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

Boyd contributed with his conception of the operational principles of the relationalmaneuver: disruption of synergy among the elements combining the rival system;simultaneous engagement of the operational components, structured hierarchically along theentire depth of the opposing system; and development of operational momentum, exceedingthe relative reaction capability of the rival system 153 . Boyd, according to Naveh, citing varioussources, perceived the operational maneuver, which he sometimes called the OODA Loop,as a succession of actions guided by the logic of making a rival system irrelevant in thecontext of its own aim. He formed the idea of operational shock as the rationale of thefunctioning of military systems and determined the coherent nature of the linkage betweenmaneuver and its consequence. This offered a cognitive basis for the creation of a futureoperational paradigm.Boyd argued that the effectuation of operational shock obliged the director of themaneuvering system to muster his cognitive and mechanical efforts through a continuoussystemic process combining the following functions: a deliberate contrivance of anoperational weakness or flaw in the rival’s system’s layout; distortion of the operationalrival’s consciousness by manipulative deception that would detach his apprehension fromthe strategic reality; and the assemblage of the various mechanical activities into a main strikedirected at the rival’s system’s operational weakness 154 . The result was not a radically newperspective on warfare, but the marriage of new technology with operational concepts thatPatton or Guderian would have been comfortable with - a rapid operational tempo,Auftragstaktik, seamless combined arms operations, and so forth 155 .Boyd’s influence was not only due to the merits of his arguments alone. Boyd hadno objection to air his views and critique if necessary through the national media. In theSpring of 1981, his theories burst into the national scene with articles in for instance theWashington Post and Atlanta Constitution running titles such as ‘New War Theory Shoots DownOld War Ideas’. Not surprisingly this gained his ideas attention but also gained him enemies.He deliberately embarassed the leadership of the US military, in particularly the US Army byasserting that there were no real military theorists practicing their craft in the US. They hadbeen replaced by scientist and technologists, people who had no idea about a concept suchas Sun Tzu’s Cheng/Ch’i. But the US Army did take notice, or rather, plagiarized his work 156 .As in the case of Boyd’s involvement with the US Marine Corps, in the US Army too Boyd’sideas were in particular readily accepted by the relative young field-grade officers, wereasmore senior leaders tended to hang on to established ideas 157 .Five years after Boyd had begun lecturing Patterns of Conflict the US Army formallychanged its doctrinal course. Boyd’s ideas were interpreted almost literally into four basictenets comprising the conceptual skeleton of the Airland Battle doctrine: initiative, agility,depth and synchronization 158 . Initiative meant maintaining an offensive spirit, not in thefoolish sense of the French army in the first years of World War I, but, rather, in theconstant effort to seize or retain independence of action. It emphasized that subordinatesmust be able to act independently within the framework of an overall plan. Depth meantcombining elements of time, distance, and resources across the entire spread of a battlefieldto prevent an enemy from concentrating his firepower and maneuvering freely. Agility153 Ibid, p.258.154 Naveh, p.258.155 Steven Metz, ‘The Next Twist of the RMA’, Parameters,Autumn, 2000, p.40.156 Burton, pp.43-44.157 Ibid, p.51.158 Department of Defense, Field Manual 100-5, Operations, (Washington DC, Department of theArmy, 1982), Section 2-1.75