Cold War military systems science and the emergence of a nonlinear view of war in the US military

This paper examines the role of Cold War military systems science in the emergence of a nonlinear view of war within the US military. It argues that US military ambivalence towards systems science and seeds of a nonlinear worldview within the systems sciences help to explain the enlistment of nonlinear sciences like chaos and complexity theories. The turn to nonlinear science represents not a radical break with, but rather the evolution of a worldview whose roots can be traced to US military responses to Cold War exigencies.