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

strategic planning in light of the limited objectives, the scarce resources and the demands ofthe vast geographical expanses of his environment. According to Boyd, Lawrence developedseveral key principles of guerilla warfare that conceptually mirror some of the dynamics ofinfiltration tactics and stand in stark contrast to the attritional style of warfare as taught andpracticed during the 19 th and early 20 th century 65 :ActionGain support of population. Must “arrange the minds” of friend, foe and neutral alike.Must “get inside their minds”.Must “be an idea or thing invulnerable, without front or back, drifting about like a gas”(inconspicuousness and fluidity-of-action). Must be an “attack-in-depth”.Tactics “should be tip-and-run, not pushes but strokes”, with the “use of the smallestforce in the quickest time at the farthest place”.Should be war of detachment (avoiding contact and presenting a threat everywhere)using mobility/fluidity-of-action and environmental background (vast unknown desert)as basis for “never affording a target” and never on the defensive except by accident andin error .IdeaDisintegrate existing regime’s ability to govern.Advances in the Interbellum: Lenin, Guderian and Mao. The theme’s of infiltrationtactics and Lawrence’s guerrilla warfare doctrine resurface in three major conceptualdevelopments of the interbellum: Soviet Revolutionary Strategy, Lightning War (orBlitzkrieg) and Maoist Guerilla War. In introducing these three developments, he offers whatfor him are one or two key features of each concept 66 . Soviet Revolutionary Strategy, asdeveloped by Lenin and after him Stalin, exploited the idea of crises and vanguard - that ariseout of Marxian contradictions within capitalism - to lay-out Soviet Revolutionary Strategy.This resulted in a scheme that emphasizes moral/psychological factors as a basis to destroy aregime from within. Lighting War (Blitzkrieg) arose from the mating of Infiltration tactics of1918 with technological advances in the tank, motorized artillery, tactical aircraft, motortransport and communications. Key figures in this development were practitioners such asthe British general J.F.C. Fuller and the German tank commander Heinz Guderian. Thisresulted in the Blitzkrieg concept, which aims to generate a breakthrough by piercing aregion with multiple narrow thrusts using armor, motorized infantry, and follow-up infantrydivisions supported by tactical aircraft. Mao Tse-Tung, finally, synthesized Sun Tzu’s ideas,classic guerilla strategy and tactics, and Napoleonic style mobile operations under anumbrella of Soviet Revolutionary Ideas to create a powerful way for waging modern65 Ibid, p.64.66 It is interesting to point out that here Boyd pays attention to these major development whichoccurred in countries which were or had been adversaries of the US. Moreover, in selecting theseconcepts he ignores developments some consider also of prime importance such as the developmentof (strategic) air power theory (with well known names such as Guilio Douhet and Billy Mitchell) orthe introduction of carriers which transformed the face of sea power.196