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

This leads to two wrap-up slides on the essence of moral conflict. The first one amounts to a“what to do” summary. The second one improves upon this one, in similar fashion to thetwo slides on the essence of maneuver conflict.Essence of Moral Conflict 110Create, Exploit, and MagnifyMenace:Impressions of danger to one's well being andsurvival.Uncertainty:Impressions, or atmosphere, generated byevents that appear ambiguous, erratic,contradictory, unfamiliar, chaotic, etc.Mistrust:Atmosphere of doubt and suspicion thatloosens human bonds among members of anorganic whole or between organic wholes.IdeaSurface, fear, anxiety, and alienation inorder to generate many noncooperativecenters of gravity, as wellas subvert those that adversarydepends upon, thereby magnifyinternal friction.So far it has become clear that courage, confidence and esprit the corps represent thepositive counterweights to fear, anxiety and alienations. This does not reveal yet how tocreate, maintain and exploit moral strength among one’s own troops. Positivecounterweights to menace, uncertainty, and mistrust still need to be developed. These arenot very obvious. Boyd makes the suggestion, admittedly based in no small part on his ownintuition, that the answer lies in the elements of harmony, adaptability and initiative, offeringthe following explanation 111 :AimDestroy moral bonds that permit an organic whole to exist- The presence of mistrust implies that there is a rupture or loosening of the humanbonds or connections that permit individuals to work as an organic whole inharmony with one another. This suggests that harmony itself represents anappropriate counterweight to mistrust.- In dealing with uncertainty, adaptability seems to be the right counterweight.Otherwise, how can one adjust to the unforeseen or unpredictable nature ofuncertainty?- Finally, with respect to menace one cannot be passive. Instead, initiative is neededotherwise menace may obliterate the benefits associated with harmony andadaptability. Intuitively, this suggests that initiative is the right counterweight here.110 Ibid, p.122.111 Ibid, p.124.215