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

Military War Beyond Military War Nonmilitary WarNuclear Diplomatic FinancialConventional Internet TradeBio-Chemical Information Ops Natural ResourceEcological Psychological Economic AidSpace High Tech Law and RegulationsElectronic Smuggling SanctionsGuerrilla Drug Media WarTerrorism Deterrence IdeologicalMore philosophically, the authors turn the West’s perception concerning the nature,the meaning and purpose of war against itself. War is not identical with violent militaryclashes, instead it must be understood as constant contest or struggle. The authorsdeliberately redefine the meaning of war and stretch it far beyond what most political leadersconsider the current meaning of war. Thus academically they open the possibility of beingengaged in a war, employing non-military methods to achieve their aim, while the Westwould not recognize it was engaged in one 132 . Martin van Creveld may be right when heasserted that this mode of warfare, combined with terrorism, rape, plunder, assassination,ethnic cleansing is the other face of the transformation of war that is currently taking place,but this one in the non-western part of the world, and it would spell doom for Westerndemocratic societies for against this threat the conventional defence forces of the Westwould be irrelevant 133 .The attacks of September 11, 2001 were so shocking in part because they broke thepattern of Western style warfare, they shattered the framework of war and warfare Westernsociety had become accustomed to 134 . These attacks had already been envisioned in 1989 bya group of US military officers that were inspired by Boyd in an article in which these trendswere described and labeled as 4 th Generation Warfare, and they agreed with van Creveld thatthis was the most likely future threat for the West. They even predicted how Islamicterrorists would freely roam through the open societies of the West and could strike withnon-military means. In the aftermath of 11 September 2001, the article was rediscovered.Another testimony to the merits of Boyd’s mode of thinking.Boyd and post-modern strategy.In light of his eclectic approach, and the specific sources Boyd drew inspiration and insightfrom, I have argued that Boyd must be considered the first post-modern strategist because ofthe close resemblance of both his method and his arguments with leading post-moderntheorists. It is the post-modern feature which gives him a unique position as a strategist,besides the novelty of his strategic arguments. Boyd called his work A Discourse because itwas through interaction with his public that understanding and meaning would be generated.Boyd also had a discourse with history, using various lenses to analyze events, to derivemeaning and understanding of a complex phenomenon called war, and the non-linear waypeople acted, and attempted to control events in it through a dialectic process, a constant132 This section is derived from a chapter by this author titled 'Asymmetric Warfare; Rediscovering theEssence of Strategy', in John Olson (ed), Asymmetric Warfare, Oslo (2002).133 Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War, The Free Press, New York 1991.134 See for instance Colin McInnes (2001), p.76, for a similar observation.312