Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

by Robert Coram

“paralysis by analysis”

“They know more and more about less and less until eventually they know everything about nothing”

Uncertainty and disorder took the place of meaning and order. Boyd’s name for this hodgepodge of disparate elements was a “sea of anarchy.” Then he challenged the audience: “How do we construct order and meaning out of this mess?”

To make sure the new reality is both viable and relevant, Boyd said it must be continually refined by verifying its internal consistency and by making sure it matches up with reality.

The dialectic engine, once refined and elevated, was to become the intellectual heart of the new war doctrine so craved by elements within the U.S. military.

Boyd closed the briefing by saying the message is that whoever can handle the quickest rate of change is the one who survives.

“A Discourse on Winning and Losing,”

General George Patton, who in World War II said his plan for attacking the Germans was to “hold them by the nose and kick them in the ass.” Holding them by the nose is the cheng. Kicking them in the ass is the ch’i.

Spinney sleepily muttered something about von Clausewitz’s work being more than one hundred years old and that it was never completed and—. “Doesn’t matter,” Boyd shouted. “I got the fucker now. I got him by the balls.”

The military believes speed is the most important element of the cycle, that whoever can go through the cycle the fastest will prevail.

The OODA Loop briefing contains 185 slides. Early in the briefing the slide “Impressions” gives the frame of reference for what is to come. Here Boyd says that to shape the environment, one must manifest four qualities: variety, rapidity, harmony, and initiative. A commander must have a series of responses that can be applied rapidly; he must harmonize his efforts and never be passive. To understand the briefing, one must keep these four qualities in mind.

Trust is the unifying concept. This gives the subordinate great freedom of action. Trust is an example of a moral force that helps bind groups together in what Boyd called an “organic whole.”

Patton was the American general most feared by the Germans. He out-blitzed those who made the Blitzkrieg famous. His tanks rolled across Europe and into Germany and could have punched through to Berlin in a matter of days. In fact, the German high command thought the war was over. But Eisenhower did not understand this kind of conflict and, at the very moment of victory—egged on by jealous and conventional British officers—he grew afraid for Patton’s flanks and supply lines and ordered Patton to stop. The Germans were amazed at the respite. One school of thought says that Eisenhower’s timidity cost another six months of war and a million additional lives.

In fact, he often said listeners should take the briefing out and burn it before they considered it dogma.

“How did you like that kick in the stomach?”

Boyd dove deeper and deeper into the study of war. He realized that while wars take place between nations, every person experiences some form of war; conflict is a fundamental part of human nature. To prevail in personal and business relations, and especially war, we must understand what takes place in a person’s mind. And what better place to continue work on a study of conflict than in the Pentagon?

“Three stars! Goddamn. Whose ass you been kissing?”

“Ah,” Boyd said dismissively. “That’s a fighter pilot’s salute.”

Like Boyd, he believed many of these men had never done anything but get promoted, that they had compromised their beliefs, that they were empty Blue Suits.

What in most of us would be harmless quirks seem rather bizarre when codified by a man with stars on his shoulder.

And as the number of stars on a man’s shoulder grows arithmetically, his bizarre behavior grows exponentially.

Boyd and Fallows became fast friends. Boyd respected Fallows’s intellect and the depths to which he pursued a story. Fallows admired Boyd’s integrity and single-minded devotion.

The data were complex and the calculator slow. Spinney’s wife grew upset. “Let’s go, Chuck!” she shouted. “I am about to have a baby.” But Spinney was deep into his calculations and mumbled, “Just a minute. Just a minute.” He calculated that the military should have used fourteen helicopters instead of the eight actually used. Then he took his wife to the hospital.)

It promoted the application of scientific and engineering knowledge to human needs.

Boyd’s mantra was “Machines don’t fight wars, people do, and they use their minds.” He also preached, “People, ideas, hardware—in that order.” Thus, machines and technology must serve the larger purpose. The Reformers believed that America’s technological advantages were being used incorrectly and had, in fact, become a liability.

seems the most sensible thing for the Pentagon to do would have been to ignore them. But these men could not be ignored.

“He was a creative and innovative thinker with respect to the military.”

“Ray, I didn’t ask about your orders. Listen to me, Tiger. Do you want to come to the Pentagon? Yes or no?”

“You are now an ace.” He told Spinney how the briefing caused the two-star to collapse. “He’s okay now,” the colonel said. “But you downed him. He had two stars on each shoulder and we’re giving you one for free. That makes you an ace.”

Jim Fallows published his first book, National Defense,

“The hell I am.”

“Son, you are not going to win. But it will make a man out of you.”

“Pentagon Maverick.”

Even today, retired senior generals take pride in the fact Boyd’s ideas had no influence whatsoever on the Air Force.

Synchronization is evening up the front line; it means an Army moves at the speed of its slowest unit.

“You synchronize watches,” Boyd shouted, “not people.”

Got a beach held by vastly superior forces that needs taking? A country that needs taming? Send in the Marines.

this old man may be an Air Force puke, but he knows warfare better than anyone I’ve ever heard. The air crackled with excitement. Mike Wyly knew, as did the students, they were witnessing the beginning of something new and powerful and wonderful.

Seven hours passed and the remaining Marines had forgotten Boyd was an Air Force colonel; they looked upon him as if he were the reincarnation of an ancient warrior.

Attacks by Rommel

That beachhead is looming bigger and bigger.… Fight the enemy, not the terrain.

“This stuff has got to be implicit,” Boyd said. “If it is explicit, you can’t do it fast enough.” Boyd’s teaching methods were different from those of a university. He abhorred guidelines or lists or rules or deductive thinking; everything was intuitive. “You must have inductive thinking,” he said again and again to the Marines. “There is not just one solution to a problem,” he said. “There are two or three or five ways to solve a problem. Never commit to a single solution.”

In his book About Face, retired Army colonel David Hackworth quotes an Army general as saying, “We have two companies of Marines running all over the island and thousands of Army troops doing nothing. What the hell is going on?” It was maneuver warfare. And in a few more years, the Marines would demonstrate, with far more force and clarity, the efficacy of this new-old concept.

Fields of Fire,

“Do not write it as a formula. Write it as a way to teach officers to think, to think in new ways about war. War is ever changing and men are ever fallible. Rigid rules simply won’t work. Teach men to think.”

“And keep the goddamn thing simple so generals can understand it.”

“So you got your reward; you got kicked in the teeth. That means you were doing good work. Getting kicked in the teeth is the reward for good work.”

“Jim, you can’t have a normal career and still do the good work,”

“Goddamn, Jim, this is the dumbest decision the Air Force can make. Whoever made this decision is general officer material.”

“runner’s high”