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

important respects from what is generally considered “proper” scientific theory. Theory hasmany meanings and there are various sorts of theory. Theory can be defined as a fairly largeamount of descriptive, correlational, and explanatory knowledge which has been assembledinto a logical and coherent whole 31 . Theory can be described as a set of general propositionsabout the same subject, connected by relations of conjunction and implication, that byembedding knowledge in a meaningful structure, allows relevant properties of that subject tobe explained and predicted 32 . Theory is also a symbolic construction. A theory is conjecturalor hypothetical, contrasted in its uncertainty with the statement of fact as known truth.Theoretical means abstract, selecting from the materials of experience, but is also meansconceptual, constructing from the selected materials something with no counterpart inexperience at all 33 . Theories usually imply several more specific descriptive or causalhypotheses 34 . If their component parts do not satisfy certain minimal requirements of logicand of empirical testability, they should not be called theories. They may be called theoreticalformulations, or frameworks, or conceptual schemes, or perhaps models, but not theories 35 .Theories may and do vary in their usefulness and value, according to their generality,their accuracy, and their explanatory power. Theory serves various purposes. It offers themost systematic and parsimonious means of codifying what we already know. If a theory isgood it brings together the more powerful concepts and insights and the more relevantknowledge that has been generated via induction, analogy and deduction 36 . Second, theoryputs things down in a system. The systematization effected by a theory has the consequenceof simplifying laws and introducing order into congeries of fact. But this is a by-product of amore basic function of theory: to make sense of what would otherwise be inscrutable orunmeaning empirical findings. A theory is more than a synopsis of the moves that have beenplayed (in the game of nature); it also sets forth some idea of the rules of the game, by whichthe moves become intelligible 37 . Thus theory provides the foundation from which we canmove in the acquisition and codification of future knowledge. In sum, a good theoryprovides an intersection between what we already now and that which we seek to know 38 .With some caveats, this view on theory is generally applicable to strategic theory.Strategic theory concerns thoughts about making effective strategy and about the proper useof force. The strategic theorist speculates about the effect of particular military instrumentsupon the course of history 39 . The cardinal virtue of strategic theory, reasoning or planning isthat it brings together, it connects, activities which otherwise easily could be treated asthough they were autonomous realms 40 . What must be connected are the aforementioned 17dimensions of strategy, because each influences the others. Although each dimension in itselfcan provide relevant insight if used as an approach to study a case, good strategic theory31 J.D. Singer, ‘Theorists and Empiricists: The Two Culture Problem in International Politics’, inJames Rosenau, Vincent Davis, Maurice East, The Analysis of International Politics (New York, 1972),p.88.32 Mirolav Nincic and Joseph Lepgold (ed), Being Useful, Policy Relevance and International Relations Theory(Ann Arbor, 2000), p.23.33 Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry (Chandler publishing Company, San Francisco, 1964), pp.296-297.34 Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry (Princeton, New Jersey, 1994),p.19.35 Singer, pp.88-89.36 Ibid, p.89.37 Kaplan, p.302.38 Singer, p.90.39 Gray, Modern Strategy, p.124.40 Gray, Explorations, p.6.19