Boyd and Clausewitz: Their Interaction

 

I was prompted by this paper to write a little bit about a topic that tends to polarize the small section of the defense blogosphere and wider community concerned with strategic theory: the interaction between John Boyd and Carl von Clausewitz. Both are widely misunderstood by their detractors. Both suffered when supporters with a lack of similar understanding twisted their ideas to support strategic doctrines that ended badly. The way that the "simple" understanding of the OODA Loop was distorted in the Transformation era to justify tech-centric ideas parallels how late 19th-century French and German strategic theorists twisted Clausewitzian ideas to favor the so-called "ideology of the offensive." Moreover, the misunderstanding of the multifaceted OODA Loop has parallels to the misunderstanding that many have of Clausewitz's Trinity. 

One of the most pernicious issues, however, is the debate over which strategic theorist is "better," which is part of how the polarization emerged. The problem with this is that Boyd and Clausewitz, while overlapping, are focused on different areas of conflict.What follow is an obviously simplified analysis, but simplicity is necessary given that both figures involved are tremendously complex. 

Clausewitz is mostly remembered not for his thinking about 19th century tactics and operations (which are obviously dated), but his thinking about the nature of war and strategy. Thus Clausewitz is more about strategic theory. This is not to say that he is not prescriptive--his book overflows with opinions as to what should be done, but that's not the focus of his work. He is focused very much on strategic theory rather than doctrine. Clausewitz is remembered as a person who set ontological parameters for what war is and how why it occurs, virtually creating the "modern" field of strategic studies. 

Boyd focuses more narrowly on two areas: the nature of competition and strategic doctrine. The OODA Loop, his ideas about destruction and creation, and his readings of military history are how about men and organizations compete. The Loop is perhaps the exemplar of this--a marvelous and deceptively simple idea that is applicable in everything from the tactical dogfights it was drawn from to grand strategy. Boyd, although very strongly against "doctrine," also does espouse a coherent set of ideas of his own about what kinds of strategies are effective and how command and control should be organized, both explicitly and through his reading of military history. Thus Boyd is a theorist but more explicitly a proponent of strategic doctrine than Clausewitz. 

There is a good deal of overlap between Boyd and Clausewitz. Clausewitz also writes about the mechanics of competition in ways that complement Boyd's interpretations. Boyd's ideas about strategy, in turn, are not incompatible with Clausewitz's. Both are very heavily reliant on the scientific ideas of their time to provide both a metaphorical and practical basis for their theories--Boyd with the emerging complexity and chaos sciences, and Clausewitz with the mechanics of his time as well as his own embryonic understanding of nonlinearity. Both are heavily dead-set against industrial "one-size-fits-all" solutions and skeptical about ideas that place a premium on some asymmetric advantage. 

The problem is that Boyd misunderstood Clausewitz--much of the Patterns of Conflict that talk about Clausewitz refer to the bogeyman that Liddell-Hart set up of a "Mahdi of Mass" that led to the World War I killing fields. Moreover, it is a fair criticism that Boyd's ideas--like those of BHL--are too optimistic about the chances of avoiding direct and bloody confrontations. This is, perhaps, the crux of the disagreement between the two. Clausewitz does not think it is likely to undermine the enemy from within to the extent that Boyd does. 

Still, it is not useful to rank strategic theorists like baseball players. Clausewitz outlined a General Theory of war that Boyd's more granular insights about human cognition, competition, and sources of power can fit into. It might also be useful to observe that Boyd fits into a modern "American school" of strategic thinkers that draw from science and social sciences to evaluate military history and come up with innovative thinking about the nature of competition--a school that would include J.C. Wylie, Andrew Marshall, Albert Wohlsetter, Robert Leonhard, and Thomas Schelling. Lastly, Boyd's strategic doctrine is still useful for practitioners and analysts. 

Comments

[J. Scott Shipman]

Adam,

An excellent summation of this "controversy." At the Boyd Conf, Lt Gen van Riper said that to understand Clausewitz one needed a mentor---another said he needed to be read in the original language...The straw-man arguments of the back and forth, baseball card folks, seem pointless; more important, synthesize the most useful and meaning from both (and others) to create something new.

[YN2(SW) H. Lucien Gauthier III]

Dude, you need to expand this into an article. You're seriously on point with this.

[A.E.]

Thanks guys! Maybe it would be a good article idea.

[Ed Beakley]

Adam,Great post and agree you should expand. Too long the dialogue has been approached as a winner-take-all competition with Boyd being "dismissed." Don't think I've ever seen anybody dismiss CVC, they question his relevance to modern times, while Boyd gets the "nobody thinks like "OODA."

I have initiated a discussion over on the Linked in Boyd Disciples group linking back to here.

[Mike]

I think this article by an LSE student does a good job of showing how resilient and relevant both Sun Tzu and Clausewitz are today:

http://www.e-ir.info/?p=4383

Simialat to your argument on the misconception of Boyd and Clausewitz, many people compare Sun Tzu and Clausewitz without taking into account their drastically different levels of analysis. Clausewitz's framework dealt with the specific act of war - the extension of politics by violent means, while Sun Tzu's conception incorporated all aspects of social interaction in war to include political and economic.

[seydlitz89]

Hi Adam-

Can't see much to disagree with since it mirrors much of what I've been saying for some time, especially as to Boyd fitting within a larger Clausewitzian General Theory of War. Still I think you've missed the main sticking point from the Clausewitzian perspective regarding Boyd. It has to do with the concept of strategy - and the assumptions respectively behind the two different concepts . . .

[A.E.]

Seydlitz89, that is what I meant when I said that Boyd's discussions of strategy are more about strategic doctrine than strategic theory per se. Hence his usefulness is twofold--there is his ideas about the nature of competition (the OODA loop, destruction and creation, etc) and his ideas about strategic doctrine in Patterns of Conflict. They are difficult to disentangle in practice because of the form his writings took.

The ideas about competition fit within the General Theory, the strategic doctrine perhaps less so.

[seydlitz89]

Let me rephrase my comment. On the Zenpundit post that you linked to above under "polarize" I had commented the following . . .

"Finally, a few words on the nature of strategic theory and "legacy". 4GW and Clausewitzians look at war/warfare in very different ways, essentially through "different lenses". From a Clausewitzian perspective, 4GW isn’t strategic theory, but doctrinal speculation or strategic doctrine. Frans Osinga’s attempt to prove otherwise is not very convincing, from this view. But I for one make a distinction between Boyd’s ideas - which imo can be part of a larger Clausewitzian framework - and 4GW which cannot. That John Boyd was a great pilot, a great instructor, a significant air warfare theorist and fighter aircraft designer are not in question, rather what is is the claim that he somehow "changed the art of war" as in his theories as "the national treasure" Robert Coram puts it. This view of the "greatest military thinker since Sun Tzu" invites a lot of critique, and I would think such input from people such as Storr (and myself at a different level) would be welcome since there seems to be so little of it."

Notice that we are making very similar arguments. My question is thus - can we separate Boyd from 4GW, or "strategic doctrine" from "doctrinal speculation"? If so then Boyd is compatible with Clausewitz, whereas if Boyd cannot be separated from 4GW - which is not compatible with Clausewitz - then he would be more the nature of doctrinal speculation . . . from a Clausewitzian perspective.

Following Wylie, the two cannot be incompatible and still fit within a larger theory of strategy . . .

I would just add that is seems that we are making some actual progress in at least terminology and important distinctions in strategic thought in our own limited way . . .

[A.E.]

I don't think Boyd and 4GW are interchangeable, although 4GW's description of the "Fourth" era are drawn from Boydian theory. But Boyd himself was not a teleological thinker and from a Boydian perspective the supposedly novel elements of 4GW are present in all areas of conflict.