Agency-based Theory of War for Complex Conflict
The
arrangement of men into societies is a natural social phenomenon. Aristotle,
for instance, argues that the city-state is an arrangement "that exists by
nature."[1]
Whereas atoms seek other atoms for an equal distribution of energy, men seek
other men for a similarly equal distribution of tranquility. Augustine defines
the ordered distribution of man's tranquility (human society) as four circles.
The first is man's house. The second is the city. The third is the world, and
the fourth is heaven.[2]
Something or someone guides each circle which also bears the responsibility, as
Aristotle contends, to maintain order within the scope of their circle.[3]
The ordering of society from household to the world, establishes an ordering of
rule. These strata form the environment through which man engages with other
men (Figure 1).[4] The rule of man, therefore, seeks to achieve
a kind of harmony with what Augustine deems a, "well-ordered concord of
civic obedience and civic rule."[5]
Agency arises out of man’s ability to rule and express one’s will onto another
and is the foundation of violent tensions.
Order
Underlying
the rule of man is the harmony of good and evil. Socrates and Adeimanstus
attempt to prove this as they build a city out of speech to test their model of
justice and injustice.[6]
From a natural order perspective, the man is an atom with stored potential to
act, or agency. As just and unjust men collectively exercise agency, they seek
a balance through pursuits of peace in war, and they do so within and across
strata. Those pursuits create tensions between existing agency forms.
Figure 1
What is Agency?
According
to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, agency refers to the following:
The capacity,
condition, or state of acting or of exerting power
A person or thing
through which power is exerted or an end is achieved[7]
When viewed two-dimensionally,
tensions appear as agency forms within quadrants based on their potential to
achieve an end and the extent to which they assume responsibility relative to
their target audience or targeted objective. One
way to think about this definition is by comparing the relationship between
responsibility (or blame) and potential for impact. This produces four
generalized alternatives as depicted in Figure 2.[8] Along one
spectrum is the level of responsibility placed on the actor or medium through
which agency takes place. For instance, the Westphalian state retains a high
level of responsibility for its actions relative to its citizens and relative
to its relationships within the broader international community. Along the
other spectrum is the potential that agency form has to achieve an end. End is distinguished
as an end rather than the end to differentiate between
intended outcomes and the potential to achieve any outcome. Again, the
Westphalian state demonstrates high potential to achieve an outcome or end.
Hence within the comparative range of responsibility and potential, the
Westphalian state, as an entity that produces outcomes, falls within quadrant
IV. The central idea behind agency is that, relative to war, any number of
entities has a capacity to act either as part of an organized movement or alone;
war is generally political, but it can be more than a political aim.
Figure 2
Examining
dilemmas through the lens of agency expands the international landscape. Agency
analysis is an altogether different frame of reference to analyze international
and domestic tensions. When examining political relationships through the prism
of either political or military theories, one’s understanding is limited to the
scope of competing ideas.[9]
In a trending chaoplexic environment, the aperture for determining and
responding to war should include rather exclude biases.[10]
An agency perspective broadens the view offering a more comprehensive picture
filled with agency nuances from different and even opposing perspectives. Those
nuances are not necessarily competitive, so one is not limited to understanding
distributive outcomes – win/lose. Two or more agency nuances may in fact be
right despite originating from competing political and military theories.
Therefore, agency increases the realm of understanding political tensions
generally and analyzing dilemmas specifically. The rightness or wrongness of a
situation is not explicitly tied to a particular school of thought. Instead,
those schools of thought reveal perspective agency dimensions that represent
pieces of a more complete picture.
A Model for Complex War
The
interaction of agency forms creates tension. Tension begins at the most
elemental level of matter and transcends the metaphysical. War is the violent
expression of those tensions. Violence in war is a method of substantially
increasing the intensity of that tension to break or diffuse the forces that
hold the original tensions together. If one thinks of a ball of putty, one
imagines pulling the putty apart from two ends. One can pull it quickly at
which point the putty becomes brittle and actually breaks apart. Alternatively,
one can pull gently at which point the putty becomes malleable and stretches to
its limit. These two images represent the breaking and diffusing of tensions
that exist between two or more entities. Those tensions agree or disagree. The
agreement or disagreement is a force, which is a manifestation of properties
that each side holds. Those properties consist of unique characteristics such
as geography, ethnicity, culture, language, and religion and they are displayed
through collective forms of polity. The ability to create tension originates
from a capacity to act or agency. Agency
is the determinate influencer to be singled out for exploitation. The
emergence of potential war should be viewed through the agency lens to
determine a) the potential underlying actors and motives and b) alternatives to
challenge those agency forms. Some agency forms may require conventional
military options; however, many may require unconventional military options and
many more may require non- military options such as publicity or economic measures.
Agency, therefore, is multi-dimensional, occurring in various forms within the
multitude of planes, across the various strata, and through a multitude of
mediums.
Osinga notes
“Boyd deliberately did not favor one scientific model or discipline over the
other, for each discipline could provide insights into the behavior of human
organizations in violent conflict, and metaphors for seeing new things in
familiar objects.”[11]
This agency theory of warfare intentionally absorbs the insights of any number
of disciplines to create an entirely different picture of what is occurring
when tensions rise. No single discipline provides a basis of input to the
agency model; rather, all disciplines and even factors not necessarily
associated with a discipline or even yet thought of are accounted for in terms
of agency. An agency-based theory of war corresponds to the 2012 Joint
Operational Access Concept’s central thesis: the need for cross-domain synergy
to complement joint and interagency capabilities to overcome accessibility to
enemy threats.[12]
References
Aristotle. Politics. Translated by C.D.C.
Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1998.
Augustine. Basic Writings of Saint Augustine.
Edited by Whitney J. Oates. Vol. Two. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1948
reprinted 1980.
Bousquet, Antoine. The Scientific Way of Warfare.
New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
Department of Defense. "Joint Operational Access
Concept." Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, January 17, 2012.
Osinga, Frans P.B. Science, Strategy and War: The
Strategic Theory of John Boyd. New York: Routledge, 2007.
Plato. The Republic. Translated by Allan Bloom.
Basic Books, 1991.
[1]
Aristotle, 1253.1-5, p. 5.
[2]
Augustine discusses the four circles in Book 19, Ch 7 & 9.
[3]
Aristotle, Ch. 12.
[4]
The environment for conflict consists of Augustinian circles which is comprised
of component elements able to affect agency.
[5]
Augustine, Book 19, Ch. 16.
[6]
Plato, p. 45. They demonstrate that justice and injustice are natural and rational
outcomes of the interactions between men. The interaction of men by its very
nature produces just and unjust circumstances which man therefore must deal
with.
[8]
This diagram is meant to portray a conceptual framework for viewing a variety
of agency forms. The placement of agency forms in quadrants is based on the
author’s initial perception; however, further analytical refinement would need
to be done to determine more accurately the relative association of various
forms of agency. It is not fully comprehensive as it only contains a handful of
agency examples.
[9] Generally,
political ideas are viewed through theoretical lenses and schools of thought
such as realism, liberalism, Marxism, Constructivism, etc.
[10]
Bousquet, p. 200. He says, “the chaoplexic lens invites an understanding of war
in which uncertainty, unpredictability, and change are central.” Furthermore, this
author is sympathetic to Bousquet’s suggestion that a new chaoplexic form of
warfare is emerging.
[11]
Osinga, p. 123.
[12]
Joint Operational Access Concept, p. ii.
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