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

subdue those moral-mental-physical bastions, connections, or activities that he dependsupontherebyPull adversary apart, produce paralysis, and collapse his will to resist.The way to accomplish this, the how to, in most abstract terms is to:Get inside adversary observation-orientation-decision-action loops (at all levels) by beingmore subtle, more indistinct, more irregular, and quicker – yet appear to be otherwise 139 .Boyd then adds a short but new discussion on the implications of these observations, inparticular how they relate to the four elements he had introduced at the beginning of Patternsof Conflict: variety, rapidity, harmony and initiative. In this discussion he inserts Sun Tzu’s ideaof fluidity, an important theme from his essay Destruction and Creation, the element oforganizational complexity as well as the discussion above on pattern recognition. Boydasserts that 140 :In a tactical sense, these multi-dimensional interactions suggest a spontaneous,synthetic/creative, and flowing action/counteraction operation, rather than a step-by-step,analytical/logical, and discrete move/countermove game.- in accepting this idea we must admit that increased unit complexity (with magnifiedmental and physical task loadings) does not enhance the spontaneoussynthetic/creative operation. Rather, it constrains the opportunity for these timelyactions/counteractions.or put in another way- Complexity (technical, organizational, operational, etc.) causes commanders andsubordinates alike to be captured by their own internal dynamics or interactions –hence they cannot adapt to rapidly changing external (or even internal)circumstances.In a strategic sense, these interactions suggest we need a variety of possibilities as well asthe rapidity to implement and shift among them. Why?- Ability to simultaneously and sequentially generate many different possibilities aswell as rapidly implement and shift among them permits one to repeatedly generatemismatches between events/efforts adversary observes or imagines and those hemust respond to (to survive).- Without a variety of possibilities adversary is given the opportunity to read as wellas adapt to events and efforts as they unfold.Recombining these (in particular the comment on organizational complexity, and othercomments and insights (including the Clausewitzian concept of friction) related to the fourelements of variety/rapidity/harmony/initiative, Boyd shows what and how they contribute139 Ibid, p.175.140 Ibid, p.176.229