INTUITIVE STRATEGIC THINKING: INSIGHT, “FINGERTIP FEELING” AND WAR<\/b><\/p>\n
Attention Clausewitzians<\/a>, horizontal thinkers <\/a>and advocates of “ Fingerspitzegefuhl<\/a>” :<\/p>\n A provocative article by Dr.<\/strong>William Duggan<\/strong> from the Strategic Studies Institute<\/strong> <\/a>entitled There are some very Zen-like qualities to the mental state the author is encouraging experienced<\/strong> military commanders to habituate. Great commanders and strategists, I would hypothesize, arrive at this kind of ” flow” state because they had developed into horizontal thinkers out of a need to make greater use of a natural bias toward nonverbal thinking – particularly mathematical and spatial reasoning. Consider a few examples:<\/p>\n John Boyd —————————>Fighter pilot, engineer<\/strong>
” Coup D’Oeil:Strategic Intuition in Army Planning<\/a>” contrasts the generation and use of insight<\/a> vs. tradtional Army analytical methodology.<\/p>\n
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Stonewall Jackson ——————>Physics, Artillery<\/strong>
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Albert Wohlstetter——————>Mathematician<\/strong>
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Napoleon Bonaparte—————->Artillery, mathematics<\/strong>
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Peter the Great———————–> Artillery, shipbuilding,<\/strong>
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Alexander the Great—————–>Philosophy, medicine, science<\/strong>
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Herman Kahn————————->Physics and mathematics<\/strong>
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Now, this most likely would not hold true for every great commander or strategist but I would wager, on average, you will see considerable abilities in fields that correlate with high levels of nonverbal reasoning.<\/p>\n