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

Conduct of War Boyd found reference to the idea that between action and will there exists anintimate connection, as Fuller stated: action without will loses coordination; without adirecting brain an army is reduced to a mob. The fighting power of an army lies in itsorganization which can be destroyed either by wearing it down or by rendering inoperativehis power of command – “brain warfare” 30 .Central to his argument is the notion that paralysis should be the aim in war and thatthe mental and moral dimensions should be the prime target of a military operation. Fullerinsisted that “brain warfare” was the most effective and efficient way to destroy the enemy’smilitary organization and hence its military strength. To economize the application ofmilitary force, one needed to produce the instantaneous effects of a “shot through the head”,rather than the slow bleed of successive, slight body wounds 31 .Boyd also adopted Fuller’s concept of the three spheres of war - the physical, themental, and the moral, dimensions. Respectively, these spheres dealt with destruction of theenemy’s physical strength (fighting power), disorganization of his mental processes (thinkingpower), and disintegration of his moral will to resist (staying power). Fuller added that forcesoperating within these spheres did so in synergistic, not isolated, ways. Thus in stead of justfocusing on the physical aspects of the enemy, the conduct of modern war should aim atmoral and mental objectives and undermine rather than literally destroy the enemy.He realized however explicitly that the tank would produce its own countermeasures and he foresaw the anti tank gun and anti armor mine, which would in a new cycleof evolution limit the advantage of the tank 32 . Fuller recognized that technological, tacticaland doctrinal developments lead to counter- developments. War and its tools developed inan evolutionary scheme. This was in line with Fuller’s positivist, evolutionary and dialecticalinterpretation of history. Fuller’s book describes the transformation from rural to urbanizedand industrialized civilization. Within this transformation an evolutionary pendulum layembedded of weapon power, slowly or rapidly swinging from the offensive to the protectiveand back again in harmony with the speed of civil progress. Every measure enjoys a periodof success following its introduction, but thereby provokes countermeasures to redress thebalance. In this light his deliberate and extensive inclusion of Marxist and Leninist theoriesof revolutionary war also can be seen as part of the dialectic cycle of one forms of warfareleading to another mode of warfare. Fuller called this ‘the constant tactical factor’ which layat the root of the law of military evolution’, a view that permeates The Conduct of War as wellas Boyd’s Patterns of Conflict which contains various section in which a specific style of warfareis contrasted with its logical counter, including the Marxist, Leninist and Maoist versions ofrevolutionary warfare 33 .dwindled and disappeared. The ability to wage war also affected the social, political, economic andeven religious organs of each society. See Pellegrini, and also Antulio J. Echevarria II, After Clausewitz,German Military Thinkers Before the First World War, (University Press of Kansas, 2000), p.186; and inparticular Brian Holden Reid, J.F.C. Fuller, Military Thinker, (St. Martin's Press, New York, 1987), 1-30.30 J.F.C. Fuller, The Conduct of War, 1789-1961: A Study of the Impact of the French, Industrial and RussianRevolutions on War and Its Conduct (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1961), p.242-243.31 Ibid.32 Azar Gat (1998), p. 40.33 Ibid, p.39.51