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

ApplicationRevisiting Sun Tzu, reinforcing key themes. In this section Boyd takes his audience on atour through the early German military campaigns in Poland, the Low Countries and Franceand Russia. In that respect, this section resembles the previously discussed section titled‘Historical Snap-Shots’. The importance of this section however lies not so much in thehistorical analysis and illustrations. In stead, what makes this section relevant is the way Boydshows how military success is the result of a dialectic process of adaptation and counteradaptation, of shaping and being shaped. He uses the Blitz-Counter Blitz dynamic toillustrate this. This seems merely an expansion of his earlier sections. However, now Boydties dynamic even more than before to the cognitive element of war. Boyd returns to SunTzu to explain and re-emphasis this key argument to which he has already frequently alluded.On the one hand the discussion is thus a repetition of his earlier remarks oncounter-blitz but now with the following central theme: what matters at all levels ofcommand, is the cognitive impact of feints, maneuvers, attacks, retreats, threats, fireengagements,etc. Collectively they constitute information and this information could reveala pattern, and recognizing a pattern can lead the opponent to make predictions about thenext steps. Consequently, the name of the game becomes one of consciously shaping theopponent’s perception of the pattern of operations unfolding before him, while hiding thereal picture.Again here Boyd stresses the connection between physical events and cognitiveimpact, and now he takes this to the logical conclusion that cognitive impact needs to be acore rationale for designing tactics, grand tactics and strategy. Foreknowledge and judgmentplay central role here. And the influence of Sun Tzu is explicit not only because Boydincludes Sun Tzu in the titles of slides 146-156, but also because Boyd borrows heavily fromthe master. Ideas of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, such as cheng/ch’i, the vacuous and substantial, theidea of formlessness and being unfathomable echo through. As was discussed in chapter 8, theconcept of ch’i and cheng is about conceptualizing, characterizing, manipulating forces within,and by exploiting an enemy’s matrix of expectations.The aim of Blitz and counter Blitz, according to Boyd, is to “blind side” theadversary regardless of the circumstances 129 . The ‘human penchant for generating mentalpatterns’ immediately suggests that it is important to shape the adversary’s impression.Translated to the defense against a Blitz, shaping the opponent’s impression is accomplishedby arranging the elements of defense, as the basis to guide adversaries to form or projectpatterns on the environment they are facing. In other words, one should emphasize certainfeatures so that the adversary’s intelligence, recce, patrols, and other observation activitygenerate mental pictures of what we seem to be doing. In this sense, we cause the adversaryto project or rhythm as well as a sense of for or gestalt upon the environment. Naturally,Boyd tells his audience, this raises the question: How do we want our posture to appear to anadversary, i.e., what kind of mental picture do we want to generate in his mind 130 ?Designing one’s defense on this basis is obviously quite a departure from the regulardeterminants of tactics and grand tactics, which were generally related to terrain and enemyposition and strength. After literally repeating the things to do for the counter Blitz ofp.105 131 , Boyd reveals that at the strategic level the game of Counter-Blitz is to:129 Ibid, p.148.130 Ibid.131 Ibid, p.149.226