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

of strategic theory and military doctrine, are entirely consistent with Giddens’conceptualization of post-modernity. Importantly, the notion of reflexivity is nowconsidered a defining aspect of the Zeitgeist in which the gestation of A Discourse tookplace 54 .Boyd as deconstructionist?A third arrow in the “post-modern strategist argument” is the similarity between Boyd anddeconstructionism. Decontructionism originated from text analysis and is deeply concernedwith an understanding and interpretation of our whole life-world. It is less a philosophicalposition than a way of thinking about and ‘reading’ texts. Jacques Derrida, as a way ofunderstanding texts, proposed the process of deconstruction. According todeconstructionists texts have no exact and final meaning and can be read in a number ofways. Writers who create texts or use words do so on the basis of all other texts and wordsthey have encountered, while readers deal with them in the same way. Cultural life is thenviewed as a series of texts intersecting with other texts, producing more texts.The de-constructive aspect of deconstructionism lies in the process in which textsare continually broken apart, and re-attached in new combinations. The deconstructionist’simpulse is to look inside one text for another, dissolve one text into another, or build onetext into another, collage/montage like. The inherent heterogeneity of that stimulates us, thereceiver of the text or image, to produce a signification, which could be neither univocal norstable 55 .Deconstruction is an exploration within strict boundaries of the indeterminacy’s andmisunderstandings that open up radical reinterpretations of such texts. This acknowledgesthat the observer of social events and artifacts cannot not possibly be objective, because hehimself is entangled in a history, with particular prejudices, language with specific meanings,rituals and symbols etc., that color his perception. Once we recognize this the objectivity ofobservation, and the generation of knowledge comes into question.Subsequently, translating and understanding text becomes an exercise not insubjectivity, but in confrontation of past with present. The generation of meaningconcerning historical texts is a dialogue between the author’s writings, the not-soautonomousobserver, and other historical and cultural objects. Through such a dialoguemeaning is negotiated. Deconstruction is a journey fuelled by historical evidence, implicit andexplicit assumptions, the analyst’s worldview, etc., that yields different interpretations ofparticular texts, in other words, an activity heavily influenced by what Boyd calls orientation.Though none of the different interpretations can possibly equate to the author’sunderstanding, a richer appreciation of the text is developed 56 .This discussion becomes relevant if we consider social events as a particular text ornarrative requiring exploration and interpretation. The analyst must accept that their ownpredelictions contribute to the way in which the exploration is performed and howinterpretations are derived. Analysis can be seen as a dialogue between analyst and thesituation under investigation. By uncovering hidden assumptions, by formulating alternativerepresentations, by using empirical evidence and various formal and informal methods, aricher appreciation of the observed situation can be achieved that is moreover cognizant of54 Guzzini, p.152.55 Harvey, in Hall, Held, McGrew, p.263.56 See Kurt A. Richardson, Graham Mathieson, and Paul Cilliers, ‘The Theory and Practice ofComplexity Science: Epistemological Considerations for Military Operational Analysis’, SysteMexico,1: p. 19-20, and Cilliers, p.22, and Chapters 3 and 7.295