THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL The Temporal Dimension: How is time important in the conduct of strategy? Being a Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Hull by James Robert Pritchett BA (Hons), MA January 2018 Table of Contents Table of Contents .................................................................................................. i List of Figures and Tables.....................................................................................ii Acknowledgements ...............................................................................................iv Introduction, Literature Review and Methodology ...........................................1 Literature ................................................................................................................4 Methodology..........................................................................................................26 1. War and Strategy: an Uncertain Climate ....................................................44 Clausewitz .............................................................................................................46 What is Strategy? ..................................................................................................57 Dimensions of Strategy .........................................................................................62 Conclusion: An Uncertain Climate .......................................................................77 2. Theories of Time: Time is Relative, but is that Relevant? .........................81 Philosophy and Physics ........................................................................................,83 Social Time ..........................................................................................................102 Concluding Relevant Aspects of Time in Strategy .............................................112 3. Theories of Time in Strategy .......................................................................114 Modern Theory .......... .........................................................................................116 Time and Classical Theory ..................................................................................142 Conclusion: Strategic Time .................................................................................163 4. A Time for War ............................................................................................168 The Peloponnesian War .......................................................................................175 The Great War .....................................................................................................190 Conclusions .........................................................................................................212 5. Decisive Points and Time .............................................................................218 War Between the States .......................................................................................226 The Western Front ...............................................................................................252 Conclusions .........................................................................................................277 6. Duration ........................................................................................................281 Second World War in Europe ..............................................................................291 Vietnam ...............................................................................................................320 Conclusions .........................................................................................................348 7. Concluding Thoughts: Time in Strategy ....................................................351 Time Warfare .......................................................................................................358 Conclusions and Implications ..............................................................................360 i List of Figures and Tables Unless otherwise stated, all maps and figures are the writer’s own. Figures Figure 1: Clausewitz’s Trinitarian nature of war ..............................................51 Figure 2: The Trinitarian nature of war as three forces ....................................52 Figure 3: The Levels of Strategy/War as represented in MCDP1...................... 61 Figure 4: A modified Minkowski diagram ..........................................................94 Figure 5: The River of Time as described by Little-Bear....................................96 Figure 6: Space-time ‘aquarium’ following Hӓgerstrand .................................99 Figure 7: Popular version of OODA loop.........................................................117 Figure 8: A cybernetic system...........................................................................118 Figure 9: Original OODA loop.........................................................................119 Figure 10: Interpretation of Fast Transients. F86 and MiG15.........................121 Figure 11: Boyd’s dialectic cycle .....................................................................124 Figure 12: Copy of Singh’s IDA Cycles ...........................................................130 Figure 13: Successive IDA towards completing task .......................................130 Figure 14: ‘2-dimensional’ and ‘3-dimensional’ approaches...........................135 Figure 15: Velocity States ................................................................................138 Figure 16: Advantage of Surprise ....................................................................140 Figure 17: Simple Interior/External Lines Diagram ........................................149 Figure 18: Map of Hellas 432BC .....................................................................178 Figure 19: European alliances and railways 1914 ..........................................199 Figure 20: Map of Eastern Theatre showing ‘lines of base’.............................239 Figure 21: German Advance and the Western Front 1914-1918 .....................256 Figure 22: Defence in Depth – Late First World War German Lines .............260 Figure 23: Communications network on Western Front .................................263 ii Figure 24: Map of Third Reich; Late 1940 ..................................................298 Figure 25: Graph of Allied Merchant Fleets Building and Losses...............302 Figure 26: Map of Operation Barbarossa, 1941 ........................................305 Figure 27: Map of the DRV and the RVN ..................................................327 Tables Table 1: Standing armed forces personnel of Continental Powers 1900 –1914 ...196 Table 2: Population and Industry compared .........................................................230 Table 3: US Military forces in Vietnam.................................................................335 iii Acknowledgements The completion of this work owes thanks to a number of people who have given help and support over the last few years, and I hope I have not omitted anyone from the following list. Firstly I would like to thank the staff at the University of Hull, particularly David Lonsdale, my supervisor and mentor, for his inspiration, support, and faith in my ability to complete this work. My thanks also go to Chris Martin, for his assistance over the years. I am also indebted to friends and colleagues for their assistance along the way, namely, and in no particular order, Luke and Ella Crickwood, Adam and Charlotte Curtis, Tristan Johns, Nicholas Chapman, Jeff Cohen, Mark Lewis, Viktorya Fedorchak, David Downing, Guy Edwards, Ryan Lord, and Katarzyna Koltun. Thanks also to the James Reckitt Charitable Trust for their financial contribution. Finally and importantly, my thanks go to my parents for their support during my academic studies, and their belief in my ability. iv Introduction ‘The importance of time and timing is stamped on every page of modern strategy. But this is a dimension of strategy that is often neglected in the works on theory.’1 – Colin Gray Introduction Time is intrinsic to our existence and permeates all actions and activities, from work to socialising, festivals, and growing food; even our philosophical comprehensions of ourselves, in respect to past and future, ancestors and possible descendants, and our sense of mortality, are informed by, or dependent upon, our understanding and organisation of time. In war and strategy however, time takes on a priority rarely experienced in peace-time outside of emergency situations, for here it can make the difference between victory and defeat, life and death - often for large numbers of people, and perhaps including the very society itself. One may even speculate counterfactually that history and political geography would be quite different had actions been otherwise in respect to time: Consider for example whether, had Alexander not charged at the decisive moment at Gaugamela, whether the battle could have been won, and in turn, whether the victorious Achaemenid empire would have endured? Would Napoleon have been victorious in Russia, had his army finished their campaign before exposure to the Russian winter? Could earlier involvement of the Anglo-French allies have decisively checked Hitler’s expansionism? We may only muse as to how history would have differed, however it is clear that consideration of time makes