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

sought by playing upon the fears of and by deceiving the opposing command. To mystifyand mislead constitutes distraction while surprise is the essential cause of dislocation. AsLiddell Hart posits: ‘It is through the distraction of the commander's mind that the distraction of his forcesfollows. The loss of his freedom of action is the sequel to the loss of his freedom of conception’ 52 . The mentaland the physical are two faces of the same coin and only when they are combined and onepays attention to the psychological as much as to the physical, is strategy truly an indirectapproach, calculated to dislocate the opponent’s balance 53 .Corbett’s ideas resurface when Liddell Hart explains that an army should always beso distributed that its parts can aid each other and combine to produce the maximumpossible concentration of force at one place, while the minimum force necessary is usedelsewhere to prepare the success of the concentration. Effective concentration can only beobtained when the opposing forces are dispersed, and, usually, in order to ensure this, one’sown forces must be widely distributed. Thus, Liddell Hart asserts, true concentration is theproduct of dispersion 54 .Another result of the interactive nature of war, and connected to the idea of gettingthe opponent off his guard, is that to ensure one objective you should have alternativeobjectives as well. If you take a line that threatens alternative objectives, you distract hismind and forces, an idea Boyd was to come to refer to as the use of Nebenpunkte, next toSchwerpukte, or Centers of Gravity. This, moreover, is the most economic method ofdistraction for it allows you to keep the largest proportion of your force available on yourreal line of operation thus reconciling the greatest possible concentration with the necessityof dispersion 55 . Bourcet had this in mind when he stated that every plan should have severalbranches so that one or two of those branches cannot fail to produce success. It is expressedin the term “to put the enemy on the horns of a dilemma”. Underlying this is Liddell Hart’sconviction, one shared by Boyd, that ‘Adaptability is the law which governs survival in war as in life -war being but a concentrated form of the human struggle against environment 56 . To be practical, any planmust take account of the enemy’s power to frustrate it; the best chance of overcoming suchobstruction is to have a plan that can be easily varied to fit the circumstances met 57 . To keepsuch adaptability, while still keeping the initiative, the best way is to operate along the linewhich offers alternative objectives. These notions apply equally well to tactics as they do tostrategy and their underlying essential truth is that for success two major problems must besolved: dislocation and exploitation 58 .All these ideas would find their place in Boyd’s work most clearly in Patterns of Warin which he constantly emphasizes the relevance of movement on the psychologicaldimension. Indeed, reading this book in the aftermath of the defeat of one of the twoworld’s superpowers at the hands of technologically unsophisticated guerrilla fighters, Boydmust have found inspiration in these words.Liddell Hart is considered the conceptual father of the Blitzkrieg concept Germanydeveloped during the Interbellum, a concept Boyd took a deep interest in. Patterns of Conflictincludes statements of several German high ranking tank commanders such as Guderian,von Manstein, Balck and Rommel, and the bibliography includes many studies on theBlitzkrieg concept. Not surprisingly then that Boyd’s work can be easily understood as52 ibid, p.329. Emphasis is mine.53 Ibid.54 Ibid.55 Ibid, p.330.56 Ibid. Emphasis is mine.57 Ibid, p.330. This resembles the concept of “to accord with the enemy” in Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.58 Ibid, pp. 335-336.55