Strategy

In terms of mode of behavior, Gregory Bateson (Gregory Bateson, 1984, p.201, COp cit.) distinguish the " calibrage" " rétroaction" allotted respectively to the execution of a program or a receipt and to with the strategy. The first mode is a behavior exhibé starting from the codes of conduct adopted a priori , i.e. an adjustment a priori . The second refers to successive adjustments a posteriori . It is enough to observe the circulation of the people who mutually adjust their steps, their rates and their routes sinuous in the Asian crowd very dense and deprived of clashes and fixings, in contrast with Western crowd where the rules of circulation in straight line often do not avoid many fixings.

The configuration and the control of the type Stratégique seem to be representative of the swirl of the " Chii" , whereas the crystalline geometry and the adjustment a priori are to it " programme" or of the " recette" with the causal determinism. The difference between a “program” and a “strategy” is similar to that between the artillery shell and the self-guiding missile. The parabolic trajectory of the artillery shell is entirely given and prédictible by the initial conditions speed, temperature, moisture and firing angle, but the attack of the target is dubious by its operations of avoidance during the flight of the shell. The self-guiding missile, is independent for him of the starting conditions and adjusts its flight in the atmospheric conditions of wind, temperature and with the changes of position of the target which tries to escape by tricks and stratagems.

The trajectory of the self-guiding missile is dubious and the attack of its target is certain, while the trajectory of the shell is certain and known and the attack of its target is dubious. The self-guiding missile is equipped with characteristics équifinales (Ludwig von Bertalanffy, 1968, p. 132, General System Theory. Foundations, development, applications, 3rd ED. George braziller, NR there) where the equifinality is a concept forged by Ludwig von Bertalanffy which says that the attack of an objective can be obtained starting from various starting points, through various ways and with various means.

In other words, the final state can be reached starting from various initial states and whatever the ways and means. In the prospect for the cybernetic explanation, the combination of the principles of equifinality and organization randomly of the favorable circumstances (" Order from Noise") found the stochastic Processus which present a randomness associated with a selection process, so that only certain results will have the possibility of being durable. In terms of a cybernetic explanation, the configuration and the behavior of the type of strategy have a great flexibility, like a broad capacity to provide a variety (kinds) and a diversity (of levels) of " answers appropriées" with the constraints of the environment and context, like with those of the states and the internal components of the system.

In the terminology of Bateson (Gregory Bateson, Towards an ecology of the spirit, volume 2, p. 256, Threshold, Paris 1980), the “flexibility” is with “rigidity” what the “versatility” is with “specialization”, “strategy” with the “program””. It is a " noncommitted potentiality of changement". As such, the flexibility of the behavior of the type of the “strategy” is very close to the redundancy which is the deployment of a multitude of versions different from the same organizing diagram.

Sun Tzu in English and French: to follow this bond

Strategic envelopment

Strategic envelopment consists in attacking on the higher level of the codes of conduct rather than to face the lifeblood directly. This French tale in verse, or tells moral, known of all the practitioners of Kendo (the way of the saber) or fencing with the Japanese woman, illustrates this idea of strategic envelopment.

• " One day, a man-at-arms without fasteners passed by a village. Tired and famished, it entered the tavern of the village to put back, be restored and find good company of pleasant trade or some fortune.

• Nenni, not!

• dark brutish lout, the man of the taverns, sought to him quarrel in the form of a duel with the saber for the following day with the rising of the sun on the place of the village.

• Décontenancé, our traveller got information and learned that it deals with the best sabror of all times and all the surrounding areas. Thrown into a panic, he asked council. The fencing master explained the too short time to him to make him acquire the expertise necessary and sent it to see a monk of the close monastery. The monk advised to him, with the duel, to be warned in his usual way and to remain perfectly motionless, the closed eyes, and of marmonner his prayer favorite. Flabbergasted and not having included/understood anything of this opaque mystery, our traveller protested and the monk advised to him to follow strictly and rigorously his regulation like condition of survival, to leave this bad step, and future prosperity.

• Per hour of the duel, our man decladded, was warned, closed the eyes, marmonna its prayer and was held perfectly motionless.

• Stupéfait, the best sabror of all times and all the neighbouring areas started to think, which arrived to him sometimes, seems T it. Or this man is completely insane, or it is suicidal, or it is very strong.

• If it is insane, that does not add anything to my glory to kill it. If it is suicidal, it would be insane of my share to help it. If it is very very strong, I would be likely to make me kill.

• In the doubt and on top, our man of the taverns flees with all legs and one it forever more re-examined in the neighbouring areas.

• Our traveller settled in the village, thrived themselves and had beautiful and long a lignée" there;. (Thanh H. Vuong, " Technical-commercial strategies asiatiques" , in International studies, vol. XXII, No.3, pp. 552, September 1991).

This French tale in verse expresses, on another register, the philosophy of Sun Tzu on the art of the war where the top of excellence is to subjugate the adversary without fighting and, as in the worms of Crow, the combat ceased, for lack of combatants.

Then, which is of the first importance is to tackle the strategy of the adversary. What is difficult in the art of the operation is to transform misfortune into advantage and to make the most tortuous way the most direct road. The last appreciation is in the form of injunction which constitutes a strategic envelopment consisting in attacking on the higher level of the codes of conduct rather than the lifeblood than they organize. With the American occupation of the Japanese archipelago and the War of Korea which moved the hot face of the cold war of the Extreme-Occident in the Far East, Japan was in first line for the military supplies from which Japanese industries profited. They also benefitted from American teaching for the mass production and the quality control. Then, strategic envelopment consisted in beating the Master on his own ground by tackling the rules of sale and production.

This French tale in verse of entry tells the Asian policy, strategy and the tactics where the combat ceased fault of combatants, without gaining nor losers, for the benefit of all (" To subdue the ennemy without fighting ") and strategic envelopment (" To attack the e-nemy' S strategy ") by tackling the reasons to fight adversary through the art of the realignment of the situation, in such a way that it appears completely different in the new prospect thus installed. this operation of realignment is thus exposed by Sun Tzu (" Nothing is more difficult than the art off operation. What is difficult butt operates is to make the most devious road the most direct and to turn misfortune to advantage ").

This strategic envelopment, through the realignment, is also and especially the passage of the force of the weapons to economic control where the German military defeat and Japanese woman of 1945 were mainly related much more to the American industrial power that with its military power and where 45 years later Germany and Japan became the creditors and the guarantors impossible to circumvent of American prosperity, itself, guarantor of world prosperity by her dollar, like monetary unit of the international business, still keeping a capacity already emptied of its power. The capacity is on the level symbolic system of the rules of play and the power is on the level of the operations and strategies of play.

After the decision of entry in war of the the United States in 1941, and until 1944, the the United States converted their industry into saving in war, and had to invent methods of organization in order to produce the many planes, boats, tanks necessary to the unloading of June 1944. It was more the great project of the History. The the United States and Canada were thus the arsenals of Allied and held the three quarters of the world richness on a planet Ground with the three quarters devastated. The experts in information were employed after the war with the design of the first Ordinateur S.

To continue to have the assistance of its old colonies of America, England of Churchill invented the idea and the word of " war froide" and of " curtain of fer" , turning the old Russian ally as an enemy and the former German enemies and Japanese out of window of the " démocratie" liberal and capitalist. What enabled them to engage the fight for the economic control of the former winners, with the shelter of the ruinous military expenditure in the new arms race and to be in the forefront of the suppliers in this race.

For Japan, strategic envelopment is in the passage of electromechanical technologies to data-processing technologies and the displacement of the importance relative of matter-energy to information (including/understanding permanent professional training), of the natural resources to human resources, the production to the design.

Strategic envelopment is the installation of new rules of play which organize very an other play, like the history of the film the heroic village fair where the Flemish village - instead of preparing to fight and, by there, calling upon the rules of the game of valiancy, heroism and the expertise soldiers of the Spanish troops; valiancy, heroism and expertise soldiers which are lacking with the tradesmen and middle-class men of the small flourishing village and who are in excess near the Spanish troops - fact call with the proverbial Spanish galantery and the nobility well-known Castilian to help it, to help it and protect it by simulating a complete desertion from all the men of the place. Not only the village was not shaven to the ground, but still the Spanish troops helped it to thrive.

• " Shape them and make them believe they are shaping you " could be a pastiche of Sun Tzu to describe the strategic envelopment which applies to this history of the Flemish village (Thanh H. Vuong, " Technical-commercial strategies asiatiques" , in International studies, vol. XXII, No.3, pp. 554, September 1991.).

In other words, strategic envelopment is the installation of new forms of relation which transform misfortune into advantage, as the over-populated Far East which transformed this overpopulation into richness of human resources by centering its production on the expertise (Lii) and the determination (Chii) of its labor rather than on the machinery and by centering its products on a strong content of added-value of work rather than on the raw material; i.e. the investment in the human capital - through education, the industrial relations policies, the methods of employment and the work conditions - with the primacy on the investment in the immobilization where the design directed towards the sale is more important than the production moved with the row of the " logistique" of support, like the " intelligence" (in the Anglo-Saxon military significance of knowledge of the Environment, the context and the internal states of the system).

" Westerners cuts dozens off books to choose from yew they want to learn butt Japanese philosophy and military tactics… Goal when the Japanese, especially those in business, want information one the subject, many turn to year ancient Chinese, not Japanese, military manual, The Art off war." Boardroom Carryforwards, can one read on the jacket of the book of Sun Tzu The Art off War translates by U.S. Marine General Sergeant Samuel B. Griffith, 11th edition, Oxford university Press, 1982

Since the end of the Years 1980, the the United States developed a military and economic strategy supported on the shared use of Technologies the very powerful information, especially in the sectors Aéronautique and Informatique, with a strong co-operation between the Gouvernement the industrial and consortia. This strategy relates to the majority of the economic sectors, and aims at obtaining a supremacy on the stock of knowledge of the companies, the laboratories, and the universities, by employing methods of Ingénierie of knowledge, and of influence.

Between plan and strategy

See also: strategic Planning

Whereas the idea of the plan is the work of a linear reasoning which privileges the relation objectives - constraints, i.e. one wants to reach the objectives immediately by eliminating all the obstacles by the constraint; the strategic reasoning is of complex nature, it reverses the facts of the case: in fact the resources will be determining, and not the objectives. It is according to these resources that it is necessary if not to determine, at least to adjust the objectives.

The reflection on the resources relates on the virtues of what exists and the means of drawing part from it. It consists of the valorization and the mobilization of human resources, the fertilization of the successes and the innovations, the optimization of the use of financial capacities and the average materials, the seizure of all the occasions and any favorable economic situation, with the minimization of the costs and the economization of energies. As for the constraints and the obstacles, one tries to arrange them, to circumvent them, better still, to transform them into resources.

Some large strategists

• Marshal of Turenne

• Sun Zi (or Sun Tsu): Chinese strategist who lived at the time of the Kingdoms Combatants (475-221 av.JC). Work: “The art of the war”. It analyzes the war like a central act for the State, whose peace dictates the direction. For Sun Tsu, the supreme skill is to overcome without fighting. " To subdue without fighting" (English translation of the USMC Brig. General Samulel B. Griffith - reference to UNESCO). The French versions come from this text and suffer from a fundamental misinterpretation opposite philosophy confucéenne from the war at Sun Tzu. " To subdue" comes from former French " soduire" , meaning at the same time " séduire" and " soudoyer" (cf " Webster' S Collegiate Dictionary" and " Encyclopedia Britannica"). http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/granet_marcel/granet_marcel.html
  Pour Sun Tzu, the war is the art of the fraud (War is the art off disappointment). It should be noted that Napoleon will never respect the precept of Sun Tsu to build gold bridges to the enemy in escape , preferring on the contrary to copiously cannonade them at this time in order to eliminate them from the future battles (source: War and peace ).

• Antoine-Henri Jomini: this general of Swiss origin took part in many campaigns in the Large army then became general-in-chief in the Russian Army; he was one of best Stratèges and military thinkers of his time. In 1806, it had already included/understood how the Emperor would make to cut down the Austrian Army, practically except for the detail. It is one of the rare generals of the time to have seized the gasoline even of Military operations; without attaching them to the period or the techniques. Its thought is always of actualité.
  Elle inspires in particular the American army. Its obsession for the lines of operation and the lines strategic is however the cause of a certain ageing of its work.

• Carl von Clausewitz: Prussian general (1780 - 1831). Work Of the war . Learning the lessons from the wars from the Revolution and Empire, he is the theorist of the all-out war, even if this one, in its work, is presented more like one concept (that of " rise with the extrêmes") that like an effective reality. A contemporary of Jomini, but whose strategic and philosophical designs transcend with many regards its time. For Clausewitz, the war is before all the continuation of the policy by other means. Sun Tzu and Clausewitz are regarded today by the majority of the experts as the two larger theorists of the strategy.

• Vo Nguyen Giap : the war is at the same time political, psychological and military in the Psychological warfare whose First War of Indo-China is the model and the prototype.

• Alfred Mahan: This naval officer wrote several works on the maritime strategy, which so strongly inspired the United States that they then centered a great part of their strategy on the writings of Mahan. Some think that their operation to take Panama Canal was started in particular thanks to the revelations of Mahan. It is a disciple of Jomini, which translated for the maritime questions the principles of the Art of the War .

• Raoul Castex: French naval officer

• Liddell Binder: English theorist of the formations of armoured tanks implemented by Heinz Guderian during the Blitzkrieg. Charles de Gaulle had also written a work (Towards the professional army) where it recommended the same system of attacks of armoured tanks accompanied by an aerial cover, and which will not be taken into account.

Game theory

In Game theory, a strategy indicates a whole of choice of action decided a priori .

Let us represent a play by a Decision tree: with each node, a player or the chance must decide on a action . A player can decide by advance of the best action to undertake with all the nodes than it can meet. The whole of these actions composes a strategy.

Starting from a tree diagram of a finished play, one can thus count the strategies of each player. That makes it possible to represent the play in matric form then, where one associates the combination of the strategies directly with the profit to be considered for each player.

In certain plays where coordination is dubious, or if the knowledge of the strategy selected can make it possible an adversary to adopt the most expensive solution, the fact of adopting firmly one and only one strategy (known as then pure ) can be sub-optimal. The theorists then imagined the mixed possibility of Stratégie , i.e. where a player decides arbitrarily and by chance his probabilities of action under the assumption that its adversary does as much of it.

A mixed strategy is necessary to solve with relevance of many plays like that of the distinction or to look further into situations with the type of the Jeu of the appointment.

John von Neumann showed that in plays with null sum, there exists only one situation of mixed balance: when one of the players deviates of the Point-saddle by changing its probabilities, it is disadvantaged automatically, thus supporting its adversary. Although these calculations made it possible to optimize the formation of the naval convoys during the second world war, these " stratégies" have nothing to dohas nothing to do with the strategy with the military direction of the term. They optimize simply the Logistique (see Operations research).

Theory of the contexts

In the hierarchy of the levels of constraint or dependence of the Theory of the contexts of Anthony Wilden, the level Politique is that of the choice between peace and the war and of the attribution of the resources to peace or the war. Then, the policy directs, delimits and organizes the strategies soldier and diplomatic to achieve the goals of war or peace. The strategy, in its turn, directs, delimits and organizes the battles in which are tactical combat.

The marshal Rommel flew of tactical victories in tactical victories towards the strategic defeat of the battle of North Africa. A tactic without strategy is the best way towards the failure.

The defeat of the Axis in North Africa led directly to the unloadings in Sicily and Italy, heralding the unloading in Normandy of the beginning of the end for the Axis. A strategy without policy is the loss of a war, like the First War of Indo-China of Independence of the Vietnam and the Second War of Indo-China of reunification of Vietnam or Guerre of Vietnam. These wars were led in the hierarchy of constraint or dependence, of the policy to the strategy to the tactical combat inside a battle selected and organized by a military strategy.

A ecosystemic Approche with the strategy consists in moving away for better perceiving, to connect for better including/understanding and to locate for better acting.

Diplomacy, management, economic policy

In diplomacy, one speaks about plan for a Doctrine or a Roadmap intended to guide the international relations in a given field, within the more general framework of a International policy.

The development of a company supposes various strategies: strategy Marketing (the market being sometimes compared with a ground of battle), financial strategy … One should in this case rather speak about Tactique, but the term is less noble and is rather used to describe policies of short term, whereas the strategy concerns the long run. The large cabinets of Conseil in strategy provide dedicated services in this matter to the senior management of large companies.

In the same way, the economic policy refers to the concept of Development strategy. If such a strategy wants to include all dimensions of the Civil society (requirements of the recipients, analyzes Contexte of the company, taken Responsabilité, early Perception and Conscience vis-a-vis the risks…), it cannot limit to the economic aspects strictly of the strategy, but must on the contrary integrate the environmental and social aspects in a comprehensive view of the Gouvernance of the type Sustainable development.

See too