The OODA loop is military jargon. It was coined by a retired U.S. Air Force colonel named John Boyd, who, two decades after his death, continues to be a cult figure among military thinkers. Boyd’s theory helps explain everything from Rommel to Bezos to Trump. The theory was set out in a much-photocopied document known as “Patterns of Conflict,” a mess of typed and retyped paper, hand-annotated and 196 pages long.
