 64 .T.E. Lawrence had developed an understanding that combat operations in theMiddle-East did not follow the teachings of Clausewitz or Jomini. Indeed, he needed a newconceptualization of war and strategy both to make sense of actual practice in the tribal Arabworld he operated in and to formulate a rational, coherent and purposeful approach for61 Ibid, p.62.62 Ibid, p.63.63 Ibid, p.62.64 Ibid, p.65.195