Volume 7, Issue 4, Winter 2022 11 and Desert Farewell.[i] Unsurprisingly, US policymakers attribute the 1991 campaign’s success to such clarity.[ii] And the sentiment reverberates in current US national strategic guidance: “military force should only be used when the objectives and mission are clear.”[iii] But this view acclimates strategists and policymakers to expect certainty from military options. Certainty is untenable when the international system’s ambiguity accelerates nationstate volatility.[iv] Today’s complexity necessitates a more adaptable approach to clarity, one which also embraces the uncertainty of a “world in flux.”[v] Classical physics describes “flux” as the electromagnetic flow through a three-dimensional object. Electrical current passes through the object’s height, width, and length over time, the fourth dimension. In military strategy, flux is a notional term about contextual fluidity. A nation’s depth, breadth, and span change and are changed by the international system’s choices, cognition, andconsequences over time. Fortuitously, science fiction offers a pertinent tool to conceptualize flow and change: the flux capacitor. In the Back to the Future film series, the flux capacitor allows one to manipulate time by interacting with the flow of history. Accordingly, a conceptual flux capacitor allows a military strategist to manipulate time by framing system interactions within the flow of history. Artful strategy changes flux by exploiting and exploring systemvariation to create advantage.[vi] Therefore, a conceptual flux capacitor helps the military strategist think in four dimensions and adapt to the twenty-first century flux of choices, cognition, and consequences. Thinking Fourth-Dimensionally Contextual flux in military strategy is not about a system changing but about the value of the change. The current global security landscape defines valuable change as forging and extending strategic advantage.[vii] This means operations are strategy’s tools to manipulate context beyond the finite space and compressed time of operations themselves.[viii] Four-dimensional thinking is a way to consider the creation of strategic advantage more explicitly for operational planning. The four conceptual dimensions for a military resemble the height, width, length, and time of physics. “Height” is depth in echelons and alliances, “width” is breadth in jointness and domains, and “length” is span in whole-of-nation capability. “Time” or flux exists in the dynamism and ambiguity of change across these dimensions. Concerning depth, echeloned formations create flexible options. Size gradations empower operational adaptation akin to the Napoleonic-era innovation of semiautonomous corps.[ix] Alliances and diplomacy expand this adaptability. Mutual defense treaties, offensive aid agreements, and neutrality preservation pacts appreciably control uncertainty by shaping geopolitical decision-making.[x] Military breadth leverages this depth with unique service expertise and jointness. The branches of a military form additive wholes for cross-domain successes, much like the capture of Vicksburg in the American Civil War[xi] or the amphibious assault on Inchon in the Korean War.[xii] In the twenty-first century, a military’s whole extends to multi-domain effects too. For instance, the US Army’s “Multi-Domain Operations” concept seeks advantages across domains to seize and sustain the initiative, expand the competitive space, and credibly demonstrate capability. [xiii] Still, it takes an entire nation to grow the span of a military’s depth and breadth over time. The United States demonstrated this in World War Two when industrial production and logistical distribution advantages converged to expand capability.[xiv] Today, span also includes reconciling authorities and effects across real and virtual spaces.[xv] Length further extends into economic and informational spheres of influence, making wholeof-nation considerations more expansive. Fortunately, thinkers like Carl von Clausewitz, John Boyd, and Venkatesh Rao offer compelling ideas to appreciate flux across all three dimensions. Respectively, they identify key system variations within war, warfare, and narrative. By thinking fourth-dimensionally about their ideas, strategists can imagine “outside the box” and ponder how flux affects depth, breadth, and span to create advantage (Figure 1). Figure 1. Thinking Fourth-Dimensionally. Created by author. Frameworks for Flux Clausewitz offers an enduring description for flux inwar. He posits a “paradoxical trinity” best captures the fluctuations of state-level conflict where war is a constant interplay of passion, reason, and chance. For Clausewitz, the flux of war allows leaders to exploit the dynamic yet discontinuous interaction of peoples, governments, and militaries. This understanding originated from Prussia’s decisive defeat in 1806 at Jena-Auerstädt.[xvi] Exploiting Prussia’s rigid The Military Strategist’s Flux Capacitor Keith Nordquist
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTU5