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

Clausewitz’s book not simply the greatest but the only truly great book on war 87 , and hisjudgment is widely shared among the strategic theorists of many countries today 88 . But hiswork too is bound in its application by the fact that it was written after, and in reflection of,the Napoleonic period within a developing system of states 89 . It required subsequent authorsto develop partial theories to account for the industrial revolution, for the development ofthe third dimension as an arena for war (air power theory), and for the phenomena of limitedwars and wars between other actors than states. This has thus far not resulted in a newoverarching general theory that incorporates these various building blocks and synthesizesthem into a coherent entity. The reader then is left with an expanding number of partialtheories, each of which has a limited range of applicability, be it bound by geography(continental, maritime, urban, jungle), dimension (air, land, sea), weapon technology andcombat method (nuclear, terrorism, counter-insurgency, guerilla), etc.The complexity and dynamic nature of war and strategy result in a situationregarding the state of theory not unlike the one that obtains in the study of conflict ingeneral. As Sandole records, ‘in order to prevent or otherwise deal with violent conflict andwar, we must know something about the underlying factors: their identities, sequence,relative weights, combinations, and interactions. We require theory that would enable us toexplain these processes, not only as an otherwise noteworthy academic objective, but as aprerequisite to attempting to manage, control, prevent or otherwise deal with them’.However, he quotes Bueno de Mesquita, ‘the field has languished without appreciableevidence of scientific progress for more than two millennia’ 90 . Vasquez has noted that ‘thescientific study of war began with the hope and promise that the collection of reproducibleevidence and its systematic analysis would result in a major breakthrough in ourunderstanding of general factors associated with war and peace. That breakthrough has notoccurred’ 91 . This state of affairs is due, according to Sandole, to the multilevel and dynamiccharacter of war 92 .This problematic evolutionary feature of strategic theory is reinforced by theparadoxical nature of strategy and strategic theory. Strategic theory is not neutral territory, but anarena of competition itself in that respect. Strategic theory needs to account for the fact thatit is concerned with people that react, learn and anticipate, a characteristic Boyd in fact buildhis theory around. Students of social science have recognized that the persons andorganizations with which the social sciences deal may be influenced by the scientificgeneralizations themselves. Thus once such a generalization has been formulated and hasbecome known to the persons whose behavior it attempts to predict, those persons mayreact in ways different from their past behavior, the observation of which justified thegeneralization. Such generalizations, therefore, cannot have the scientific character that their87 Bernard Brodie, ‘The Continuing Relevance of On War’, in Clausewitz, On War, p.53.88 Gray, Modern Strategy, p.82.89 In discussing the Clausewitzian “doctrine”, Hugh Smith argues that Clausewitz notion of foreignpolicy presupposes a system of souvereign states. Furthermore this doctrine, which is normativelyembedded in On War, includes the proposition that ‘war is properly the business of states and theirgovernments’; and ‘war ought to be an instrument of policy, never and end in itself’. See Hugh Smith,‘The womb of war: Clausewitz and international politics’, Review of International Studies, (1990), 16,pp.45, 55. Gray too observes that Clausewitz, by necessity, is a product of his time and regards warwithin a state-centric context. See Gray, Modern Strategy, pp.102-103.90 Sandole, pp.4-5.91 Cited in Sandole, p.6.92 Ibid, pp.9-11.27