Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd (Strategy and History)

4 In Introduction to Strategy, London: Preager, 1965, on p. 45 and p. 136 Beaufre for instance states that ‘strategy must be a continuous process of original thinking, based upon hypotheses which must be proved true or false as action proceeds’. Furthermore Beaufre recognizes that initiative and freedom of action are essential (p. 36).

5 John Baylis, James Wirtz, Eliot Cohen, Colin Gray, Strategy in the Contemporary World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 338.

6 See for instance Charles C. Moskos and James Burk, ‘The Postmodern Military’, in James Burk, The Military in New Times, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994, pp. 142–4. Christopher Dandeker notes similar changes, but prefers the term ‘late-modernity’.

7 Christopher Dandeker, ‘A Farewell to Arms? The Military and the Nation-State in a Changing World’, in Moskos and Burk, op. cit., pp. 128.

8 See for instance Andrew Latham, ‘Warfare Transformed: A Braudelian Perspective on the “Revolution in Military Affairs” ’, European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 8 (2) (June 2002), pp. 231–66; Colin McInnes, Spectator-Sport Warfare, The West and Contemporary Conflict, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002; Zeev Maoz and Azar Gat (eds), War in a Changing World, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2001, in particular Edward Luttwak, ‘Blood and Computers: The Crisis of Classic Military Power in Advanced Postindustrialist Societies and the Scope of Technological Remedies’, and Azar Gat, ‘Isolationism, Appeasement, Containment, and Limited War: Western Strategic Policy from the Modern to the “Postmodern” Era’.

9 Christopher Coker, Humane Warfare, London: Routledge, 2001, pp. 2–5. See also Martin Shaw, ‘The Development of “Common-Risk” Society: A Theoretical View’, in Jurgen Kulman and Jean Callaghan (eds), Military and Society in 21st Century Europe, Garmisch-Partenkirchen: George C. Marshall Center for Security Studies, 2000, especially pp. 15–19. He liberally refers to postmodern theorists such as Giddens and Bauman. See also Robert Cooper, The Post-Modern State, London: Demos, The Foreign Policy Centre, 1996 for use of similar typology.

10 Chris Hables Gray, Postmodern War, the New Politics of Conflict, London: Routledge, 1997, pp. 21–2. For a critique see Errol A. Henderson and J. David Singer, ‘ “New Wars” and rumours of “New War” ’, International Interactions, 28: 2002, p. 165.

11 Ibid., pp. 38–40

12 Ibid., p. 81.

13 Ken Booth, Meyer Kestnbaum and David Segal, ‘Are Post-Cold War Militaries Postmodern?’, Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Spring 2001), pp. 333–4.

14 Michael Ignatieff, Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond, London: Penguin, 2000; Colin McInnes (2002), op. cit.

15 Booth, Kestnbaum and Segal, op. cit., p. 335. Emphasis is mine.

16 Alvin and Heidi Toffler, War and Anti-War, Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century (New York: Little Brown & Company, 1993, p. 81.

17 See for instance John Warden, ‘The Enemy as a System’, Airpower Journal, No. 9 (Spring 1995), pp. 40–55.

18 Zalmay M. Khalizad and John P. White (eds), Strategic Appraisal: The Changing Role of Information in Warfare, Santa Monica: RAND, 1999.

19 This section is derived from Frans Osinga and Rob de Wijk, ‘The Emergence of the Post-Modern Warform: Assessing a Decade of Changes in Military Affairs’, in Alfred van Staden, Jan Rood and Hans Labohm (eds), Cannon and Canons, Clingendael Views of Global and Regional Politics, Assen: Royal van Gorcum, 2003; and from a series of articles on Network Centric Warfare, see Frans Osinga: ‘Netwerkend de oorlog in? Network Centric Warfare en de Europese militaire transformatie’, Deel I, Militaire Spectator, JRG 172, 7/8–2003, pp. 386–99; and Frans Osinga, ‘Netwerkend de oorlog in? NCW als product van de revolutie’, Deel II, Militaire Spectator, JRG 172, 9–2003, pp. 433–45.

20 Charles C. Moskos, John Allen Williams and David R. Segal (eds), The Postmodern Military, Armed Forces after the Cold War, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 5.

21 McInnes (2002), op. cit., p. 139.

22 This is not the place to discuss the merits of the RMA thesis. Several critical studies have been published that argue that there either is no RMA, it is irrelevant because it is only due to technical developments, or its effects are only very temporary in light of the enduring complexity of war. See for instance MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, The Dynamics of Military Revolution 1300–2050, Cambridge: 2001; and Colin S. Gray, Strategy for Chaos: Revolutions in Military Affairs and the Evidence of History, Portland: Frank Cass, 2002.

23 Andrew Marshall, Testimony before the senate Armed Services Committee, subcommittee on Acquisition and Technology, 5 May 1995. See for an early study also Andrew Krepinevich, ‘From Cavalry to Computer’, The National Interest, No. 37 (Fall 1994), pp. 30–42.

24 Eliot Cohen, ‘A Revolution in Warfare’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 75, No. 2 (1996), p. 54.

25 Ibid., p. 37.

26 Andrew Latham, ‘Re-Imagining Warfare’, in Craig Snyder, op. cit., p. 219.