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

and complexity theory, and emphasized the theme of adaptation. In short, it lead him tofocus on the cognitive dimension of war, and the role of uncertainty, and on the answer to it:adaptability.Such an eclectic multi-dimensional and holistic approach was essential to understandthe complex behavior of complex systems. This mode of thinking became an argument initself. He wanted to inculcate his audience not so much with a doctrine as with anunderstanding of the dynamics of war and strategy and a style of thinking about thatdynamic that differed from the deterministic mindset that prevailed in the strategic discourseof the sixties and seventies. Applying his argument in practice, constantly showing thedynamic of move and countermove, constantly stripping bare – analyzing - the essence ofcertain strategies, and then recombining them with new insights and hypotheses, allowed himto expand and go “deeper” into the essence of strategy and war than previous strategistssuch as Corbett, Fuller and Liddell Hart. It showed him similarities and parallels between, aswell as distinct features unique to different modes of warfare, or categories of conflict. Hethus single-handedly transformed the way one can and perhaps even should think about warand strategy and developed a unique set of terms and concepts, a new language, to expressthose thoughts.Not only did he argue that a multidisciplinary approach informed by insights from avariety of scientific fields is a prerequisite for sound strategic thinking, science also helpedBoyd explain and connect in a novel way and lead him to new perspectives, hypothesis andinsights. It gave him new metaphors, or rather, new orientation patterns and ways toconceptualize strategy and war. It lead him to focus on the process of adaptation. The aimand purspose of strategy is, according to Boyd, to improve our ability to shape and adapt tounfolding circumstances, so that we (as individuals or as groups or as a culture or as a nationstate) can survive on our own terms. Boyd introduced the open complex adaptive systemstruggling to survive in a contested dynamic non-linear world pregnant with uncertainty intostrategic theory, constantly attempting to improve and update its schemata and repertoire ofactions and its position in the ecology of the organization.Boyd is the first to make the processes of thinking, learning and adaptation keymilitary concepts. Sun Tzu, using different terms, preceded him in some ways but no onebefore Boyd made these concepts, which center on the cognitive dimension in particular, theheart of a comprehensive military theory. Adaptation is the key word in particular in thesecond halve of Patterns, and comes increasingly to the fore in subsequent presentations. Thisidea also lies at the heart of the simple, clear and logical yet comprehensive OODA loop,which is, as a synthesis and without Boyd’s tempo-proposition, a novel idea in militarytheory. A proper understanding of the OODA loop starts with viewing it within the contextof the process of adaptation.The essay had highlighted that uncertainty is the pervasive element of humanendeavor, indeed, it is the prime characteristic of life, he repeated in The Conceptual Spiral, andit surfaces frequently across the presentations, as well as the insistence that thinkingstrategically under such a condition requires a continuous combination of analysis andsynthesis, and a multidisciplinary and multispectral approach. In Patterns, which starts as acritique of the attritionist mindset, he develops the three categories of conflict, describing indetail the dynamics at play in each mode of warfare. He emphasizes the dynamic of moveand counter-move, the cycle of alternating phases of dominance by either the offense ordefense, and the interplay of the physical, mental and the moral dimensions. Whileconstituting an argument against the attritionist mindset, Boyd moves on and beyond thisargument, distilling in increasingly abstract form the essence of each warform, which in theend allows him to compare the different warforms and to formulate new definitions of283