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

Closing the loopJohn Boyd is dead but he has left a sophisticated, multi-layered and multidimensional legacyand a new set of terms and concepts to study war and conflict that is useful, if at placesabstract. This study has offered a full text interpretation of Boyd’s slides. The ideas, themesand concepts contained in his work have become evident after a thorough discussion of thevarious formative factors that have shaped and colored his work. I have argued that Boyd’sideas involve much more than exclusively the idea of “rapid OODA looping” or a theoryfor maneuver warfare, as has been the perception by most judging from a survey ofreferences to Boyd’s work. Taking issue with some authors who categorically dismiss thevalidity of the OODA concept, I have shown that Boyd’s work is deep and rich in ideas,explanations, hypotheses, propositions, concepts and suggestions concerning conflict ingeneral and contain valid concepts, and is firmly based on a thorough study of militaryhistory and informed by insights on learning and the behavior of social systems derived fromvarious disciplines.As Boyd’s ideas can incorporate the spectrum of ideas and concepts in strategic leveland operational level theories of war, to some extend, I have argued, Boyd’s work is indeed acomprehensive theory of conflict. It addresses various levels of war that are normallyrecognized: the tactical, operational (or grand tactical), the strategic and the grand strategiclevel, developing insights concerning the dynamics at play at each level and the asociatedfactors for success. Boyd also shows how the mental, moral, physical components of warinterrelate and how the temporal and the spatial dimensions of war affect these in turn.The rapid OODA loop idea is a very important one, but in itself oftenmisunderstood. Whereas rapid OODA loop is often equated with superior speed indecisionmaking, Boyd employs the OODA loop model to show how organisms evolve andadapt. It has become evident that, in addition to the common narrow interpretation of theOODA loop idea, Boyd work is infused with the larger theme of equal or even surpassingimportance of adaptation. While rapid OODA looping – as in rapid decision making - isquite relevant for success at the tactical level, and to some extent also at the operational level,Boyd regards the OODA loop schematic in general as a model for organizational learning, oreven more general, the way organisms adapt and thus evolve. It incorporates ideas such asdouble loop learning, maintaining a variety of frames of reference, (or schemata), a variety ofresponses, the influence and relevance of organizational culture and experienceI have also shown that Boyd’s work conceptually follows closely in the footsteps ofSun Tzu, Julian Corbett, J.F.C. Fuller, T.E. Lawrence and Basil Liddell Hart, to name but afew familiar authors, and that his work his rooted in an impressive, if sometimes biased studyof military history. I have furthermore indicated that an important and often overlookedvalue lies in Boyd’s approach to studying strategy and operational art, and conflict in general,in his holistic approach and in particular in his use of contemporary scientific insights from avariety of disciplines to study conflict. Expanding on the previous argument I demonstratedthat Boyd’s views on the nature of war and strategy evolved with his familiarization first withepistemological debates and cybernetics, then with the systems-theoretical perspective, andfrom cognitive sciences and evolution theory, to chaos theory to finally complexity theory.The value of Boyd’s work lies of course in the concepts he develops, but at least to an equal315