The purpose of this thesis is to answer the question: Can science play a role in the art of strategy and if it can, what role can science play? Many classic military theorists, including Clausewitz, Jomini and Sun Tzu asserted that strategy is an art. This paper readily concedes that strategy is art, but proposes there is a role for science, specifically Operations Research (OR), in the art of strategy. In order to examine the research question, the paper evaluates three OR studies from the early Cold War to determine their ...
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The purpose of this thesis is to answer the question: Can science play a role in the art of strategy and if it can, what role can science play? Many classic military theorists, including Clausewitz, Jomini and Sun Tzu asserted that strategy is an art. This paper readily concedes that strategy is art, but proposes there is a role for science, specifically Operations Research (OR), in the art of strategy. In order to examine the research question, the paper evaluates three OR studies from the early Cold War to determine their impact on the United States' strategy. Albert Wohlstetter's 1954 study, "Selection and Use of Strategic Air Bases," modeled the United States' options for basing its strategic bomber force and revealed the United States could, with improved warning, survive a Soviet strike. A 1959 study by Goldhamer and Marshall used game theory to determine the optimal retaliation strategy against a Soviet attack and catalyzed the United States' decision to abandon its massive retaliation strategy in favor of a counter-force strategy. The final case study assessed the NIKE-ZEUS anti-ballistic missile system's efficacy for defense and recommended abandoning the ABM program in favor of increasing the number of Minuteman III ICBMs and expanding the nation's sheltering program. Although none of the examples described in this paper provided a solution from which every recommendation was incorporated wholesale into the United States' strategy, each study contributed something to the strategy process. This paper concludes OR can be an invaluable tool for the strategist, but the strategist must understand that OR cannot provide a complete solution. Instead, OR provides a means for examining elements of a strategy question to inform the strategist's art.
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