Monday, September 19, 2005

Strategy, Part II

The study of strategy originally, as discussed above, was the art of a general in the framing of a war; historically, in most societies (eastern and western civilizations), this fell upon the monarch or other ruler of the sovereignty.  This began to change in the early 1800s (the Napoleonic Era) when great military thinkers like Karl von Clauswitz and Antoine-Henri Jomini began to construct the way that modern thinkers work with strategy.   In about a century—from the times of Napoleon and his campaign to conquer Europe to Pershing’s execution of World War I—strategy shifted into two components:  National strategy (including posturing of national defense and the political elements) and operational strategy, practiced primarily at corps and division levels.

This great shift rose during a period when scholars of strategy began realizing that one of the change constants in strategy is technology:  Certain concepts of strategy may remain constant, however it must be adapted to the changing technology in the world.  Even though technology may play a part in warfare (with rifles or otherwise), Colonel John R. Boyd, American military strategist reminds:  “Machines don’t fight wars.  People do, and they use their minds.”

And so, over the years, each great strategist usually develops a number of principles in order to portray their beliefs on the subject to the rest of the world and to the rest of history.  These range from the almost-poetic discussion on strategy in warfare by Sun Tzu in The Art of War through U.S. Air Force Colonel John R. Boyd’s A Discourse on Winning and Losing.  One of the first things that an acute strategist is going to look at is the environment.  In the history of warfare this has equated to the terrain:  Take the high ground, don’t get caught on the low ground, etc.  In “everyday strategy” or corporate warfare, one needs to ascertain the environment that they are currently in.  Situational awareness is paramount for a leader, but useful for anybody; it is absolutely necessary to be able to see your life from the hilltop.  Be able to see the bigger picture.  But, perhaps, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Microsoft once ran an advertising campaign with the slogan “Where do you want to go today?”  You must ask yourself this.  What is your objective?  Okay, now that you’ve asked yourself this, let’s give it a litmus test:  Is the objective more complex than it should or needs to be?  It must be well-defined in order to be workable in the long run.  How, using the situational awareness that you should have developed as a leader by now, take a look at your environment.  You are going to be, throughout the course of achieving you goals, applying forces and other stimuli to your environment, the land around your current vantage point atop the hill.  How is your environment going to potentially react to the stimuli that you are going to introduce?  Do you need to re-think your objective at all yet?  Take into account chaos theory heavily:  If any errors are introduced into your courses of action throughout obtaining your objective, they will cause for much chaos later on.  This is why you must keep things as simple as possible: Introduce as few variables to the mix as possible.  This is, of course, you are comfortable with the complex systems that may result from more intricate plans.

Boldness.  Speed.  Simplicity.  These are the things that you are aiming for in developing an offense; this, and trying to develop an offense that does not require much of a defense:  The more that you defend ground, the more time is lost, and you may dig your own grave (metaphorically speaking, outside of the military context).  A good offense applies just the right amount of force to just the right places at just the right times.  If you have planned things exceptionally well, your offense can be quick, as to harness the element of surprise in attaining your objective.  Oftentimes, the quickest victory is the best because it is the least costly.  Always on the offense, if possible; and take heed of the geometries of your environment and make them work to your advantage.

Why surprise?  Again, surprise can make victories less costly for friendly assets and it often catches opponents off-guard, entrenched or otherwise.  In certain schools of thought (Sun Tzu, for example) provides that deception is a critical element in surprise; whether deception is used in the accomplishment of your objective or objectives, I will leave to you as may cross the boundaries of proper moral behaviors and is tied to an individual’s belief system.  I will say, however, that with or without the element of deception, using surprise as a tool for a successful operation can be achieved.

Tomorrow I will discuss the next topics:  Concentration and economy of forces.


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