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

character or nature of a system within itself. Moreover, attempts to do so lead toconfusion and disorder -- mental as well as physical. Point: We need an externalenvironment, or outside world, to define ourselves and maintain organic integrity,otherwise we experience dissolution/disintegration--i.e., we come unglued.Moral fibre or moral order is the glue that holds society together and makes socialdirection and interaction possible. Point: without the glue social order pulls aparttowards anarchy and chaos leaving no possibility for social direction and interaction.Living systems are open systems; closed systems are non-living systems. Point: If wedon’t communicate with outside world -- to gain information for knowledge andunderstanding as well as matter and energy for sustenance -- we die out to become anon-discerning and uninteresting part of that world.In one form or another, in various scales and in different realms, these illustrations revealthat ‘as human beings, we cannot exist without an external or surrounding environment fromwhich we can draw sustenance, nourishment, or support. Reaching back to two themes fromPatterns of Conflict, Boyd recasts this insight as the message that ‘interaction permits vitality andgrowth while isolation leads to decay and disintegration’ 55 .And with that, Boyd has come to the core, the most barren essence, the shortest yetdeepest principle of strategy. Indeed, Boyd now states, ‘The theme associated with the essay D&Cand the presentations ‘Patterns of Conflict’ and ‘Organic Design’ is one of Interaction and Isolation’. WhileOrganic Design emphasizes interaction, Patterns of Conflict emphasizes isolation. The essayDestruction and Creation is balanced between interaction and isolation 56 . Now Boyd is ready toput this in a strategic perspective.Strategic PerspectiveBoyd has thus answered the question in the title: ‘The Strategic Game is one of Interaction andIsolation’. That is what strategy is about: it is ‘a game in which we must be able to diminish anadversary’s ability to communicate or interact with his environment while sustaining or improving ours’ 57 .The obvious question then is again the pragmatic side of it: how does one do that.Again following J.F.C. Fuller’s dimensions of control, he lists the three components - or hererather dimensions - he already introduced in Patterns of Conflict: the mental, moral and physicaldimension, to analytically break up the enemy system and look for ways to apply the strategicprinciple and achieve isolation 58 . Although already employed before, also in theirinterrelationship, Boyd now thinks it appropriate to define the three dimensions and explainwhy we should use these 59 :Physical represents the world of matter-energy-information all of us are a part of, live in,and feed upon.Mental represents the emotional/intellectual activity we generate to adjust to, or copewith, that physical world.Moral represents the cultural codes of conduct or standards of behavior that constrain,as well as sustain and focus, our emotional/intellectual responses.55 Ibid, p.29. Italics are mine.56 Ibid, p.30.57 Ibid, p.33. Italics are mine.58 Ibid, p.34.59 Ibid, p.35.251