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

“road maps for action”, but rather ideas operate “all the way down” to actually shape actorsand action in world politics 68 . When ideas are norms, they not only constrain actors, but alsoconstitute actors and enable action’ 69 .And where constructivists focus on state behavior, other post-modern schools ofinternational relation theory, like culturalists, focus on factors within a state that shapeforeign policy. This work has shown how state action regarding military force is shaped bybeliefs collectively held by policymakers and political elites (strategic culture) and by militaryofficers (organizational culture) 70 . Not only does political and organization culture accountfor differences in doctrines, differences in military power or method of control of militaryforces 71 . This perspective also explains for instance the ‘isomorphic pattern of global militarydevelopment – the fact that militaries around the world are organized along remarkablysimilar lines, which is a western model formed during the past two hundred years. Currentlymilitaries attempt to emulate the latest variant of this western model – namely the USrevolution in military affairs - because that is considered the image of what ‘modern’ means.The US military has become a paradigm defining according to military elites what militariesshould look like and what constitutes modern military power. In Boydian terms militariesobserve their environment and take action when mismatches are observed or opportunitiesfor advantage are recognized from a specific viewpoint on their trade.The role of language and strategic concepts for strategic behavior become evident instudies on nuclear strategy. The logic of nuclear deterrence, the central element in USnational security policy throughout the Cold War, becomes ‘a construction of the socialscientist…the strategic analysts of the so-called Golden Age created the strategies for theAmerican state. They created the very categories by which the decision makers in the USunderstood the world. It was only after the strategic analysts did their work that the decisionmakers could think of the world in terms of “assured destruction capabilities”,“vulnerabilities to second strikes”, or “hard target kill capabilities”. These were thetheoretical ideas of social scientists, without which US military strategy in the Cold Warwould not have been possible. Those same practitioners of strategic studies could then makepredictions about US state action in the context of its nuclear strategy, but they werepredicting behavior that was only made possible by the appropriation of the strategists’ ownconcepts, which enabled that behavior in the first place’ 72 .The relation of Boyd and post modern security studies also lies in his use ofcomplexity theory. Boyd uses a metaphor and an approach to study armed forces and theirbehavior that have also been applied by post-modern theorists. As was discussed in Chapter5, Boyd regards armed forces as complex adaptive systems and uses evolution theory,systems theory, chaos theory, catastrophe theory and later complexity theory to understand,68 Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge, 1999), pp.92-138.69 Farrell, p.50.70 Ibid, p.53.71 Michael C. Desch, ‘Culture Clash, Assessing the Importance of Ideas in Security Studies’,International Security, Vol. 23, No.1 (Summer 1998), pp.142-143. This is a positive yet critical assessmentof the constructivist’s claims. A consiliary piece arguing for the benefit of an eclectic approach toexplain foreign policy outcomes, employing neoliberalism, realism, rationalism alongsideconstructivism, is offered by Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara, ‘Japan, Asian-Pacific Security,and the Case for Analytic Eclecticism’, International Security, Vol.26.No.3 (Winter 2001/02), pp.153-185.72 Mutimer, p.93. For a elaborate argument about the constructed nature, and the role of language anddiscourse, of US deterrence policy, see also Bradley Klein, Strategic Studies and World Order: The GlobalPolitics of Deterrence (Cambridge, 1994).298