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

technology, is connected to the game of winning and losing, and how insight into thedynamics of science and engineering is useful for strategy. They are all self-correcting andevolving systems. He has shown a new parallel once more between dynamics in disparatefields, substantiating not only that the ideas developed in the essay and subsequentpresentations are relevant for strategy, but also that strategic thinking should be infused withthese ideas and these dynamics. The hidden message for his audience is that, if organizationswant to survive in a highly dynamic environment, in peace-time as much as in war, they needto embrace uncertainty and novelty.IntroductionThe Essence of Winning and LosingOn 28 June 1995, two years before his death, Boyd finished the last addition to A Discourse.As the title suggests, it contains what Boyd considered at that moment the essence of hisopus. It is extremely brief, covering only five slides, including the title slide which depicts amounted knight. Yet it is also extremely important, for it contains the only graphicrepresentation of the OODA loop that up to this point Boyd has only described in words invarious sections of different presentations. And as Hammond concludes (referring to hisown involvement in Boyd’s ‘big squeeze’) it is a synthesis of all of Boyd’s work, from AerialAttack Study and OODA loops to his most recent interests in coevolution, socio-biology,genetic engineering, chaos theory, complexity, and non-linearity 109 . Boyd’s simple modelbelies its sophistication, Robert Polk noted in his short but eloquent assessment 110 .Indeed, in the five “key statements” of this presentation, Boyd manages to capture –and go back to – the arguments of some of the earliest literature he had studied in the earlyseventies, such as Piaget, Popper, Polanyi, Monod, Bronowski and Conant, while directlymarrying these once more to several of his key arguments and definitions he developed inPatterns, Strategic Game and Organic Design. He shows how the insights derived mainly fromlooking at military history, but inductively informed by the OODA loop idea and the themesfrom the essay, are conceptually related to the insights from Strategic Game and Organic Design,which find their basis much more in the sciences. These key statements also constitute bothan explanation as well as a justification for the expanded OODA loop model that follows thestatements 111 :Key statementsWithout our genetic heritage, cultural traditions, and previous experiences, we donot possess an implicit repertoire of psychological skills shaped by environments andchanges that have been previously experienced.Without analysis and synthesis, across a variety of domains or across a variety ofcompeting/independent channels of information, we cannot evolve new repertoires todeal with unfamiliar phenomena or unforeseen change.109 Hammond (2001), p.188.110 Robert Polk, ‘A Critique of the Boyd Theory – Is it Relevant to the Army?’, Defense Analysis, Vol.16,No.3, p.259.111 The Essence of Winning and Losing, p.2.268